| MAIN ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE • UPDATE: THE
NEW CUSTOMIZED VERSION
• USERS OF THE CUSTOMIZED VERSION - SOME HELPFUL HINTS • MARRIAGE MAINTENANCE: MEETING NEEDS, STAYING IN LOVE • ARE COUPLES
WHO ATTEND MARRIAGE
EDUCATION PROGRAMS ALL HAPPY?
UPDATE: THE NEW CUSTOMIZED VERSION As we noted in the previous newsletter, Prepare-Enrich: The Customized Version the new online version of the Prepare-Enrich materials was launched mid-September 2009. To date, over 1,300 Australian couples have experienced the new version and the feedback from couples and Administrators has been highly favourable. The feedback is very similar to that reported in the USA after the Customized Version was introduced early in 2009: • It is very
easy to
navigate and use online and the customization process is very helpful
• The
Facilitator's Report is more detailed and yet
easier to read
• The new Couple's Report is a very helpful resource • The Couple's Workbook with over 20 exercises is an excellent resource The Australian version has been tailor-made for local use. The new version is only available online. Instead of the five versions we have in the previous hard copy Version 2000, we now have the potential for, literally, many hundred versions of PREPARE-ENRICH. The Customized Version is based on background questions the couple answers about their relationship. The first main category is the stage of their relationship - whether they are dating, engaged or married. Additional questions relate to their age, cultural and religious differences and whether there are children involved in the relationship. Depending on the answers to these questions the Customized Version creates the most relevant variety of scales for a particular couple. The Australian National Office will continue to provide local customer service, and website and training resources, as well as maintaining regular Version 2000 processing. The staff profile is unchanged. It is our intention that Version 2000 will continue to be available for up to three years (until late 2012) as long as demand warrants this. Those trained in Version 2000 may use either the Customized Version or Version 2000 during that period, the choice depending on your preference for a particular couple. Please remember to use your Version 2000 Administrator code and the appropriate Version 2000 couple number if you are administering Version 2000. All current Version 2000 Administrators have had an account set up so they can begin using the Customized Version. Please note that this does not include your email address, so you need to enter and confirm it when you first log in. Until you do this you will not receive any notifications of your couples having completed the inventory online. If you have not already done so you may download a free Transition Manual that will provide more detail and help you in the process from our website at: USERS OF THE CUSTOMIZED VERSION - SOME HELPFUL HINTS Frequently Asked Questions Sheet A link for a downloadable PDF file with FAQ and answers may be found on the login page for the Customized Version. We urge you to make use of this resource. Customized Version Couple Workbook The CV Couple Workbook can be found as a downloadable PDF file once you are logged in. You can then print off the whole workbook, or just the pages you want to use. You can use colour or not and can save paper by printing 2 pages per sheet if your printer layout permits this. However, you may prefer to purchase hard copies of this book from the Australian Prepare Enrich office. The cost is $5.00 per book or $40.00 for 10 books. Please email or phone your order to us. E-mail Address – Customized Version Please ensure that you have entered your email address into your CV account (Facilitators who have completed CV training will not need to do this). To do this log into your account and from the Manage Couples page go to the email tab. If your email address is not listed you will be asked to enter and confirm this. You can also use this tab to alter your email address if necessary. Change of postal address Please email or phone the Australian Prepare Enrich office to notify change of address details. Please do not change your postal address via the USA Website. Always use the Australian website to access the Customized Version and our local resources. Drop-outs and crashes The system is set up so that responses are saved screen by screen and the responses are not totally lost if the internet falls out or the computer crashes when a person is quite a way into completing the questions. If they lose their connection they should login again and will be able to take up where they left off. If any answers have been lost (usually items on the screen when the crash occurred) they cannot be retreived, but they are usually few in number, so they should just continue on regardless. Changing answers Some couples have mentioned that they would like to be able to go back and change an answer occasionally. With the previous paper and pencil version they could of course just erase an answer and enter a new one, but allowing complete review and alteration of over 200 answers would make the process too long and would encourage over-analysis (first reactions are usually more reliable than those made after too much rumination). Encourage couples to review their answers on the screen and be sure they are correct before they move on to the next screen of questions. Core Scale Scores The new Facilitator's Report provides, for the core scales, a 'satisfaction' histogram for each partner and provides a qualitative scale beside it ranging from very low to very high. For Version 2000 Administrators, these are the old 'revised scores' which in fact are percentile scores revised in accordance with the individual's idealistic distortion scores. Getting Help We have a number of ways of assisting you if you are unsure about administering the Prepare-Enrich materials: Version 2000 Administrators using the CV should first check the Transition Manual and FAQ Sheet on our website before contacting us as the answer to your question is very likely to be there. Newly trained Customized Version Facilitators should also use the down-loadable FAQ Sheet - this is available on the Administrators/Facilitators webpage. Don't forget that you have a CV Manual on CD and that you may use the find function in Adobe to search for words or phrases in that manual. Please use these methods first. If you still have any problems... All Version 2000 enquiries:
