MarriageScience

Seven things you should know before you fall in love with someone.

ron — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:25:07 +0000

Maureen Dowd’s column “An Ideal Husband” last saturday was the most emailed story from nytimes.com. Two days later its still number 4. This is because the advice of the 79 year old priest and counseling veteran, Pat Connor. His “Whom not to Marry” talk breaks down well and makes sense. Seven things you should know before you fall in love with someone.

It plays well for men as well as women. A seven point breakdown after the jump for those who prefer bullet points. (more…)

Iceland: Land of Smart Families

admin — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:57:04 +0000

John vanEpp and family graciously opened up to their suite to show their guide for teaching teens about relationships. Gathered around the table was a group of especially interested people. Glancing at the nametags its hard to miss that they are from… Iceland?

We cornered Olaf Gunnarsson to hear about what the most geothermally powered nation on earth thinks about smartmarriages.

Olaf, the co-founder for OB Consulting, is a bubbling geyser of facts and figures. He has good reason to be excited: In the coming years the national government will be asking all expecting couples in Iceland will be taking a course to help them adjust to the new addition to the family. (more…)

SmartMarriages: The Marketplace of Marriage Education

ron — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 02:15:31 +0000

As far as Marriage Education is concerned, SmartMarriages is the primary national conference for marriage education. After reading research papers and reviewing books for two or three years, Anna and I got to what the people who are making and using the new materials are doing.

What did we find? Although marriage education is still not widely known, people are dedicated to this idea and are moving to make it available everywhere families might be found. The conference is full of therapists, churches and your local state and federal government. They may not be getting real rich on this, but but they are often the folks who have to pick up the pieces or open up the coffers when our families don’t work out.

What we found was a marketplace of books classes, curricula, workbooks, videos, therapies. Often federally funded and well thought out using well known and new ideas, they can meet a wide variety of circumstances, tastes and needs.

What’s next? Look out; states like California, countries like Iceland and Canada are getting in to the act and in a few years we’ll have a strong idea about what works and how well.

MarriageScience - trying to understand marriage

ron — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 03:59:59 +0000

Divorce rates may have not changed in the US since they surged in the 1970s - around 50% depending on who you listen to. But research shows that divorce is not a given - even a weekend workshop can reduce the chance of divorce by 30-50%.

This blog’s entries ( about every 2 weeks) will aim to cover classic and current research on marriage, reflections from married people, as well as some links that can be new reading.

This blog is supposed to be reflections that go with our project to apply the science to make a weekend marriage curriculum for Baha’is, but I hope that the entries here are something that anyone might find useful, that the fact that Baha’i’s respect for science, for marriage, and desire to be of service to humanity in general comes out. If you haven’t heard about the Baha’i Faith before, please check it out here.

Insights 2007 Bosch - MarriageScience Talk

ron — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:16:08 +0000

These are the slides from Anna and my presentation at Insights at the Bosch Baha’i school this last spring.

We wanted to make a talk that was encouraging and frank, encouraging people to approach marriage optimistically, feeling prepared, and going over some major points:

When you are married its hard to convey how different it is to live with someone. You will simultaneously feel that you love someone but also have your own needs. And this is normal.
We have to expect conflicts to arise, but it doesn’t mean the relationship is faulty.
Those differences will lead you to discover a deeply personal side of them which is unlike anything you might have expected.
There are some healthy and useful ideas that can help you get past those differnces to that better understanding.

Insights 2007 Bosch Slides