Coffin Corner

February 23, 2012

Column #1,591

Marriage 911 – First Response

By Mike McManus

            Is your marriage in crisis?  Has your spouse given up on you and said she is going to file for divorce, or perhaps has already done so? Do you feel as if you are in a car wreck, bleeding but too weak to get out?

            Good news: you aren’t alone.  Divorce is opposed by four out of five spouses.  No Fault Divorce laws have unwisely given just one spouse the power to end a marriage.

            A proven resource is available to help you save your marriage for only $28.

            Marriage 911 – First Response is a 12-weekwork course that prompts personal and spiritual growth to help you mature so much that you can attract your partner back.

But you also need other “tools:” the Bible and a Christian friend of the same gender, whom you ask to be your Support Partner, meeting an hour a week for three months.  Marriage 911 includes a Support Partner Handbook for your friend, to offer encouragement and accountability.   

You must also read a Chapter of Proverbs every day.  There are 31 chapters, so you will read through it three times during the course.  As you read it, journal about what God is teaching you.

Your Workbook will also ask you to make a “Self-Nurture List” of 10-20 activities you enjoy that “are not immoral, illegal or expensive.”  Like walking, biking, fishing, attending a movie or sports activity, or reading a novel.   When marriages go sour, people lose a sense of who they are as individuals. Nuture yourself.

When the person meets with his Support Partner, he will be asked, “What was one thing God showed you while reading Proverbs this week?

He might answer, “I read Proverbs 15:1: `A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.’  Perhaps that’s why she left me. She often said, `You treat me like dirt, but are so kind to neighbors.’  I was a fool.  I DID take her for granted, and was too harsh with her.”

His friend might respond, “I am glad you recognize that in yourself.  What will you do about it?”

“I’m going to write her a letter, and confess my sin.  After she gets the letter, I’ll call her up and ask her to go to dinner to discuss my resolution to be a more caring husband.”

I interviewed Michelle and Ali Quiles in Tampa whose marriage was saved by Marriage 911.  “Before we were constantly fighting and bickering about petty things, at each other’s throats,” said Ali. “We still do argue, but I now have a humility with my wife.  I appreciate her more.”

Michelle added, “I learned I needed to seek a relationship with Christ first, which made everything else fall in place. I am a person who has struggled with anger my whole entire life.  I learned that anger is a secondary emotion.  From that point, I actually felt cured of my anger. The course helped me as a person.”

Changed people, change people!

Their leaders, Lee and Marie Perella, are a volunteer couple, who led a 13 week course at The Crossing Church, using not only the Workbooks, but a DVD series featuring its authors, Joe and Michelle Williams.   What’s unusual is that all of the men sit at one table led by Lee, and the women are together at another table, hosted by Marie. They view a short video, discuss it and then individuals meet with their Support Partner to discuss that week’s theme.

“It’s a triage center to help the wounded,” Lee told me.  “One partner may have already left, and there appears to be no hope of restoration.  We come alongside, give them comfort and support, and keep them focusing on God, rather than each other. In recent sessions, the guys noticed that one man did not show up for two weeks.  We took a picture of us staring at his empty chair, and sent it to him.”

Amanda Wood, a psychologist leading a group in California, told me, “In traditional marriage counseling, the couple comes and discusses whatever the fight was about that week. In Marriage 911 we have a gal whose husband didn’t attend. She said, “I will work on my part to find where I have been wrong and I will be the best wife to him, the hands and feet of Christ.”

Amanda added, “I love that focus.”

Michelle Williams says on one DVD: “Before you can truly reconcile with your mate, you must reconcile with God first.”

Copyright © 2012 Michael J. McManus, President, Marriage Savers, and a syndicated columnist

My new email address is mike@marriagesavers.org

Michael J. McManus
syndicated columnist
"Ethics & Religion"
President & Co-Chair
Marriage Savers
9311 Harrington Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
www.marriagesavers.org
301-469-5873

Feb. 15, 2012

Column #1,590

Consider 162 Reasons to Marry!