Call us on 02 9545 4566 or email
us on info@prepare-enrich.com.au
Customized Version enquiries:
Log-in problems and general
issues: Call us in Australia on 02 9545 4566 or email us on
info@prepare-enrich.com.au
Problems with on-line processing after logging in: You may use the HELP tab that is available to email the international office directly. Please include your details and any couple details that are necessary. MARRIAGE MAINTENANCE: MEETING NEEDS, STAYING IN LOVE A Book Review by John Wheeler (PREPARE-ENRICH Trainer and Facilitator). Couples meet, fall in love, come to feel they cannot live without each other, and so decide to marry or co-habit. Sooner or later, whether married in church or on a beach, around four out of ten fall out of love and decide to divorce or separate. What makes the difference? Why are some couples able to ride out the storms and enjoy the voyage for a lifetime but others make shipwreck? His needs, Her needs: building an affair-proof marriage by Willard Harley, Jr., (Revell, 15th anniversary edn, 2001), a book that has sold a million copies since its first edition, confidently claims to have the answer. Harley believes that both men and women have a small number of basic emotional needs they seek to have met by marriage. During our dating days we largely meet each other’s needs – or break up. The key to a stable relationship is that somehow, through negotiation, good will and the exercise of communication and conflict resolution skills we continue to meet each other’s basic needs. The author first introduces the now well-recognised concept of mental Love Banks: Everyone we meet and interact with either deposits or withdraws units in the account they hold in our Bank. Pleasurable interactions cause deposits, and hurtful interactions cause withdrawals. Dating couples build up substantial deposits with each other, diminished only occasionally by disappointments or disagreements. Incidentally John Gottman considers that it takes five positive deposits to counter one negative interaction. (See e.g. his The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Orion, 1999). It is a principle of psychology that learned associations trigger most of our emotional reactions. “For example, if you flash the colour blue along with an electric shock, and the colour red with a soothing back rub, eventually the colour blue will tend to upset you and the colour red will tend to relax you”. Harley postulated that if someone were to be present often enough when one was feeling particularly good, the person’s presence might be enough to trigger that good feeling. This good feeling is something we have come to know as the feeling of love. He considers this feeling is absolutely essential for a fulfilling, sustainable, affair-proof marriage: We feel happy when our needs are met; so mutually discovering our partner’s needs and substantially meeting them makes us happy and keeps us in love. Acquiring and using communication and conflict resolution skills are important in marriage but maintaining the feeling of love by meeting each other’s needs is even more important. Harley gives chapters on each of what he sees as the ten basic emotional needs (see table, abstracted from pp187 – 194.). Some of the ten could be seen as alternative statements of Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages (Northfield 1995). Some might argue too that most of the ten would be met by the simple biblical instruction (Ephesians 5:33) to husbands to love their wives and wives to respect their husbands. Try to work out what your top five needs are, then get your partner independently to assess and list theirs. There may be little or no overlap. Distinguish carefully between your real needs and things you simply like your spouse to provide, to be or to say. Your most common fantasies, the author claims, are a good indicator of your most important needs. The sub-headings of the chapters may imply some gender bias or at least pre-conceptions as to which needs are primarily those of men and which are those of women. However this is not evident in the text. E.g. Harley notes that although a need for sex is usually much more characteristic of men it is also a strong need for some women. Similarly the need for conversation is very common with women but some men have this as a primary need too. There is a good practical chapter, based on his decades of counselling experience, on how to survive an affair. In keeping with the book’s sub-title, every chapter on a need contains a detailed anecdote or case study demonstrating how affairs develop inexorably through a third person meeting a long unfulfilled need or two, building a big Love Bank account and ending in bed. Appendix A provides a detailed questionnaire designed to determine your most important emotional needs and evaluate your spouse’s effectiveness in meeting them. Overall it’s a very useful book for couples to read and discuss gently and openly together.
