Hint of the Month and News Update - May, 2006
Past Hints
 
Couple-to-Couple Mentoring for Weak Marriages

A recent study in the USA has shown that couples with strong marriages may be able to play a significant mentoring role for less satisfied couples and become even stronger in the process. (McClurkan, J. S., The effect of couple-to-couple-mentoring on weak marriage relationships. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2003.)

Sixty married couples took the ENRICH inventory and were divided into three groups: mentors who had strong marriages, distressed couples who wanted to be mentored, and a control group. The marriage mentors were trained on the PREPARE/ENRICH Program and used the ENRICH Couple Inventory and feedback focusing on 7 topics: communication, conflict resolution, finances, family of origin, children and parenting, sexuality, and goals.

The Mentor couples all had a “Vitalized” marriage and were paired with another distressed couple who had a “Conflicted” or “Devitalized” marriage. Pre and post-testing using ENRICH demonstrated significant improvements in the distressed couples. No change was made in the 22 couples in the Control group.

While five couples moved up two couple types (toward being Vitalized), two couples moved up one type. Even though the Mentor couples were classified on ENRICH as “Vitalized” (highest quality of marriage), they still improved their marriage significantly on six major areas: communication, conflict resolution, personality compatibility, roles, parenting and family/friends. 

These results demonstrate that strong mentor couples can strengthen their own relationship as they positively impact the marriages of the couples with whom they work.
 
 Past Hints  Last Month :  The Importance of Mutual Goodwill. 
 
News Update:  

    PROCESSING FEE INCREASED FROM FEBRUARY 1st 2006  
    As announced in the December 2005 Newsletter, we have reluctantly increased the cost of processing to $44 (including GST) from February 1st next year. This is the first increase in the base cost of processing since 1999.  The $35 processing charge was set then and the GST added to this in June 2000, taking the GST inclusive charge to $38.50. Between June 1999 and June 2005, our net costs have increased by almost 15% due to constant increases in the expenses associated largely with wages, printing and postage. Our aim is to maintain the new processing charge for a lengthy period of time (as we have done before). We always aimed to make the processing cost comparable to that of a modest meal for a couple – we feel sure that $44 (for a couple) is still well and truly within those limits. 
     
    The December 2005 issue of the Newsletter, the Prepare Diary, is available on this web site: To read, click on:  December 2005 Diary    The next newsletter will be posted in mid-June.