ON ATTENDING THE 2001 SMART MARRIAGES CONFERENCE:
Harry Benson, UK

Introduction

I attach a brief review of the "Smartmarriages" conference Kate and I attended in Orlando, Florida. In overlooking the touristy nature of the location, the conference itself was fabulous! Here in the UK, we should strongly consider establishing a similarly broad coalition that meets under the "marriage education" banner. It was an awesome experience finding 1,500 other people who all feel the same way we do about the importance of marriage ? it�s not just me! The conference was professionally run and deeply inspiring. Present were top academics, policy makers, judges, therapists, church leaders, journalists, and many lay couples.

For those nerds amongst us who trawl through research papers trying to make sure that the authors are right to conclude what they claim, it was hugely exciting to see and hear the likes of Scott Stanley, Bill Doherty, Paul Amato and Linda Waite in the flesh. Some of their newer findings I summarise below. The case for marriage vs. its alternatives is very strong and the case to make people think very long and hard before they divorce is similarly so. We also had an amusing evening with John Gray, of Mars and Venus fame, who was very funny if a little overdone (like his books!) about the ways men and women tend to think and act differently.

Perhaps of all the many key things I heard at Smartmarriages, the strongest message I brought home is the need to increase public awareness of what it�s like to grow up as a child of divorce. Kate and I were especially struck by hearing Judith Wallerstein, now nearly 80 years old, discuss how divorce has affected the 93 children of divorce she has been interviewing since 1970. As a child of divorce myself, I was stunned to hear her use what sounded like my own words and scripts and to describe them as the common experience. Supposedly well-educated about the whole subject as I thought I was, I was genuinely surprised to discover that my own experience is the norm. And there I was thinking I was uniquely odd�

Conference summary

A "marriage movement" is very clearly underway in the United States, if in fledgling form. US family data suggest that the decline of marriage and rise of divorce has stabilised over the last few years, albeit at fairly awful levels. Into this climate comes an array of new and compelling research showing convincingly, for the first time, that:

- getting and staying married, rather than cohabiting, is quite clearly the best bet for a successful life together;

- "unhappy marriages" are the exception and not the norm, that they invariably improve with time, often by a lot, and usually more accurately describe "one unhappy spouse";

- the consequences of divorce are rarely positive for a couple and crescendo in intensity for their children when they reach adulthood;

- the majority of divorces emerge from "low conflict" marriages, suggesting scope for retrieval, but these divorces have the very worst outcomes for the children.

A large number of church-based community marriage policies, known as "Marriage Savers", are now having substantial knock-on effects in their wider communities in terms of reducing city-wide divorce rates as well as its negative correlates, such as school truancy and teenage pregnancy. A growing number of research-based and experience-based programmes are now being applied successfully throughout communities under the banner of "marriage education".

For example, innovative judges in Michigan have started using marriage education to slash court re-appearances by their most warring couples. On a bigger scale, policymakers in the State of Oklahoma, which has the 2nd worst divorce rate in the US, have stuck their necks out and pledged to cut divorce by 1/3rd by 2010 through implementing an ambitious statewide marriage education policy. To realise why this aim is so eminently achievable, consider that the divorce rate in the very first city to implement a community Marriage Savers policy is now some 47% lower than 14 years ago. There are many other examples of faster declines.

In the UK we would be well advised to keep our eyes on this fledgling US "marriage movement". It carries with it a very broad coalition of persuasions and beliefs. It is underpinned by very convincing and reputable academic research. It is beginning to show a track record of success in cutting divorce rates and its social correlates. And it is attracting the attention of state and national policymakers. One important message from the many therapists present was of a clear move, by those present at least, away from ineffective value-free therapy and towards effective value-based marriage education. Another key message is that trained lay educators are as good as or better than professionals at providing marriage education ? perhaps unsurprising since all we�re doing in many ways is replicating the role of extended family, where experience counts for more than expertise. Finally, there were no extremes touted ? neither "personal freedom at all costs" or "marriage at all costs". Although the message for the future was uncompromising about promoting the purpose, benefits and secrets of successful marriage, and the offer of how to do it better, the common view was also of clear and widespread compassion for those disadvantaged by divorce, cohabitation or high-conflict marriages now.

The big message about marriage and divorce

Below are some comments and observations on the major presentations. The most striking presentations came from top researchers Linda Waite, Judith Wallerstein and Paul Amato. If ever there was a case for sticking at marriage, and treating divorce with the utmost caution, these presentations make it very strongly.  Because you may want to relay these stories further afield, I�ve tried to include some of the relevant figures. If figures merely confuse you, please ignore them and look for the basic underlying message.