Thank you John Wheeler, for making this resource available to this Newsletter. ARE COUPLES WHO ATTEND MARRIAGE EDUCATION PROGRAMS ALL HAPPY? It is ofen argued that couples who choose to attend marriage education programs are mostly very happy and not many distressed couples attend. This is sometimes regarded as indicative of a failure to include the very couples who will be most likely to benefit from marriage education. This assumption has been tested with 129 married couples who enrolled in marriage education courses in the USA (DeMaria, 2005). Using the ENRICH couple assessment, it was found that 59% of the couples were "Devitalized" and 34% were "Conflicted", These are the two most unhappy and distressed couple types. This surprising finding suggests that highly distressed married couples may be more common among those who seek marriage education programs than we assume . It is clear that the majority of these couples were distressed. In Australia, it is also our experience that many couples participating in the PREPARE premarital program are already experiencing some distress. In a study of premarital couples, 31.1% of the sample was identified as being conflicted (Craddock, 2004). References: Craddock, A. (2004). Origins: Family Experiences of Premarital Couples. Sydney, Hillfort Resources. DeMaria, R. (2005). Distressed Couples and Marriage Education. Family Relations, 54, 252–253. MAREAA: NEW WEBSITE Marriage and Relationship Education is an adult education activity designed to inform and enrich relationships and individuals. Members of MAREAA (Marriage and Relationship Educators’ Association of Australia) facilitate programs for individuals, couples, families and groups of all ages. Programs may include preparation for marriage, skills for strengthening relationships, school programs, parenting, stepfamilies, men’s issues, workplace relationships, personal development, conflict management, rebuilding after separation or divorce. MAREAA is a body of enthusiastic, dynamic, creative group of educators. They are committed to encouraging and equipping people to achieve fulfilling relationships. MAREAA aims to support educators in their ongoing professional development through networking, in-service training opportunities, conferences, sharing of resources plus much more. MAREAA has active members in most states and territories, For more information about MAREAA see the website at: CONFLICTED COUPLES - AN AUSTRALIAN RESOURCE STUDY As shown in the previous article, there can be little doubt that the experience of family of origin is an important area for investigation among couples taking PREPARE. A booklet by Dr Alan Craddock (National Coordinator of PREPARE-ENRICH Australia and Honorary Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology, The University of Sydney) has been written solely for PREPARE-ENRICH Administrators. This booklet is entitled Origins: Family Experiences of premarital Couples and has three main aims: 1. To identify the different types of premarital couples in a large national sample of Australian couples participating in the PREPARE program. In particular, the aim is to identify and explore the main differences between highly satisfied (vitalised) and more troubled (conflicted) premarital couples. 2. To examine the differences in family background of vitalised versus conflicted premarital couples in the National sample. Of major interest is any link between negative experiences within family of origin in the past (separateness, rigidity and exposure to abuse) and present difficulties in couple relationship. 3. To explore the practical implications of these findings, particularly when working with conflicted premarital couples. General strategies for working with conflicted couples are also described. The study represents the drawing together of trends and patterns identified in the data from over 500 Australian PREPARE couples, with a view to identifying areas for work with conflicted premarital couples. These areas for work are not based on biased speculation but are identified by means of careful investigation of the research data. An addendum is included in which the relevance of this material (the study is based on Version 2000 data) to the new Customized Version is described. The cost is only $12 and this includes postage and GST. To order this booklet call (02) 9545 4566 or email us at info@prepare-enrich.com.au ENCOURAGING NEW FACILITATORS Please let your colleagues know about PREPARE-ENRICH and tell them about our website (www.prepare-enrich.com.au). On that site they can read information about all the Customized Version materials and resources. By clicking on the training link on the Facilitators/Administrators' homepage, they can locate a Customized Version workshop or find contact details for a Trainer in their area. PLEASE MAKE USE OF OUR HINTS ON THE WEB We are strongly committed to helping you to work as competently as possible with the PREPARE-ENRICH materials. Periodically, we place a brief (usually one page) article focusing on a matter or theme that is likely to be helpful to PREPARE-ENRICH administrators/facilitators. Sometimes this is a brief summary of relevant research, sometimes a practical suggestion, and sometimes a way of thinking about couples' issues. It is good to get into the habit of reading these hints. The current hint can be accessed from the Administrators' main page, and an archive of all the previous hints posted is at: Any updated news items are also included. |
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| Editor: Dr. Alan Craddock, National Coordinator of Prepare-Enrich (Australia). |