Could 12 Hours Change Your Marriage?

posted by Michele Olson

There are lots of great books out there about marriage. One of my favorites is on our recommendation list on the right hand side of this blog. It’s called How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It by Patricia Love and Steven Stosney I think it has some very fresh ideas regarding how we treat each other and perceive one another in marriage.

I came across another book with an intriguing title and would love to see one of our bloggers read it and let us know if you think it worked This book is called 12 Hours to a Great Marriage written by Howard J. Markman, Scott M. Stanley, Natalie H. Jenkins, Susan L. Blumberg and Carol Whiteley. One has to think that with so many authors there must be some value in this book!

Other authors in the marriage world also seem rather excited about the book…

"This book makes lasting love achievable." — John Gray, author, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

"I love this book! It's like hiring your own top-notch relationship coach for twelve hours and getting a lifetime's worth of lessons for creating a loving, lasting marriage." — Michele Weiner-Davis, author, The Sex-Starved Marriage and Divorce Busting

"It actually makes working on your marriage fun. In fact, it introduces an approach that believes having fun is one of the hallmarks of a successful marriage." — Diane Sollee, smartmarriages.com, and founder and director of the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education

"Delivered in a personal and engaging style, the most helpful book yet from the 'dream team' of marriage educators." — William J. Doherty, Ph.D., professor, University of Minnesota, and author of Take Back Your Marriage

The table of contents is not broken into chapters, but rather each chapter is an hour.

12 hours? Want to give it a try? This is a great tool to invest in working on your marriage.
If you’ve read the book and have feedback, please blog. Are you thinking about getting the book and devoting 12 hours to your marriage? Let us hear from you too.
It might just be the best way to spend 12 hours you have ever come across!

Thank You Wall Street Journal

posted by Michele Olson

The Wall Street Journal online is speaking our language, on the same page,and helping tell the story we like to tell. While many people only think in terms of counseling when it comes to working on your marriage, at thinkmarriage.org, we work in marriage education. That’s a new thought to most people…the idea of learning communication and conflict resolution skills in a workshop setting as opposed to sitting together as a couple with a counselor.

Yesterday two articles were posted. One was titled:

Marriage Education Classes: Can Couples Be Taught To Stay Married?

The other was:

Working on Your Marriage- at Work

The first article poses the question: Is the ability to stay married something that can be taught? For people wondering if it’s just a matter of opinion, there is evidence that marriage education can help a couple stay together. Follow the links in the article if you are someone who likes to see statistics and studies. Then there’s the person who just knows a good idea when they hear it. It makes sense that if you work on something and have more knowledge about it, it has a far greater chance of working better.

The second article talks about another trend we are happy to be a part of: providing marriage and healthy relationship education on the job. That’s because statistically we know that unhappily married employees decrease profitability. There’s a whole page on our website with great resources for you to check out regarding what is available to you as an employee or employer. The bottom line is; the healthier the relationships in a business, the more the employer makes and the more likelihood there will be money for raises for employees. That’s why everyone should care.

Read The Wall Street Journal articles and come back here to comment. It is great to see this valuable discussion opening up across our country.

Romance or BFF?

posted by Michele Olson

Is your spouse your best friend…your BFF?

An Illinois columnist, Ken Potts of the Daily Herald has a good article talking about that, and why friendship is more important than romance. He cites that researchers estimate that only about 20 percent of marriages - two out of 10 - really meet the expectations,fulfill the hopes, make real the dreams of the men and women involved.

Unto itself, that’s a rather discouraging number. As the article points out, there is good news about what you can do about helping grow that statistic in a positive manner.

We have a pretty good idea what works.

Think about your friends in life. Why are they your friends? Usually you like the same things and you have similarities in your life experiences and values. When you think of a friend, you think of someone who is there for you through thick and thin.

Now think about the springboard for many marriages….it’s romance. Those euphoric feelings that are based on exactly that…feelings. While the best of both worlds is experiencing both…anyone who has been married for any length of time knows that romance is like a roller coaster. It has its ups and downs.

