A Safe Place
Becoming a Marriage Mentor
New beginnings are challenging, exhilarating, and often times hard. Engaged couples and newlyweds experience great joy and excitement, as well as surprises and pressures. Have you ever thought about how your experience as a married couple could help an engaged or newlywed couple?
In a caring effort to encourage and support these couples, OC Christian Counseling is beginning a marriage mentoring program. You might wonder, “What is marriage mentoring?” It is where a seasoned, healthy couple who has a strong marriage volunteers to walk alongside a new couple and to nurture and encourage them to build a thriving strong marriage.
Did you know that fewer than 35% of couples getting married today do any kind of premarital preparation? Forty percent of all divorces happen within the first 4 years of marriage. Marriage mentoring is proven to be of great value in helping couples get off to a good start in marriage.
Here are some comments from couples who have had marriage mentors:
“We feel so blessed to have a mentor couple, and most of all, to have them as friends. We’ll never be able to thank them enough for all that they’ve done.”
“Our mentor couple was warm and caring, which made it comfortable for us to share and learn more about ourselves.”
“We learned some very essential communication techniques that have significantly improved our relationship. We would recommend marriage mentoring to any couple whether they are engaged or newly married.”
Which couples make the best mentors? Mentor Couples have good marriages—not perfect or trouble-free marriages. Mentor Couples have experience in building a life-long partnership and are willing to share their efforts—not couples who are professional counselors or marriage experts. Mentor Couples are warm, genuine, approachable, and empathetic. Mentor Couples have a desire to support couples who are navigating new beginnings.
We invite you to attend an informational meeting about this new and vital marriage mentoring program. By attending, you will not be committing, you will be merely learning and asking questions. Please plan to attend one of the two information sessions offered:
| Date: January 30, 2010 Day: Saturday Time: 10:30 am – 12:00 pm Location: Garden Grove Office Cost: FREE |
Date: February 3, 2010 Day: Wednesday Time: 6:00 – 7:30 pm Location: Garden Grove Office Cost: FREE |
We hope you will join us. Just click here or call 800-705-6223 to reserve your place.
Sincerely,
Dr. Debi Smith, Executive Director
OC Christian Counseling
Questions? Call 800-705-6223
We’re here to help.
A Brief Lesson in Empathy
Filed under: Communication, Emotions, Female Point of View, Male Point of View
Q & A: Why Don’t I Ask for Help?
Question: Hi. This is Daniel. Why do men, including myself, continue time after time to take any situation into their own hands and try to solve problems through trial and error and, after failing, then we get emotional and frustrated?
Answer: Thanks for your question, Daniel. It’s an important one! I’ll start with an illustration:
Have you ever watched kids playing in the sand at the beach? Little Annie is having fun with her favorite pail and shovel while her mother watches from a few feet away. Another child, about Annie’s age, comes along and watches for a few moments, then grabs Annie’s shovel. Her mother immediately takes action! She retrieves the toy and promptly returns it to her daughter, comforting her little girl with a hug and scolding the other child as she does so.
What did Annie learn? She learned that others will be there to help her, to take care of her. She feels valued, though she won’t be able to express it quite that way. She feels secure.
A few yards away on the same the beach, little Tommy is building a sandcastle while his mother is reading a book nearby. Another child, about Tommy’s age, comes along and watches for a few moments, then tromps on Tommy’s castle, smashing it flat and destroying his work in a matter of seconds. Tommy’s mother turns her attention toward her son, but she doesn’t move. Tommy starts to whimper and immediately looks toward his mom, but she makes sure he doesn’t notice she’s watching. She waits. The other child walks away, and Tommy again looks toward his mom. She has already turned her focus back to her reading. So Tommy goes back to rebuilding his castle.
What did Tommy learn? No one is going to help you. You feelings don’t matter. You have to figure stuff out on your own.
Now repeat those themes over and over for 10 or 20 years. In what ways do women and men respond differently to problems?
Generally speaking, women turn to others to help them process and understand life’s difficulites. They want to be comforted and understood, and they believe they will be able to find the help they need…or at least that they have the right to ask for it.
