This is a WONDERFUL first person account about taking the PREP program

by way of a book review. Let's those of you who've never tried a marriage

education course see why we so heartily recommend them. Pascal, the

PREP instructor mentioned in the piece, is Pascal Lambert who

attended the past two Smart Marriages conferences and is also coming

to Orlando.  This year he's bringing 8 buddies - all the way from

Alaska.  The PREP program that this is about is being taught in

one of the training institutes.  Yep, that means YOU could be

a qualified PREP instructor by taking the 3-day training and

return home with all the materials ready to wow em in your community.

Anyone can take the training - you don't have to be a mental health

professional to qualify.



I'm also going to post this on the Articles and Information page along w/

several other first-person accounts. - diane

.............

Hi, 

I am a media critic for the website Epinions.com.  Under the pen name

"Grouch," I regularly review movies and books.  This past weekend, I had the

extreme pleasure of participating in a PREP workshop and, as a result, I

decided to write a review of "Fighting For Your Marriage" at the Epinions

website.  The review (which is also a testimonial of sorts) is called "How a

Refrigerator Magnet Saved My Marriage" and can be found at this URL:

http://www.epinions.com/content_19384602244.  I can only hope I've done this

outstanding program justice.

Sincerely, 

David Abrams

..............



How a Refrigerator Magnet Saved My Marriage

 by Grouch | Apr 24 '01



Pros: Gives couples specific tools to work on communication and

understanding 



Cons: Some couples won't even open the toolbox



The Bottom Line:  

This is the kind of clear, concise self-help book that will even appeal to

those who are allergic to "touchy-feely" pop psychology. Recommended: Yes





A refrigerator magnet saved my marriage.



Sounds like a supermarket tabloid headline, doesn¹t it? But, in my case,

it¹s true. A four-inch-square rubbery magnet printed with the words ³Speaker

Listener Technique² was the best thing to happen in my marriage in a long

time.



Maybe ³save² is the wrong word?³strengthen² is more like it.



I received the magnet when I went to a marriage enrichment class with Jean,

my wife of 17 years. The class was the first step in our journey through the

Prevention Relationship Enhancement Program.



The program is built around the principles outlined in Fighting For Your

Marriage, a 1994 book written by Howard Markman, Scott Stanley and Susan L.

Blumberg. Subtitled ³Positive Steps for Preventing Divorce and Preserving a

Lasting Love,² the book is like an owner¹s manual for marital bliss and

should be required reading for all couples. I say, put it in every honeymoon

suite at Niagara Falls and watch what happens.



Born out of research conducted at the University of Denver in the early

1990s, Fighting For Your Marriage helps couples establish ground rules for

communication (passing a magnet back and forth is just one wrench in this

toolbox). It includes the usual self-help buzzwords (commitment,

forgiveness, togetherness?and so on), but it livens things up with cartoons,

case studies, quizzes and practical exercises that both partners can take.

Even for guys like me who are allergic to self-help ³empowerment² books,

there¹s something to glean from these pages.



And for me, the book¹s lessons were magnified during our weekend marriage

retreat. Even though I¹ll be discussing a particular place at a particular

time, you¹ll get much of the same benefit just by reading Fighting For Your

Marriage.



For Jean and me, PREP (as in ³prepare to improve your marriage²) culminated

in a weekend retreat at Alaska¹s Seward Resort, a cozy camp nestled in a

grove of pine trees. Two miles down the road is the equally-cozy town of

Seward, best known for its halibut fishing charters in the summer and the

legendary Polar Bear Jump where brave-hearted souls leap into the icy waters

of Resurrection Bay in mid-January.



And now, my wife and I were about to take the plunge into the dark, frigid

waters of communication, emotional intimacy, conflict resolution?and other

touchy-feely topics normally reserved for Oprah episodes. I was both scared

and perversely excited at the thought of diving into those ice-cube areas of

our marriage.



I realize not everyone can come to Alaska and duplicate the experience I had

this past weekend?for some people, that¹s the same as saying, ³Pack your

bags, Ethel! We¹re going to Oz!² But you don¹t need to come north to the

49th state to tap into the marrow of your marriage. Surely there are plenty

of family advocacy resources in your community. Check the yellow pages, call

up your local clergy, go scouting on the Internet?whatever. Just do

something. If you feel like you¹re treading water (or, worse, drowning) in

your relationship, and if you think that relationship is worth saving, then

you owe it to yourself to get off your butt and start looking for

assistance. Buying this book is a good first step. Reading the first

sentence in the book (³Good marriages take work²) is a good second step.

Remember, this is coming from a man who sat idle on his butt for 17 years.



The phrase ³marriage retreat² is actually a misnomer. You¹re running toward

something, not away from it. Granted, there is the fact that you¹re ³getting

away from it all² for a few days. In our case, ³it² meant three teenage

children, the always-on television, and the click-and-whir of the Internet.

Jean and I ³deserved a break today.² And so, we ³retreated² to a quieter

corner of Alaska.



Seward¹s landscape comes complete with aqua-blue glaciers, seals bobbing in

the harbor and moose munching willows along the side of the road. All those

gorgeous sights surrounded us during our three days in south-central

Alaska?but they were strictly in my peripheral vision. Corny as it may

sound, I only had eyes for my wife. I was there to concentrate on learning

better communication skills (I can write until the cows come home, but when

it comes to verbal expression, I¹m completely tongue-tied), and by gum the

Kodak moments outside the resort windows could just wait until I learned

those skills.



Most couples, when they hear the words ³prevention² or ³enrichment,²

immediately think of marriages that are at the crisis stage. Not so with

Jean and me.