(1) For those of us who seek to understand the research "case for marriage", Linda Waite�s book of that name is the definitive guide and an easy informative read. I encourage you to read it. In her presentation, she highlighted an unexpected bonus finding from her research into a US national household survey of 10,000 adults. All rated the quality of their marriage twice, in 1986-87 and again in 1992-94, on a scale of 1 (hell) to 7 (heaven). Of the 81% of married people who started off "unhappy" (rated 1-4, 10% of those surveyed) and who were still married five years later, 86% of these became happier. More remarkably, 77% of those unhappiest (rated 1-2, 2% of those surveyed) actually said they were "happy" or "very happy" (rated 6 or 7) five years later. 72% of all the unhappy people had happy spouses.

 The surprising messages from this huge survey were therefore that:

- very few married people are unhappy at any given time,

- unhappily married people invariably get happy if they stick it out, and

- it�s generally people and not marriages that are unhappy.

Further investigation of the same sample found that divorce is not the way to happiness. Those who divorced were far less likely to say they were happy with life in general. Those in the unhappiest marriages who then divorced also ended up with very poor levels of emotional well-being compared to those who stuck it out. This rather decimates the argument of those who promote divorce on the self-interested grounds of "doing what�s best for you". More recent focus group work on the reasons why unhappy people so often stick it out successfully suggested four main areas: "just keeping going", "working at it", "knowing s/he will walk out" or "changing my attitude".

(2) In the 60s era of free love and personal freedom, Judith Wallerstein asked the far-sighted question "what happens to the kids?". She has been interviewing a batch of 93 children of divorce on and off since the early �70s. Her book "The unexpected legacy of divorce" is a must-read. Her key findings are that

- the immediate trauma of divorce is less important than its later effects, and

- the impact of divorce tends to grow and crescendo in the first ten years of adult life.

When the man-woman relationship comes to centre stage, the ghosts of divorce re-emerge. Kids of divorce are then trapped between their desires to succeed in relationship and their fears that it will all go horribly wrong. What was especially striking for me personally was to hear my own experience as a child of divorce validated as the norm. For me, as for many, divorce is the central issue of life. All children of intact marriages can describe their parents rituals or even courtship in detail. Yet children of divorce lack the central image of an intact marriage. Reasons for divorce are often seen as a black hole. Following divorce, children frequently experience bewildering change and multiple losses. For my wife Kate, it was also enlightening to hear my own experience normalised. If you�re not a child of divorce yourself, and especially if you�re married to a child of divorce, please sit up and take note of Kate�s discovery and read Judith Wallerstein�s book. Public awareness seems like the best place to start.

(3) One possible caveat to the "divorce is bad" argument comes from work by Paul Amato. His 20-year study of 2,000 married adults and 700 of their offspring divided families into "low-" and "high-conflict", married and divorced. Nearly 300 divorces occurred in his group during the study and he now has a great deal of information on the state of marriage and well-being of adults and children in both intact marriages as well as before and after divorce. What he found is that 60% of the marriages that ended in divorce looked little different from other intact marriages an average of a year and a half before the divorce, in terms of satisfaction and conflict. He termed these "low-conflict". The remaining 40% were low in satisfaction and high in conflict before the divorce. The low-conflict majority of divorces generally occur due to "growing apart" but, from the point of view of the child, these are the most inexplicable and damaging. Children�s well-being is very poor in both high-conflict marriages and following low-conflict divorce. Children appear emotionally resilient following high-conflict divorce, perhaps relieved of the pressure of living with fighting. But we need to put these findings in the context of Judith Wallerstein�s longer-term findings of how the ghosts of divorce re-emerge in early adulthood to sabotage adult relationships. It will be interesting to see Amato�s findings from this group in 10-15 years time. For now, children�s well-being is by far the best within low-conflict marriages.

Other comments of interest

(4) Two family court judges in Michigan, Jim Sheridan and Helen Brown, told us that they were fed up with 5% of their cases taking up 95% of their court time. They have recently tried out a form of marriage education, called "Focused Mediation", on their toughest and most warring couples. The effect has been dramatic. Some couples had literally hundreds of "court dockets" filed before mediation. Since then, almost none of the couples have reappeared in court over the last year and several couples have actually reconciled. Although the mediation method is claimed as unique and innovative, my strong suspicion is that it is essentially a good communication course under a different name. Nonetheless, it has proven highly effective and some of you may want to take up the idea with friends in the legal profession. Sheridan also pointed out an interesting requirement of US marriage celebrants. In some states they are "authorised" rather than specifically "required" to marry couples. He suggested we invite celebrants to explain why they are marrying couples at great risk to future taxpayers without proper education beforehand. Would this apply to the UK? Maybe some of you know. You get more of the punchy flavour of Jim Sheridan by hearing how he finished his talk: "The state is now providing the structure and discipline for adolescents, such as through the Navy or prison, that married families provide for free�do you now wonder why I�m involved in this business?"

