Couples Education Interactive Telephone Training: Relationships In Good Times & Bad "Electronic Handout"

Couples Education Interactive Telephone Training:
Relationships In Good Times & Bad
"Electronic Handout"

To begin the Couples Education Interactive Telephone Training, please go to http://www.cyfernet.org, and click on Parent/Family. Go to "Partners" and then click on "Marriage."
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Challenges and Choices in Marriage

Next Steps and Sharing Session

Interactive Telephone Training Agenda

Couples Education Panelists:

Anna Mae Kobbe, USDA/CSREES
Wally Goddard, University of Arkansas
Barbara Petty, University of Idaho
Judy Branch, University of Vermont

WELCOME AND OVERVIEW - Part 1 (10 minutes)
Anna Mae Kobbe

MARRIED--AND LOVING IT! - Part 2 (15 minutes)
Barbara Petty

CHOICES AND CHALLENGES: RELATIONSHIP BUILDING - Part 3 (25 minutes)
Wally Goddard

COUPLES EDUCATION RESOURCES: AN INTERACTIVE CYFERnet TOUR - Part 4 (15 minutes)
Judy Branch

SHARING, INTERACTION, Q&A, and NEXT STEPS - Part 5 (25 minutes)
Judy, Barbara, Anna Mae, Wally and All Interactive Training Participants

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Welcome and Overview

To begin, please open the Marriage and Couples Educational Resource Package: http://www.nnh.org/cyfernet/toc.htm

Learn about the expansion of marriage and couples' education throughout the Cooperative Extension System (CES).
Learn how the following factors have impacted CES outreach in marriage and couples' education:

Community Interest
Marriage Movement
Public Policy
Welfare Reform
Terrorism

CES Marriage and couples' education around the U.S.:

Florida Cooperative Extension
Utah Cooperative Extension
Oklahoma Cooperative Extension
And, you will hear live from staff in Idaho, Arkansas, and Vermont as well.

Marriage and Couples' Education Work Group

Progress to date
Resources

Introduction of the Couples Education panelists

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Married and Loving It!

Open: http://extension.ag.uidaho.edu/bonneville/married.htm.

Married and Loving It! is an example of how one marriage education program is strengthening marriages across the nation. Factors that determine a need for marriage education will be discussed. Classes include communication skills, finances, sources of anger, conflict resolution, and daily decisions.

Other topics to be discussed will include marketing, participants, and the curriculum.

For more information about this program or to order the curriculum, contact:

Barbara Petty
University of Idaho Cooperative Extension
2925 Rollandet
Idaho Falls, ID 83402
208-529-1390
bpetty@uidaho.edu

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Challenges and Choices in Marriage

H. Wallace Goddard, Extension Family Life Specialist University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension wgoddard@uaex.edu Phone: 501 671-2104

Much modern thinking about marriage has been challenged and refined by recent research.
1. "Active listening is the key to successful marriage."

Not supported by research (Gottman, Coan, Carrere, & Swanson, 1998)
The "magic ratio" is five positives for each negative (Gottman, 1994, pp.56-8).
It is not reasonable for partners to play therapist to each other (Fowers, 2001).

2. "Fair fighting is the key to working out the bugs in a marriage. Honesty. Authenticicity."

Depending on what "fair fighting" means, generally contradicted.
Conflict follows a very predictable pattern: Criticism-Contempt-Defensiveness-Stonewalling
Conflict can be managed through several means:

Softened startup (esp. women)
Self soothing (esp. men)
Accepting influence (men)
Editing and rose-colored glasses
Repair attempts
Kindness may be the key element

3. "The most important outcome of marriage is happiness."

Lack of a higher cause and reliance on sentiment makes marriage less stable and more fragile. (See Baumeister about "obligation" to get out of marriage.)

Many troubled marriages where partners hold on report greater satisfaction later. Highest motive may not be happiness but a shared purpose (Fowers, 2001).