Friendship on the other hand…that can be an enduring glue that will hold a marriage together through life. In our society, we love romance, horse drawn carriages, riding off into the sunset and the idea of eyes meeting across a crowded room, unable to resist each other. It’s definitely heady stuff, but can a lifelong relationship be built on romance without the fundamental elements of friendship?

One of my favorite movies, When Harry Met Sally, is a great example of friendship that becomes love. If you’ve never seen it, it’s worth it.

What do you think? Do you think friendship is even more important than romance? Which should come first? Is your spouse your best friend?

A Judge With A Higher Purpose

Posted by Michele Olson


Leah Ward Sears just stepped down this week as the Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court. In a CNN.com article she reflects on her brother’s sudden death and his despair over what has been happening to the American family which she believe played a role in his demise.

Leah herself has had a front row seat to what is the truth behind the statistics of family breakdown…the devastation happening to the lives of people day after day. She talks about our lack of viewing marriage seriously. She believes the U.S. is engaged in an unintended campaign to diminish the importance of marriage and fatherhood by refusing to do what we can to change the course of so many divorces and unwed childbearing.

She points to the devastation to children.

She stepped down from the bench to pursue a life’s work to do something about what she sees.
Read the article and let us know your thoughts.

Getting a Good Job Like Looking for a Good Mate

Posted by Michele Olson

Amy Hoover writing for Talentzoo.com did a fun article on the comparisons of what a really great job offer looks like from a company and what a really great dating relationship looks like.

The comparisons are right on…including making sure you are paying attention to the red flags that should encourage you to run in the other direction.

The points cover:

Honest first conversation

No games played through the early stages

Good chemistry

Open discussion about the future

Perfect proposal

It’s an interesting way to look at a good future employer and a good future mate.

Enjoy the article and leave some feedback…does this make you think?

Good News from All the Bad News

posted by Michele Olson

Wow…we are on news overload lately! Passing of famous people we all knew and the passing of some marriages we thought we could trust. You might feel like it’s happening all at once, and that can lead to some feelings of despair and depression.

Be encouraged! There is lemonade out of all these lemons!

All this talk about marriage gets us talking and thinking about marriage. That is a good thing.

In a June 26, 2009 New York Times article title Marriage Stands Up for Itself, written by Benedict Carey and Tara Parker-Pope they point out that despite all the things working against marriage, the marriage bond is stronger right now than many people assume.
It’s a very good article I highly recommend you read. Look at the comment on the 50% divorce rate:

For instance, one of the most commonly cited statistics about marriage is that half of marriages end in divorce. But that number reflects the expected lifetime divorce rate of people married in the 1970s.

The story is different for more-recently married couples. A comparison of 10-year divorce rates among college-educated men married in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s shows that divorce is becoming less common, said Dr. Stevenson, the Wharton researcher. Among men who married in the 1970s, for example, about 23 percent had divorced by the 10th year of marriage. Among similar men married in the 1980s, about 20 percent had divorced by the 10th year. Men married in the 1990s are doing even better — with a 10-year divorce rate of 16 percent.


Good news huh? What do you think about the article? What do you think about the state of marriage this day?

Pass on the news about our www.thinkmarriage.org blog and invite your friends to become a follower. Follow us on Twitter too!

Hearts are Breaking

posted by Michele Olson


We move from the news of Jon and Kate to the news of Governor Sanford and his wife Jenny. Once again, an affair is part of the downfall of a marriage. Governor Sanford said in his statement that what started out as a dear friendship turned into something more. This is the statement his wife Jenny has issued.

Please go back and read my Tuesday June 9th blog in the archives of this blog. It’s about building hedges around your marriage. This man who was smart enough to become Governor of a state should have been smart enough emotionally to know that when you play with fire, you eventually get burned. Your close friendships in marriage should be with someone of the same sex.

Now read my Wednesday blog. This is a private matter they will work on, and it is possible to reconcile. It is possible.

Hopefully, all this news of marriages breaking up will cause each of us to really take the extra time today and in the days to come to value and work on our marriages. Read books. Take workshops. Be kind to each other. Value your marriage. Build hedges around it. Become a Marriage Champion.

What do you think?