(5) Oklahoma state officials have also got fed up with having the 2nd worst divorce rate of any state in the US. Taking their lead from the effectiveness of church-based Marriage Savers policies in the wider community, they have set a target of reducing statewide divorce by 1/3rd by 2010. They are implementing a far-reaching and ambitious plan to make marriage education widely available through skills-based courses and marriage support through older "mentor" couples. Those involved told us about their policies, evaluation methods and expectations in some detail. Suffice to say that Oklahoma is the target for every "libertarian" and sceptic longing for them to fail. They are however clear that success will not provide the kind of academic proof that their policies work. Scott Stanley, one of their advising psychologists and a leading marriage educator, wryly remarked that there will be no trouble randomly selecting another state as the control group! If you didn�t get the joke, just be happy that you�re not a science nerd! If you want to know more of what they are up to, let me know. Those implementing community policies should follow their lead closely.

(6) In the opening address to the whole conference, Bill Doherty also talked of the risks we face from a throw-away consumer culture. This makes us more ready to break marriage vows when times are tough, or mundane, or when there are better offers. But it could also affect the marriage movement in unhealthily comparing courses and point-scoring. He especially stressed the need for community support for marriage and more family rituals. One striking observation was the relative absence of importance attached to wedding anniversaries. He suggested we make great play of anniversaries within communities as part of the wider intentionality of valuing marriage.
(7) Amongst a fascinating review of 30 years of research, Scott Stanley made some interesting observations. People do not report their own behaviour accurately. Negative interaction is more important in predicting the success of relationships than the positives. Telling couples about the importance of communication does not change how they interact. Finally, we should "listen to what tells your mate you love them".

Marriage education programmes

(8) The message of Marriage Savers and of academic research on individual courses is that to get serious about cutting divorce and helping marriages we need to buy into a new community "culture of marriage". Bill Doherty mentioned this in his opening address. In terms of programmes that we then slot into our marriage culture, it�s hard to highlight all of the many programmes on offer at the conference because most are not available in the UK. Although no-one knows for sure, it seems likely that the culture may be more important than the specific courses ? so my strong suggestion is to use what we have within an overall context and import what we can.

Of those that are available, many of you are aware of the popular FOCCUS and PREPARE pre-marriage inventories that rate highly and are starting to be applied successfully in the UK. Amongst the better enrichment courses, only Marriage Encounter is relatively widely available here in various forms. Kate and I did a 1-day course in a Christian version of PREP, an outstanding enrichment course. PREP in its secular form is probably the best researched of all education programmes and there is evidence suggesting its long-term effectiveness. What we especially liked about PREP was its focus on high risk automatic negative behaviours (withdrawal, escalation, negativity, invalidation), how a simple but outstanding communication tool can break these automatic cycles, and a strong conclusion about the importance of commitment ? perhaps the single defining difference between marriage and cohabitation and explanation behind many of the outcome differences. I suspect it is the inclusion of specific teaching on values and attitudes, not just skills, that differentiates PREP in terms of its outcome successes to date. We will be in touch with PREP to see whether there is any way to make this course more accessible in the UK.

For marriage recovery, the industry leaders are two Christian programmes that are achieving 80-90% reconciliation rates led by couples who have themselves survived near-divorce. We are already running one of these programmes ourselves on a couple-to-couple basis and are very keen to train other couples wishing to apply this. There is nothing like it that we know of in the UK. We also discussed a further course at length with its originator, called the "Third Option" (meaning reconciliation, rather than unhappy marriage or divorce). It uses similar principles to the Christian-only courses but may be more applicable by and for secular couples. Again if you want more info, let me know.

Conclusions
(1) A marriage movement is underway in the US that we in the UK would do well to follow and whose lessons we can apply. This coalition spans high-powered academics and policymakers through to grass roots activity by ordinary lay educators. It covers a broad spectrum of views and beliefs, from liberal through conservative, committed believers through atheists, under the general banner of "marriage education" ? the need to promote marriage values, attitudes, skills, behaviours and support.

(2) New long-term research studies are increasingly clear that marriage works well and is worth sticking with, that divorce is not the answer for adults and is most deeply damaging for children when they grow up to form their own adult relationships, and that the majority of divorces are from low conflict marriages but have the very worst impact on the children.

(3) A growing number of city-wide marriage policies, led by churches, are having a sufficient impact on divorce rates in the wider community that policy-makers are starting to apply their lessons into public policy. Judges in Michigan and state legislators in Oklahoma are setting the trend for others to follow.

(4) Some of the excellent marriage education programmes from the US are easily available in the UK but we can also take advantage of our own locally grown programmes within a community context. Either way, there is an urgent need to promote the availability, relevance and effectiveness of good quality marriage education in this country.

(5) We need to draw together our own UK version of Smartmarriages to create a similarly broad coalition amongst those of us willing to do something to get "marriage" back to the core of the public and private agenda.

Harry Benson, harry.benson@virgin.net

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