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©2004 The Marriage Transformation Newsletter
Empowering people to create happy, lasting, spiritually-based
marriages—the foundation of a prosperous, unified world
Empowering people to create happy, lasting, spiritually-based
marriages—the foundation of a prosperous, unified world
| February 2005 |
Volume 2, Issue 2 |
© 2005
Marriage Transformation LLC
Y Y Y Y Y
Sales Letters:
Useful or Intrusive?
Helping Your Community Through Marriage Education
Listserves/
Newsletter Subscriptions
Featured
Item
Fun & Witty Booklet!
Excellent tool for counselors and therapists to give clients -- buy in bulk at a discount today!
Makes a great companion to Pure Gold!
"This should be on
every
married couple's bedside table as great
bedtime reading..."
~ Diane Sollee,
Founder and Director of smartmarriages.com
Tips for Success:
Choose two or three qualities in the book before being intimate, and practice them together!
Watch for two new books coming this spring, one for married couples and one for singles!
The Marriage Transformation Project is a global social and economic development project committed to marriage education and marriage skill building for people at all stages of relationships. In addition to our own independent work in developing materials, we draw on the work of marriage researchers and experts. We also derive part of our inspiration and content from the teachings of the world's religions. These include the following faiths: Baha'i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, and Zoroastrian.
Note: Check Out Our New Workshops! From Susanne Alexander and Craig Farnsworth Dear Friends: Marriage Education supports the marriages of couples as they go through many of life's transitions. Few transitions are as challenging to a marriage as planning for, giving birth to, and raising young children. While every couple does not experience marital issues related to having children, many do. Once the discussion begins about having a baby, couples begin to wonder if they have a marriage strong enough to last through the life of the child. Sometimes they separate or divorce before getting pregnant. Other couples find the physical and emotional changes of pregnancy together with the impending responsibility of parenthood a significant challenge. Yet, others find they are so exhausted after the birth of a baby, and the baby demands so much time from the mother, that intimacy and closeness suffers. It's vital to get assistance at all these stages. One of the primary purposes of marriage is having children, and research is clearly demonstrating that the best place to raise children is within a happy and stable marriage. It is, therefore, a tragedy for children to then be part of what causes a marriage to be in trouble. The good news is that there are beginning to be more resources to support couples. Parent training, marriage training, and special programs, such as "Bringing Baby Home" offered by the Gottman Institute, www.gottman.com/parenting. We honor the many pregnant and young parents who recently attended our first marriage retreat in Maine--a great investment in their families. See our book recommendations below in The Reading Room for three excellent ones to support marriage and parenting together. One of the key points made in these books is that couples need time together to keep love alive, apart from their babies and young children. Trusted grandparents, friends, babysitters, or neighbors can all help out parents. The strength of the marriage is vital to support the wellbeing of the children. The wellbeing of families supports the wellbeing of communities. What are you doing to support the parents you know? Love,
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Love Note: We have had a wonderful abundance of people volunteering and assisting the Marriage Transformation Project over the last few weeks. We want you to know that we appreciate each of you with overflowing hearts! Flat Note: Over the last few weeks, we have also had an abundance of computer, Internet, and email challenges, combined with trying to get two books off to the printer. If you have not heard from us, please forgive us. If you urgently need a reply, please remind us. Keeping up with email, especially when there are technical problems is always a challenge, but we do our best.
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MARK YOUR CALENDAR AND PLAN TO ATTEND! Consider how extraordinary your relationship and marriage could be if authors and top marriage researchers, such as Howard Markman, John Gottman, Pat Love, John Gray, and dozens more shared valuable knowledge with you about strengthening your marriage. Think what a difference you might make in your community if you were trained and could offer marriage education classes. The Smart Marriages Conference, held June 23-26, 2005 in Dallas, Texas, brings you over 200 marriage and family experts, over 140 courses to attend, and 2,000 attendees to network with. You will learn the latest ideas in the field of marriage and family education and explore practical ways to strengthen marriage and prevent family breakdown. Pre- and Post-Conference training sessions in the days before and after the conference provide marriage educator training and certification opportunities. We are encouraging as many people as possible to participate in this great opportunity! This is especially vital for anyone wishing to be a marriage educator for their community. For those students interested in volunteering and attending the entire conference on a work-exchange, please contact conference director Diane Sollee at diane@smartmarriages.com for an application. Pre- and Post-conference institutes volunteer opportunities are also available. For more details, visit www.smartmarriages.com today! Registration is now open!! If you want a conference brochure mailed to you, contact Smart Marriages.
