© 2007
Marriage Transformation LLC
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Note: Marriage Transformation is a trademarked term, and the project logo is copyrighted and trademarked. It may not be used for any purpose other than representing the Marriage Transformation Project and Marriage Transformation LLC.
Featured Products
Marriage Can Be Forever
Preparation Counts
A workbook based on the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith that will first guide your own heart, mind, and soul along the path of self-discovery. Then, it prepares you as a couple through the friendship, courting, parental consent, and engagement processes that lead to marriage.
Can We Dance? Learning the Steps for a Fulfilling Relationship
Represents a revolutionary approach to preparing for, seeking, and being in a relationship. This is a tool for individuals of all faiths or none to use in preparing for a character-based and friendship-filled relationship.
Pure Gold:
Encouraging
Character Qualities
in Marriage
Discover how character qualities such as trustworthiness, loyalty, truthfulness, and courage can transform your marriage and enrich your communication skills! Includes interfaith quotations..
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NOTE:
We are happy to work with anyone setting up group study sessions with our books. We provide book discounts, coaching for facilitators, and often handouts.
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Watch our short inspirational movie here! (2 min, 30 sec)
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The Marriage Transformation Project is a global social and economic development project committed to relationship and marriage education and skill building for people at all stages of relationships. In addition to our own independent work in developing materials, with a strong focus on character and communications, we draw on many sources. These include the work of marriage researchers, psychologists, philosophers, traditional wisdom, authors, and spiritual sources. These spiritual sources include the following world's religions: Bahá'í Faith, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism.
Click here for further
project information.
Marriage Transformation™ Project
P.O. Box 23085
Cleveland, OH 44123 USA
Phone: 800-501-6682 or
(216) 383-9943
www.marriagetransformation.com
Newsletter Layout
and Design
by Joyce Ashman
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Marriage Transformation Project Message:
Meeting Emotional Needs
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
As we create a relationship with another person and then move into courtship, engagement, and marriage, we often make choices based on whether our partner or spouse is meeting our primary emotional needs. If our needsfor affection, time together, and moreare fulfilled, we are likely to choose to stay together happily. If our needs are not being met, we may consciously or unconsciously seek someone else to fulfill them.
While no one person can meet all of our needs, it is reasonable to expect a partner/spouse to meet most of them. However, to do so requires that you each understand what they are. It is wise to explore this topic and identify the following before marriage and commit to meet one another's needs:
- Our own needs
- The needs of our partner/spouse
- Whether we can effectively communicate our own needs
- Whether we are prepared to meet the needs of our partner/spouse
- Whether our partner/spouse is willing and capable of meeting our needs
At any point in a marriage, it is also smart to re-assess your needs and what to do differently to ensure you meet them. Consistently unmet needs at any relationship stage can result in significant unhappiness and potentially infidelity. Author Willard F. Harley, Jr. says that often men and women have almost totally opposite needs. If you assume your partner has the same ones as you, and you work to meet those, then you may then have a serious disconnect in your relationship.
Harley has counseled couples for decades with strategies aimed at restoring love to the marriage. Below is a chart based on his work that will assist you in assessing your top five needs. Once you have that knowledge, we encourage you to read his books to learn more about them and how to meet them in one another.
EMOTIONAL NEEDS
(Material adapted from Willard F. Harley, Jr., His Needs Her Needs:
Building an Affair-Proof Marriage , www.marriagebuilders.com)
Instructions: Using the list below, and any other items you want to add to the list, rate your top 5 answers to the following question: What could your spouse do for you that would make you the happiest?
[Note: These may already be occurring.]
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Affection |
Showing love through words, cards, hugs, kisses, and courtesies; creating an environment that clearly and repeatedly expresses love.
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_____ |
Sexual Fulfillment |
A sexual relationship that brings out a predictably enjoyable sexual response in both of you that is frequent enough for both of you.
