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Going
Back to School: Marriage Eduction
For single parents,
married and remarried couples who are preparing
for their children to go back to
school, it may be the perfect time to think about
pursuing marriage education. With divorce rates
at 40-50% for
first marriages and 50-60% for second marriages,
marriage education may be a good thing to consider,
even if
you think things are going well in your relationship.
Smart Marriages, the non-profit coalition for
Marriage, Family, and Couples Education, Smart
Marriages,
contends that they finally know what’s different
about couples that stay happily married.
According
to Smart Marriages, “It’s not
that they are better matched, better looking, more
in love or more passionate. It’s not that they
have fewer differences or less to fight about…In
fact, successful couples have the same number of disagreements
as couples who divorce.” So what’s the
difference?
Drum roll, please. “The difference between successful
and unsuccessful couples is how they handle these differences.” Most
people who have been married are familiar with
the types of differences: finances, children, extended
family members, sex, household chores, etc. For
remarried
couples, their differences can be even more difficult
as they navigate through situations unique to stepfamilies.
Many
of us have learned behaviors which can be detrimental
to our relationships. New behaviors can be learned.
It takes skills and knowledge to make a relationship
work. Who among us hasn’t taken the time, money,
and energy to learn a new skill or gain new knowledge
related to work or a hobby? We take classes and
workshops in everything from childbirth, to cooking,
to financial
management, to physical well-being. Perhaps we
should put some of our resources into one of the
most important
things to us: our marriage. Or, for those divorced
parents who wish to remarry some day; what better
time to explore how to have a healthy marriage
than before
you remarry? As the saying goes, know thyself.
Secular
and religious-based marriage education is available
and there are programs that are tailored
for the various stages of life: dating, engaged,
divorced, widowed, cohabitating, stepfamilies,
parents of teens,
empty-nesters, etc. Check out Smart
Marriages to learn more about classes and training
available in your area. As Gloria Steinem said, “The
first problem for all of us, men and women, is
not to
learn, but unlearn. ”
Paula Bisacre, founder of Remarriage LLC, is the publisher
and executive editor of reMarriage
magazine that provides
practical solutions for the growing remarriage community.
She is a monthly columnist
on remarriage
in The Washington Times.
If you know someone who
is engaged , a great gift would be a 2 hour session
of pre-marriage financial
literacy with Carl Delmont. He will go over their
credit, help understand and improve their scores,
show how
to budget, explain the pros and cons of homeownership,
offer advice on what current accounts are good
and bad, etc. In today’s world, you need both incomes
to qualify. You also need credit scores of both borrowers.
Money and finances are one of the leading causes of
friction in marriages, so why not address these issues
now. This is one gift that should be on everyone’s
registry. Carl@freedmont.com and
mention pre-marriage in subject line.
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