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Sales Letters: Useful or Intrusive? Our work in the marriage field and publishing books that assist couples maintain healthy, happy marriages has become a labor of love for us. We are so encouraged as marriage preparation and marriage enrichment becomes a vital part of lives like yours. With this in mind, your time and respect is equally important. Recently, we received a few comments from people on our newsletter and mailing list that our book promotions are crossing that fine line between being helpful and informative to being intrusive. We definitely don't want unhappy people in response to our mailings. Some explanation might assist you to better understand our position. We are an independent company and an interfaith social and economic development project. We are encouraging everyone connected to our project to build their libraries of reference books that support relationships/marriages and reduce divorce, so we are starting to offer both our books and recommended others at a discount. At this point as well, the majority of our income for the project is coming from book sales. We love our distributors...and we give them a 50% or more discount off the retail price, so sales directly with us provide more income to keep us going. Book sales are still not enough to cover expenses, and we are beginning to open up other income streams (expanding our workshops and writing articles). Our parents have been generously subsidizing publication of the project's books and some of our legal and startup expenses, and Susanne has stopped doing other work to focus fulltime on the project. So, we still have some work to do on the financial front. While book sales are vital to our company, so are you. We invite you to share your opinions and thoughts with us about any concerns you have and how effective (or ineffective!) our promotions are by contacting Joyce Ashman and Susanne Alexander at staff@marriagetransformation.com. NOTE: Many of you who write in to us at the Staff email have been interacting with Joyce Ashman. Joyce, who joined our team in June 2003, is a part-time contractor who handles a wide variety of tasks for us: customer service, book shipments, book cover design, website maintenance, editing, writing, newsletter, marketing, and more. She has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Bowling Green University. She is a member and Sunday School teacher at one of the local Methodist churches. She also provides us with input on the reality of being single!
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Helping Your Community Through Marriage Education How many times in your life have you wanted to help a friend, a family member, or a neighbor when they tell you they are struggling with how to choose a mate, experiencing challenges in their marriage, or are getting divorced. You want to ease their pain, do something proactive, and be supportive but don't know how. Marriage Education is a great access to help your friends, your family, and people in your community! We recently added information on how to become a marriage educator to our website: |
Workshops in the News
For more information or to register online, visit our Cleveland Workshop page or call 216-383-9943! Hurry--space is limited to 20 people, advance registration is required, and the registration deadline is April 5! $50/person; $85 per couple, all materials and books included. Snacks and drinks provided. Y Y Y Marriage Preparation and Marriage Workshops One day workshop for married couples and one day for singles
One day for married couples and one day for singles is likely; under discussion.
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Happily Married With Kids: It's Not a Fairy Tale This excellent book combines great practical parenting advice with expert advice for maintaining your marriage. It is a "must have" for expecting parents and those with young children. The author gives you the practical wisdom gleaned from her own parenting experiences and counseling practice that will preserve your partnership. It is filled with solutions.
His Needs Her Needs for Parents: Keeping Romance Alive Dr. Harley provides detailed guidance to couples for maintaining marriage as the support for children. His commitment is having couples avoid actions that result in "love busting." He includes practical parenting advice as well.
Becoming Parents: This book on marriage is from the researchers at the University of Denver who founded PREP, Inc., a marriage education company. The main focus is on your marriage, and less on parenting.
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... Check out our new recommended resources and books!
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Listserves At our recent conferences, many people expressed interest in becoming marriage educators. In response, we created a new listserve for anyone wanting to learn more or become involved in marriage education! Join today and help transform marriages! MarriageTransformationEducator-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com Get the latest news about marriage and The Marriage Transformation Project as it happens! Join our announcement listserve today! MarriageTransformation-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com Did a friend forward this newsletter to you and now you want to receive your own copy each month in your email inbox? To sign up for this newsletter, go to our home page, www.marriagetransformation.com, and register in the "Newsletter Sign Up" box!
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Marriage Transformation™ Project
P.O. Box 23085
(216) 383-9943
P.O. Box 23085
www.marriagetransformation.com
Newsletter content
by Susanne Alexander and
Joyce Ashman
Newsletter Layout
and Design
by Joyce Ashman
by Susanne Alexander
Joyce Ashman
and Design
by Joyce Ashman