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April 2004 • Volume 3 • Issue 2
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In This Month's Issue: Learn how simple, but powerful, guiding principles and practical techniques can help you or a loved one prepare for marriage and not just the wedding!
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Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT
Marriage & Family Therapist
Bardos Relationship Consulting
3688 E. Campus Dr., Suite 200
Eagle Mountain, UT 84043
p: 801.787.8014
e: jonathan@bardos.net
w: bardos.net
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Start your marriage right!
Join me Saturdays May 29th and June 5th, 2004 for the fun, upbeat and informative “Pre-Marital Workshop: Prepare for your marriage, not just your wedding.” Learn how to be more mindful and attentive of your relationship from day one to your 50th anniversary together. What better wedding gift to give each other than to commit to enhancing your marriage by learning skills that will continue throughout the years to reinforce your love for each other. Give the best gifts: the gifts of knowledge, commitment, appreciation, communication and time together. Perfect for recently married couples, too!
Please contact us at info@bardos.net or 801.787.8014 for more information.
Click here for more info and to register. Hurry...space is limited!
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Prepare for your marriage, not just your wedding.
By Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT |
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Please share this with someone you know who is contemplating marriage, is engaged or recently married. You may save them years of unnecessary frustration and sorrow..
 Most people get married to stay married. However, with fifty percent of first marriages and sixty-five percent of second marriages ending in divorce, it seems like a dicey proposition at best. The good news is that approximately two-thirds of divorces could be prevented with education and intervention. One of the absolute best ways to prevent divorce is to get that education and intervention as soon as possible—even before the problems arise.
The main problem most divorced couples report was their inability to manage and resolve conflict around various issues (most commonly: finances, parenting, in-laws and sex). The issues themselves, however, are less important than the impact of the conflict on both adults and children. For example, some of the deleterious effects of marital conflict are:
- Destructive parental conflict is a key risk factor for both children and adults developing physical and emotional problems. Stress and conflict have major impacts on our physiological and emotional systems.
- Poorly managed conflict is a predictor of marital distress, divorce and children’s acting out behaviors (such as aggressiveness, depression and anxiety).
- Marital conflict can impact work productivity, increase stress and decrease life satisfaction.
Conversely, marriage researchers and therapists Jerry M. Lewis, M.D. and John T. Gossett, Ph.D. (Disarming the Past, 1999) define eight characteristics of a healthy marriage:
1. Both partners work together to define the relationship
2. The marital bond balances both closeness and time apart
3. Both being interested in the other’s thoughts and feelings.
4. Expressing feelings is encouraged.
5. Managing conflicts so they do not escalate out of control or become overly discouraging.
6. Well-developed problem-solving skills.
7. Sharing common values.
8. Well-developed ability to manage stress
Marriage education (either through counseling or workshops) works to help couples both prevent unnecessary conflict and manage necessary conflict more effectively so they can put their time and energy into the reason they got married in the first place: to enjoy one another’s company throughout their lives together.
So what is learned in premarital education? Couples learn the guiding principles (knowledge) and practical techniques (skills) to create, maintain and enhance a great marriage such as:
- How to improve communication and understanding skills
- How to improve conflict management and problem solving skills by learning how to “fight fair.”
- How to balance love as a feeling with love as a behavior.
- How to develop couple stress management strategies.
- Learning to work together as a team.
- Learning how to harness the power of acceptance and forgiveness.
- Learning relationship enhancement skills such as appreciation, sacrifice, deep listening, friendship building
- Learning the benefits of a healthy marriage and the impact on children. (such as happily married couples: live on average seven years longer; earn and save more money; tend to be more independent and less reliant on government services; have greater sexual satisfaction than unmarried people (really!); are safer as they experience less violence in the home. Children in happily married homes: tend to do better academically; are more likely to develop long-lasting marriages themselves; experience less violence and neglect; fare better emotionally and physically, and engage in fewer risky behaviors (i.e., sex, substance abuse, delinquency and suicide).
- Learning what to expect in the course of your marriage. Removing blind spots and having realistic expectations can prevent a lot of headaches. Such as: dealing with the in-laws (yes you are marrying his/her family); negotiating and balancing work and family needs; understanding and responding to sexual differences; adjusting to becoming parents and figuring out how to develop “our” parenting style.
- How to control finances so finances don’t control your marriage.
- How to put each other first in all things.
