Coffin Corner

We are pleased to announce the release of our 2011 research conference executive summary and full report Counting Couples, Counting Families. The materials are a culmination of the third Counting Couples conference in 2011 and two previous national conferences in 2001 and 2003 detailing comprehensive recommendations to facilitate standardization of family measurement across surveys. Sessions on marriage and remarriage, cohabitation, family structure and instability, family ties across households, and future directions provided rich insights into issues that need to be considered in seeking ways to measure family structure and dynamics. 

• Executive Summary 

• Full Report 

• Conference Resources
  • From this site, you may access materials for Counting Couples I and II research conferences

The National Center for Family & Marriage Research, established in 2007 by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, provides scientific leadership, intellectual energy, and administrative assistance to support inter-disciplinary, policy-relevant research on U.S. families.

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In the opening pages you'll find sites that offer divorce advice and other resources to help you through divorce, the latest celebrity gossip and listings for divorce attorneys. Further down in the search, perhaps further down than most people scroll, you'll find what people really need to find first --sites that talk about the serious negative, lifelong consequences of divorce for women, men and children, including studies showing that children suffer the most.

Here are some startling statistics from those studies:

1. Children from divorced families died on average almost five years earlier than children from intact families.

2. Facing parental divorce during childhood was the single strongest predictor of early death.

3. Parental divorce during childhood was a much stronger predictor of mortality risk than parental death.

4. Divorce lowered the standard of living for children and put them at significantly increased risks for divorce themselves, drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, and on and on.      

So what can you do?  You can support one of the most important websites in the Google search - the Coalition for Divorce Reform (CDR). Because the CDR is working to address the most important social problem in America - family breakdown. We are working to inform people about the harmful effects of divorce and the very real possibilities for reconciliation. We are also working to secure passage of our model legislation, the Parental Divorce Reduction Act, so that more of our nation's children grow up in two-parent, intact families.

Are affairs okay? Yes, at least according to one of the media darlings in the therapy profession, Esther Perel, psychotherapist and author of Mating in Captivity. To Perel, infidelity can spice up a relationship. She is convinced that Americans are too parochial about their views of infidelity and she wants us to loosen up.

I attended one of Perel's workshops where she described her work with couples and how she handles betrayal in marriage. Occasionally, an unfaithful spouse contacts her and she offers "couples therapy" with this spouse and his or her affair partner. When she discussed her approach, I couldn't help but notice a queasy feeling in.. read more here

Several years ago, I accepted a student into our doctoral family studies program. Tamara Fackrell was a practicing divorce attorney and mediator. She was skilled in her practice at helping her clients deal more effectively with ending their marriages and move on with life.  She did this responsibly, not hiding the difficulties that faced them during and after the divorce and usually encouraging her clients to be cautious; if there were possibilities for reconciliation, she urged them to explore that possibility.  While some divorces clearly were needed, she believed that repairing and saving a marriage was often possible.  She told me a few stories ...read more here 

When it comes down to it, we need just as much relationship counseling for our relationship with our work lives as we do with our spouses. And the latter may be the truly dysfunctional one. 

America has the highest divorce rate in the world. We also have one of the most stressed out and over-worked workforces in the world. More and more, I believe these two facts are more than coincidences.  Let's look at some sobering statistics about our relationship with work..read more here

We have a tradition at the Episcopalian parish I attend. Every Sunday after mass, parishioners and visitors gather in the parish hall to greet one another and snack on refreshments provided by the Hospitality Guild. A few minutes into the get-together Father Cullen, our priest, rings a bell on the wall next to the kitchen.

"Are there any birthdays this week?" he asks. Each celebrant steps forward, in turn, and Father Cullen asks whether they want the tempo "fast, medium or slow." Everyone laughs, and then he cues one of the choir members for a pitch, and we all sing "Happy Birthday."

One Sunday, several months ago, a little girl, no more than five or six, wandered up to Father Cullen. "Is it your birthday?" he asked...  read more here