We¹re a happily-married couple whose relationship has the typical bumps and

thumps of modern life: she says I spent too much time on the Internet, I say

she watches too much TV; she gets jealous and paranoid when I go away on

business trips, I cannot understand why she doesn¹t trust my feelings for

her; she likes Ricky Martin, I like opera. It¹s a typical marriage: a little

bit Ozzie and Harriet, a little bit Waltons, a little bit Simpsons.



We¹d come a long way since our first date when we went to see Flashdance

back in 1983. We¹ve had ups and plenty of downs, but mostly it¹s been the

day-to-day in-betweens?you know, the kind of life that just keeps throbbing

along like an outboard motor. Lately, our relationship was starting to make

a strange sputtering sound. When I got home from work, my wife would be all

ready to start talking about her day, a day mostly spent cooped up in our

Army family housing quarters. My mind spinning like a carnival Tilt-o-Whirl

with my own day¹s activities, I¹d make empathetic sounds, my head bobbing up

and down like one of those toy dogs you see in the back windows of cars. I

heard what she said, I just didn¹t always process the information.



Like the authors of Fighting For Your Marriage write: ³What starts out as a

relationship of great joy and promise can become the most frustrating and

painful endeavor in a person¹s lifetime.²



I realized it was time to take our marriage motor in for a tune-up.



And that¹s how Jean and I found ourselves passing a large refrigerator

magnet back and forth at Seward Resort.



Rules for the Speaker: don¹t mindread, keep statements brief. Rules for the

Listener: let the speaker talk, then paraphrase what you¹ve heard.



One partner holds the magnet and speaks, while the other person listens,

keeping their lips zipped and their ears cocked open. It¹s a simple tool,

but one that¹s as powerful as a hand grenade. I found myself paying

attention?really paying attention?to every word dropping from Jean¹s lips.

Listening, then repeating, helped me focus on what she was saying; for her

part, the technique reassured her that I was absorbing her words like a

sponge.



We came to Seward Resort with a dozen other couples, all of them there in

the glacial shadow of Mount Marathon to roll up their sleeves, spit on their

hands, and get down to work. The marriages ranged from one month (an

all-too-giddy couple) to 17 years (us). Every one of these relationships had

different expectations, different goals. Some wives wanted husbands to be

more involved in family activities; some husbands wished their wives would

learn how to accept compliments.



All of us wanted to identify and deal with conflicts, none of us wanted to

end up a statistic (according to the latest, albeit fuzzy, figures: 50

percent of first marriages, and 70 percent of second marriages, end in

divorce).



³Verbalize your expectations,² said Karen, one of the retreat facilitators.

³Unmet expectations are the number-one conflict in marriages,² she added.



In the book, the authors write: 1. Be aware of what you expect 2. Be

reasonable in what you expect 3. Be clear in what you expect



Now it was my wife¹s turn to nod her head in understanding. By the way, my

pet nickname for her is ³Mindreader² (as in, Me: ³How was I to know that you

needed me to pick up some more Sure I¹m Dry deodorant while I was at the

grocery store?² Her: ³I just figured you noticed that I was out and I

expected you to buy some for me. Sheesh!²).



Later, Pascal?another of the retreat facilitators?explained how one partner

(usually the wife) pursues, while the other spouse avoids or withdraws from

conflict.



³Getting him to talk to me is difficult sometimes,² said one wife sitting at

the tables grouped in a horseshoe. ³He¹ll tell me about his day and I¹ll

tell him about mine, but sometimes it seems like we¹re talking in foreign

languages. How do I get him to open up?²



>From where he sat next to her, arms crossed and head bobbing like a

rear-window doggie, the husband said, ³It¹s definitely something we need to

work on.²



They¹re not alone. According to Fighting For Your Marriage, ³Many couples do

this kind of dance when it comes to dealing with difficult issues.²



Among the many other topics of discussion at PREP are Resolving Religious

Conflicts, Intimacy Issues and something called ³Negative Communication and

Constructive Griping²?a class which, Pascal said, ³Helps us own our feelings

by being specific. If the other person knows how you feel, that¹s a

motivator for constructive communication.²



Recognizing there¹s a need for conflict resolution is the first step couples

attending a marriage retreat usually take. ³You have to realize it¹s no

longer 50-50 in a marriage?it¹s 100-100,² Pascal told our group just before

we broke into pairs to work on practical exercises?questionnaires which

required them to answer and discuss hot-button issues: ³During problem

discussions, my stomach often feels as if it¹s all tied up in knots² (True,

I scribbled), ³I often sit and stare at my partner, not saying anything²

(True, I jotted, then peeked at Jean¹s paper?she, of course, had marked

False for that one).



If nothing else, after a weekend retreat like this or reading a book like

Fighting For Your Marriage, you¹ll know exactly how to rate your

relationship on a scale of one to 10.



PREP is designed to get couples talking to one another. Men and women who

entered the room in the morning barely looking at each other are, by the end

of the second break, chattering with the romantic energy of high school

sweethearts.



The retreat also gives husbands and wives plenty of time for walks along the

beach or an intimate dinner at one of the harbor-front restaurants (I highly

recommend the Chocolate Praline Fantasy at Ray¹s). For many hard-working

couples, it¹s a much-needed second honeymoon. I¹d always promised Jean I¹d

take her to Paris?but now we realized Seward, Alaska would have to do.



And a curious thing started happening between the Mindreader and the Stoic

during this weekend: we really started to hone in on each other. Away from

the buzzing distractions of our everyday world, we found ourselves looking

deeper into each other's eyes and really hanging on every word of every

conversation. If this was a romantic movie, this is where they'd start

playing the sappy music.



³Your relationship will never be the same as it was before you came down

here this weekend,² Karen said as PREP came to a close.



Every time I pass our refrigerator and see that big magnet, I¹m inclined to

agree with her.



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