Just as buying a car and then never maintaining it isn’t enough to keep it running, falling in love and living “happily ever after” isn’t enough to maintain a marriage. No marriage is guaranteed and marriage in and of itself is not the answer. How we relate to each other and treat our marriage is the answer. We must then do everything we can to make our marriages as strong as they can possibly be. I realize that not all marriages can and should be saved. However, there are many that can be saved and since you got married to stay married why not learn all you can to actually make that happen?
My encouragement to you is to look before you leap. Marriage education gives people a chance to take a good hard look at their relationship to see if marriage at this time with this person is really a good idea or not. And if you have already leapt learn all you can to make it rock solid and absolutely great.
Join me Saturdays May 29th and June 5th, 2004 for the fun, upbeat and informative “Pre-Marital Workshop: Prepare for your marriage, not just your wedding.” Call 801.787.8014, jonathan@bardos.net or visit www.bardos.net/premarital to register and for more details.
More articles and tips for creating greatness in your relationships can be found at bardos.net/resources
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What to Expect from Pre-Marital Work
By Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT |
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 What better wedding gift to give each other than to commit to enhancing your marriage by learning skills that will continue throughout the years to reinforce your love for each other? Couples want to give the best gifts: the gifts of knowledge, commitment, appreciation, communication and time together. However, as many a parent and grandparent are aware, many newly married couples do not have the skills and tools to take the love that initially led to their decision to marry into the long-haul daily practice of creating, maintaining and improving a lasting marriage.
Thus, numerous people have asked for what they could expect from a pre-marital workshop or pre-marital counseling sessions. Those who have been reading this column for some time know that I am not a big fan of “fluff” approaches that sound good but lack any real substance. Instead I am interested in solid information and what simply just works. Thus, I base my counseling and workshops off of the best research- and evidence-based practices available. While there are several good approaches available, I base mine off of the PREPARE/ENRICH model, which has been extensively developed and researched over the last 30 years by David Olson, Ph.D. and his colleagues. They have set the “gold-standard” for pre-marital work.
Many qualified counselors and clergy in our Utah County community have been trained in the PREPARE/ENRICH model. The PREPARE/ENRICH model systematically covers the following eight topics:
1. Exploring Relationship Strength and Growth Areas. This session is devoted to providing couples with feedback from their Inventories. Using the Couple Report, couples are walked through the feedback process, giving them the opportunity to identify Relationship Strength and Growth Areas and to plan for future growth.
2. Developing Assertiveness & Deep Listening Skills. Couples are taught how to improve their assertiveness and active/deep listening skills. These skills are the foundation for building and maintaining a good relationship.
3. Strengthening Communication skills. Communication is the lifeblood of a relationship. This session is designed to help couples increase their awareness concerning patterns of communication that presently exist in their relationship and to introduce skills that are useful for enhancing their ability to communicate.
4. Resolve Conflicts using the Ten Steps Procedure. Learning to effectively handle conflict and the anger it produces is an essential skill for relationship growth. In this session, the focus is on accepting conflict as a natural part of relationships and learning ways to manage it in a constructive manner.
5. Explore Relationship and Family-of-Origin issues using the Couple & Family Map. One of the most vital influences in the early years of marriage is each partner's family of origin. This session focuses on understanding the impact of each partner's family-of-origin on their present relationship. The Map is introduced as a tool to help couples evaluate the effect of those families on their relationship.
6. Develop a Workable Budget and Financial Plan. A significant issue for a high percentage of married couples surrounds their ability to manage financial resources. This session explores the various meanings which money can have in relationships and investigates ways to effectively handle finances as a couple.
7. Demystifying Marital Intimacy and Sexuality. Developing and maintaining intimacy is a primary goal for most couples. This session focuses on the importance of affirmation and affection in marriage. It is designed to help couples find a variety of ways to create intimacy, including through their sexual relationship.
8. Develop Personal, Couple and Family goals. Change is inevitable but growth is intentional. This session focuses on the importance of partners taking responsibility for growth in their relationship and helps them formulate a plan for continued progress. Couples focus on their personal, couple and family goals and develop an action plan using the CHANGE Model. (Source: PREPARE/ENRICH Counselor’s Manual).
There you have it. Whether the counselor or clergyperson you or your loved one chooses to work with uses the PREPARE/ENRICH model or some other, most pre-marital work should address these areas.