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_____ |
Conversation |
Talking about events of the day, feelings, and plans; avoiding angry or judgmental statements or dwelling on past mistakes; showing interest in your favorite topics of conversation; and giving you undivided attention.
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Recreational Companionship |
Developing interest in your favorite recreational activity; learning to be proficient in them; and joining you in those activities. [Note: This area may include religious activities.]
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_____ |
Honesty and Openness |
Revealing positive and negative feelings, events of the past, daily events, and plans for the future; not leaving you with a false impression; answering your questions truthfully.
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_____ |
Attractiveness of Spouse |
Keeping physically fit with diet and exercise; wearing hair, clothing, and (if female) makeup in a way that you find attractive and tasteful.
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_____ |
Financial Support |
Provision of the financial resources to house, feed, and clothe your family at a standard of living acceptable to you; avoiding travel and working hours that are unacceptable to you.
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_____ |
Domestic Support |
Creation of a home environment for you that offers a refuge from the stresses of life; managing the home and care of the children.
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_____ |
Family Commitment |
Scheduling sufficient time and energy for the moral and educational development of your children.
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_____ |
Admiration |
Respecting, valuing, and appreciating you; rarely critical; and expressing admiration to you clearly and often. |
We found Harley's work very informative and beneficial. Similarly, we recently had the joy of reading about the marriage of Madeleine L'Engle (author of A Wrinkle in Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet...). It struck us how beautifully she and her husband (actor Hugh Franklin) met each other's emotional needs and how compatible they were. She says, "Love of music, of sunsets and sea; a liking for the same kind of people; political opinions that are not radically divergent; a similar stance as we look at the stars and think of the marvelous strangeness of this universethese are what build a marriage. And it is never to be taken for granted." [Two-Part Invention, pp. 76-77]
Meeting your emotional needs and those of your partner/spouse takes attention, care, and commitment. To help prepare your mind and spirit, our Character Quality of the Month is caring.
Loving greetings,
Susanne and Craig,
Relationship and Marriage Coaches
p.s. If one of your emotional needs is for humor and fun together, please check out our new cartoon book below, A Perfectly Funny Marriage.
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The Reading Room
His Needs, Her Needs
Building an Affair-Proof Marriage
by Willard F. Harley, Jr.
This book takes you to the heart of the specific items to pay attention to in meeting each other's emotional needs and staying tuned to one another's hearts. As a relationship grows, you may become occupied with responsibilities and distractions and stop meeting each other's vital needs. The result is relationship destruction and affairs. Harley is focused on growing and restoring the bond of love between couples so that marriage can be something that lasts...happily. Includes worksheets.
Fleming H. Revell; ISBN 0-8007-5779-3, Hardcover, 219 pages
www.marriagebuilders.com
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Two-Part Invention
The Story of a Marriage
by Madeleine L'Engle
A delightful and insightful memoir of a relationship between L'Engle and her husband that is built on love and respect. See excerpts from the book below.
HarperSanFrancisco ; ISBN
978-0062505019, Paperback, 240 pages
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Character Quality of the Month: Caring
"When we care, we give sincere love, attention, consideration, and assistance to one another in a timely and appropriate way. Doing this shows that we value and honor each other’s well-being, needs, preferences, and feelings. We care deeply about one another, looking for ways to bring the other happiness. Keeping our marriage strong and vibrant is a priority in our lives. We do not assume that our actions would truly be caring to the other. Instead, we ask before acting. This helps our actions to be positive and meaningful in ways that we know the other appreciates. We notice when the other is going through a difficult time. We show we care by listening attentively and empathetically, and by giving encouragement and support to one another as needed."
~ Excerpt from Pure Gold: Encouraging Character Qualities in Marriage, p. 138
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New Book! A Perfectly Funny Marriage
A Humorous View of Creating a Successful Marriage
by Susanne M. Alexander and Insightful Cartoonists
Order Your Copy Today!