By Mike McManus

            Those of us who believe in marriage are not doing a good job.  The marriage rate has plunged 54% since 1970.  If the same percentage of couples were getting married today as in 1970, we would have 3.3 million marriages this year, not 2.2 million.

            The cover story of the Washington Post Magazine on Sunday, “When You Never Find The One,” quoted people rationalizing about their singleness.  “This is who I am. I’m single. I love it,” says assistant professor Bella DePaulo.  

            “Settling just never seemed like the right move,” writes blogger Wendy Braitman.

            Has marriage become less attractive?  Obviously, it has for many people.  The percentage of married adults used to be 72% and is now only 51%.

            However, Pat Fagan, head of the MARRI Institute at the Family Research Council, has written a paper full of hope: “162 Reasons to Marry.” 

It is must reading for your single friends.

            “Marriage is the foundational relationship for all of society…Good marriages are the bedrock of strong societies, for they are the foundations of strong families,” he begins.

            “The future of the human race and all its component societies is embodied in each newborn. Whether that newborn grows to be a strong capable adult depends much on the marriage of his parents.  Whether he is physically strong; whether she is intelligent; whether he is hardworking or a dropout; whether she will be mentally healthy and happy; whether he will be more educated; whether she will marry in her own turn; whether he will be a taxpayer or a drain on the commons; whether she enjoys sexuality to the full; whether he worships and prays; whether she has children and how many; whether he finishes high school and goes to college or learns a trade; whether she is law-abiding; whether he grows old with a family surrounding him – all these most desirable outcomes…are strongly connected to the strength of that child’s parents.”

            If that sounds like it was written by a man with eight children, it was!

            However, only 46% of teenagers are living in an intact married family.  More than half are growing up in homes where the parents “rejected each other,” as Fagan wrote last year.

            That is what is ominous. 

Women raised in intact married homes have the lowest number of unwed births, are more likely to marry and less likely to divorce, says the report. They are “the least likely to have intercourse before age 18,” have fewer sexual partners and are least likely to cohabit.

But cohabitation has skyrocketed from 430,000 in 1960 to 7.5 million in 2010.  Unwed births have soared eight-fold from 5% to 41% of all births, and are mostly to cohabiting parents.

Children from intact married families are most likely to earn As in school and to have the “highest combined English and math grade point averages.”

However, on international math comparisons, Americans scored 487 while Japanese, Koreans and Chinese scored from 540 to 600. The unwed birth rate is 41% here, 2% in Japan.

“Children from intact families exceed their parents educational attainment (sons by 2 .8 years, daughters by 2.5 years)….Married men work more hours than cohabiting men” and their productivity increases by 27% as a result of marrying,” the report asserts.

Married families have larger incomes, larger net worth, and the largest net worth growth of between $3,000 and $17,000 in two years.  Conversely, if biological single parents of poor children marry, 70% of those kids would immediately move into the middle class. 

Marriage also reduces crime rates.  Adolescents from married homes are less likely to steal, to fight, be delinquent or run away from home.  Conversely, teenagers from divorced families are more verbally aggressive and violent toward their romantic partners.

“Marriage is especially beneficial for the health of the elderly.”  That’s an understatement.  A married woman will live four years longer – and a man, ten years longer than a single one.  “It seems that marriage, as a sort of social support, strengthens the immune system,” and married people smoke and drink less and maintain healthier weight.

Result: married people’s “responses to cancer treatment are better and comparable to people 10 years younger.”

However, what is to be done about plunging marriage rates? 

The report’s response is feeble: “Maybe we can hope that the children who experienced so much rejection between their parents will become the greatest generation of parents who belong to each other in lifelong marriage.”

I doubt it. 

Copyright © 2012 Michael J. McManus, President of Marriage Savers & a syndicated columnist

My new email address is mike@marriagesavers.org

Michael J. McManus
syndicated columnist
"Ethics & Religion"
President & Co-Chair
Marriage Savers
9311 Harrington Dr.
Potomac, MD 20854
www.marriagesavers.org
301-469-5873