 Start your marriage right! Join me Saturdays, May 29th and June 5th, 2004 for the fun, upbeat and informative “Pre-Marital Workshop: Prepare for your marriage, not just your wedding.” Learn how to be more mindful and attentive of your relationship from day one to your 50th anniversary together. This workshop is perfect for recently married couples, too. Please visit www.bardos.net/premarital or contact me at jonathan@bardos.net or 801.787.8014 for more information and to register.
More articles and tips for creating greatness in your relationships can be found at bardos.net/resources
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| Upcoming Events & Recent Past Events |
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| UPCOMING EVENTS:
May 29th and June 5th.
Pre-Marital Workshop: Prepare for your marriage, not just your wedding. (see above or visit www.bardos.net/premarital)
May 20th.
Building Strong Families: A Strength-based Family Wellness Model
and
Marketing Family Strengths: Taking Best Practices to the People.
Utah Mental Health Conference
Ogden, UT
 Ongoing Free Workshops:
The Relationship Wellness Series
Free monthly workshops designed to strengthen families and enrich our community.
See Calendar of Events for full details on all upcoming workshops and events or contact 801.787.8014.
RECENT PAST EVENTS REVIEW:
This has been a busy past few months for speaking engagements.
2-2-04
Divorce: Impact and Solutions
Park City High School
Park City, UT
2-3-04
Building Strong Families: A Strength-based Family Wellness Model
and
Marketing Family Strengths: Taking Best Practices to the People.
Utah Counseling Association
Salt Lake City, UT
2-14-04
Valentine's All Year mini-retreat.
Eagle Mountain, UT
2-17 and 18-04
High Conflict's Impact on Children in Divorce Situations
State of Utah's Private Attorney Guardian ad Litem Training
Salt Lake City and Provo, UT
2-9-04 and 3-9-04
Shared Parenting Course for Divorcing Parents
Park City, UT
3-13-04
Parenting Tips for Pre-schoolers
Parenting Tips for Elementary-Age
Paerenting Tips Teens
Lehi Jordan River Stake Women's Conference
Lehi, UT
3-25-04
Be the Answer: Solutions to Bullying
North Summit High School schoolwide assembly.
Coalville, UT
Schedule a Speaker!
If your organization is looking for a fun, upbeat and informative way to encourage, inform and inspire your people allow me or one of my colleagues to be of service. Contact me at 801.787.8014 or jonathan@bardos.net to discuss customizing a presentation to fulfill your needs. Note: Speaking services are offered as a pro-bono service to church and community groups.
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| If you enjoy the Bardos "Great Relationships" eZine and know a friend, colleague or family member who may benefit from or enjoy receiving it, please forward it along to them! |
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| FREE Great Relationships Packet Offer |
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| The Great Relationships Packet includes:
• "The 15-Minute Marriage Make-Over" Worksheet Exercise
• 7 Ways to Make Your Marriage Last"
• "9 Rules for Fair Fighting"
• "12 Steps to Better Marital Communications"
• "Daily Romance: Keeping the Love Alive"
• "Wisdom From the Ages: The Power and Beauty of Committed Love"
• & Much more!
To receive your FREE Great Relationships Packet simply email GreatRelationships@bardos.net and state you would like to receive it. What could be easier than that? Well...? Huh...?
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| Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Relationship Consultant specializing in creating "greatness in relationships." He is experienced in assisting people learn to improve their marriages, their parenting and themselves through skill development, life coaching, overcoming depression and anxiety, stress and anger management, and addiction recovery. He teaches extensively on a wide range of relationship topics. He is the founder of Bardos Relationship Consulting. You may reach him at 801.787.8014, jonathan@bardos.net or at www.bardos.net. |
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Copyright and Fair Use Information:
© 2004 Bardos Relationship Consulting & Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT, All rights reserved. Some have asked if they may reprint information and articles from this eZine or from bardos.net. You are free to use material from the Great Relationships eZine in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read:
"By Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT of Bardos Relationship Consulting. © 2004 Bardos Relationship Consulting & Jonathan D. Sherman, LMFT, All rights reserved. Please visit Jonathan's web site at http://www.bardos.net for additional articles and resources for creating greatness in relationships."
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Go to http://www.bardos.net and just fill out the simple form on the right hand column. It takes about 20 seconds. As a welcome gift you'll get our free Great Relationships Packet (see details above).
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