“This delightful book shows how the path to a splendid marriage can be both meaningful and fun! Every couple, from their first date to their 50th wedding anniversary, should have it
close at hand.”
~Scott Haltzman, MD
Author of The Secrets of Happily Married Men and
The Secrets of Happily Married Women (www.drscott.com)
Details: http://www.marriagetransformation.com/store_FunnyMarriage.htm
Take a fresh look at how to create a successful marriage with relationship and marriage coach Susanne M. Alexander and several insightful cartoonists. Bring fun and laughter to your marriage preparation process or to your marriage through reading and sharing this light-hearted perspective.
A Perfectly Funny Marriage will help you to explore the stages of self-discovery, friendship, relationship building, and marriage. It is ideal for singles to learn about relationships, married couples to lighten up their relationship, or groups to use for playful learning. Couples will enjoy this book as a great wedding or anniversary gift.
Note: This book does not contain inspirational quotations or explanatory text; each page contains a single statement about what helps to make a relationship or marriage successful followed by a cartoon related to the statement. See Sample Pages.
Product Details
ISBN: 978-0-9726893-9-7
Paperback: 72 pages
Size: 6.5" x 7"
Retail Price: $11.95 US
Publisher: Marriage Transformation LLC
Edition: First; June 2007
Pre-Publication Special!
Retail Price: $11.95
Pre-publication Sale Price: $9.95
(Will ship on arrival in early June)
Add to Shopping Cart
Express Checkout
or call 800-501-6682 or 216-383-9943
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The Creation of Marriage...
"I loved my children, but I hungered for adult conversation. One day after a rare evening alone I wrote [in my journal]: 'I keep thinking about the evening we had together last night, my darling husband, alone by candlelight and firelight, and the way we were able to talk. We are practically never alone together and this is a bad thing. No matter how much we love our children there are many things we cannot talk about in front of them, things that we need from time to time to say. Let us try to remember for their sakes as well as ours that every once in a while for our development we must be alone.'"
~ Madeleine L'Engle, Two-Part Invention, p. 156
"If we are not willing to fail we will never accomplish anything. All creative acts involve the risk of failure. Marriage is a terrible risk. So is having children. So is giving a performance in the theatre, or the writing of a book. Whenever something is completed successfully, then we must move on, and that is again to risk failure."
~ Madeleine L'Engle, Two-Part Invention, p. 173
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Upcoming Marriage Transformation Workshops
None currently scheduled. Please contact us if you are interested in sponsoring one.
Email susanne@marriagetransformation.com or watch this link for details: http://www.marriagetransformation.com/learning_workshops_upcoming.htm.
Smart Marriages & Happy Families Conference
We also encourage people to attend the annual Smart Marriages and Happy Families Conference, this year being held in Denver in late June, early July. See all the details at www.smartmarriages.com! We will have a booth there this year. Please stop by and say hello!
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How You Can Be in Action
Plan a fun, recreational activity together in the next two weeks that
prompts you to laugh and thoroughly enjoy being with one another!
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Media Coverage/Articles of Interest
How to Find a Marriage Counselor
http://www.hitchedmag.com/article.php?id=243
Take a No-Crying Approach to Resolving Workplace Conflicts
http://content.monster.com/articles/3493/18975/1/home.aspx?WT.mc_n=MNL000311
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Listserves/Newsletter Subscriptions
Join our listserves if you want to learn more or become involved in marriage education! Join today and help transform marriages!
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!
MarriageTransformationEducator-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Get the latest news about marriage and The Marriage Transformation Project as it happens! Join our announcement listserve today! >Index
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Please contact us at staff@marriagetransformation.com, 800-501-6682, or (216) 383-9943 if you have any questions or comments, requests for subject matter to be covered in the newsletter, need to change your email address, or want further information about the Marriage Transformation Project. If you wish to unsubscribe from this newsletter, please click on the link below.
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