Accessible through CYFERnet "Marriage" or go directly to University of Arkansas Extension units on family (7 short units on marriage): http://www.arfamilies.org/family_life/family_life.asp
(The general family web address is: http://www.arfamilies.org/)

Print Resources:

Roy F. Baumeister (1991). Meanings of life. New York: Guilford.
Traditional societies encouraged people to make sense of their lives based on religious purpose or social connectedness. The current emphasis on self leaves people naked in crises of meaning.

Blaine J. Fowers (2000). Beyond the Myth of Marital Happiness. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.,br> Fowers argues that the romantic view of marriage has failed. He recommends that marriage be based on friendship, loyalty, generosity, and justice.

John M. Gottman (1994). Why Marriages Succeed or Fail and How You Can Make Yours Last. New York: Simon & Schuster.
This book talks about different kinds of marriages, volatile, avoidant, and validating, and the advantages of each. Recommendations for strengthening marriages are given.

John M. Gottman (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. New York: Crown.
Gottman is probably the world's leading scholar on marriage. In this book he describes activities that can help people strengthen their marriages.

John M. Gottman, James Coan, Sybil Carrere, & Catherine Swanson (1998). Predicting marital happiness and stability from newlywed interaction. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 60, 5-22.
This article presents Gottman's evidence that use of active listening in marriage does not predict favorable outcomes.

Daniel B. Wile (1988). After the honeymoon. New York: Wiley.
Wile makes the powerful observation that, in every relationship, there are certain unresolvable differences. Those differences do not necessarily doom the relationship.

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Couples Education Resources: An Interactive CYFERnet Tour

Please bookmark http://www.cyfernet.org/ in preparation for the tour.

1. Click on Parent/Family
[in upper right list of "Child, Youth, Parent and family, Community, and Just for Kids."]

2. Click on "Divorce, Separation"
[right column on Parent/Family web page under the heading "Parenting (continued)] This is a short side trip to introduce your guide whose connection with marriage education resources came through working with separation and divorce issues.

3. Click on "Maintaining Family Ties through the Divorce Process"
[Scroll down 13 entries on "Divorce, Separation" page; entries are in alphabetical order.]

4. Click on "Coping with Separation and Divorce: A Parent Handbook
[This is the fourth entry in the list]

5. Click (three times) on arrow in upper left of screen to return to Parent/Family page.

6. Click on "Marriage"---Scroll down to "Partners" to find "Marriage"
[Partners section is in right column, Marriage is second to last entry in that section.]

7. Scroll through "Marriage" pages, notice there are 26 resources in these pages.
Four sections:

General information
Links, Other Resources
Programming Resources
Research

8. Click on CoupleTalk
[First entry in General information, this is an example of the entire curriculum showing up in a PDF file. You need Adobe Acrobat Reader software on your computer to read this. It can be downloaded free from the Internet. )

9. Click on Arrow back button to "Marriage" web pages.

10. Click on "Smartmarriages" in the General Information section.

11. Click on Arrow back button to "Marriage" web pages.

12. Click on "Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education"

13. Click on Arrow back button to "Marriage" web pages.

14. Click on "Marriage and Couple Education Video"

15. Click on Arrow back button to "Marriage" web pages.

16. Click on AmeriStat: Marriage and Family Population.
Reference Bureau and Social Science Data Analysis Network http://www.ameristat.org/ [Last Entry in "Marriage" pages]

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Next Steps and Sharing Session

- What kinds of educational activities/classes are call participants conducting?

- What do call participants need to begin or expand marriage and couples' education classes?

- What other "next steps" need to take place to strengthen CES marriage and couples' education outreach?

- Explore interest in creating a couples education listserv.

- Explore interest in using a "Community Zero". The CommunityZero system requires minimal management while providing maximum flexibility to those who wish to use it. We could easily set up a FREE site for a Couples Education SIG. For more information about the CommunityZero features: http://www.communityzero.com.

Back to Couples
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For more information contact cyf@umn.edu.
www.cyfernet.org

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