Men, on the other hand, have be taught (socialized) that they must figure things out on their own. The thought of asking for help feels weak and unmanly.
Even so, men are not omnipotent (all powerful). They cannot solve everything on their own. They’re human, and they have feelings: strong feelings they frequently have to bottle up. They handle the difficulty for a while, but when it doesn’t get resolved, the emotional pressure reaches explosion level. Then others shame them and tell them they have “anger issues.” Who wouldn’t? They’re trapped: Don’t ask for help. Don’t get emotional. Don’t be weak.
It’s a tough row to hoe.
Your Knight in Shining Armor
Filed under: Male Point of View, Marriage, Relationship Patterns
Don’t you just love Medieval Stories? Stories about the Knight in Shining Armor who comes to the aid of the Damsel in Distress. We forget he’s wearing a lot of heavy gear to protect himself.
Sometimes, once he’s broken through the castle walls, rescued his Fair Maiden, and settled down to a life without Fire-Breathing Dragons, he still fails to take off his armor.
Like the men in Days of Old, today’s guys often have good reasons to leave that armor on, not only at the office, but at home as well.
For example, does your Knight give you “the silent treatment”? Believe it or not, that’s a frequently used piece of “armor.” He’s not quiet because he doesn’t care, but because he needs to shut out something painful.
And are you’re wondering what’s so “painful” about “simple conversation” with his mate? Get the details in the FREE 30-day eCourse: Why Won’t He Talk to Me? The Simple Truth About Men and Intimate Communication.
Seeing Eye to Eye
Filed under: Conflict, Female Point of View, Male Point of View
Results of a study conducted by Dr. Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University professor and expert in communication, revealed that girls of all ages preferred face-to-face conversations. Conversely, boys preferred to have conversations in a side-by-side configuration, rarely making eye contact.
So how does this play out during conflict?
For men, the face-to-face approach can make him feel like he’s being challenged. Internally, he prepares to defend himself. And, as every football fan knows, the best defense is a good offense.
For women, the side-by-side approach often feels like he doesn’t care. If she feels like she’s being ignored, she’ll “hit” harder with her words, trying to get him to respond to her.
What Do Women Want?
Filed under: Communication, Female Point of View, Gender Differences, Male Point of View
Sometimes women can be very direct about what they want, but should you believe them? Maybe “yes” and maybe “no.”
The key word here is “maybe.” For women, communication is all about relationship. Interacting with one another. Leaving room for one another.
For example, you’re on a road trip. She says, “Do you want to stop and get something to eat?” You’re not hungry, so you say, “No.” Simple question. Simple answer. Right?
Wrong. She’s saying she’s hungry and wants to stop and get something to eat. She’s just leaving room for you to have your input … sort of. She wants you to hear that she’s hungry. She wants to know if you’re hungry, too.
The bottom line is she wants you to stop and get her something to eat. Once you master her logic (i.e., decode her words), you’ll eliminate a lot of hurt feelings … and probably quite a few arguments as well.
Men should get free “decoder rings” instead of wedding rings. What a cool idea!
Do You Speak English?
Filed under: Communication, Conflict, Emotions, Female Point of View, Gender Differences, Male Point of View, Relationship Patterns
Are you an “I Love Lucy” fan? If so, you probably remember the episode where Ricky’s friends come all the way from Cuba to see him. Of course, he’s not home when they arrive. Lucy tries to make them feel at home, only to discover they “don’ a speeka” English. So she talks s-l-o-w-e-r and LOUDER. But it’s still English.
If you’re having trouble getting a response from the man you love, you may be like Lucy. Saying the same thing, over and over, louder and louder. This strategy never works for two reasons.
First, guys shut down pretty quickly when they’re overwhelmed. It may look to you like he doesn’t care, but he’s really just trying to stay afloat in a sea of emotions.
Second, once he’s shut down, he doesn’t hear your actual words, only your anger. To him, it’s criticism – an attack on him as a man – that he has no verbal power to defend against. So he just hangs on until the storm is over.
He’s quiet, not because he doesn’t care about you, but because he’s overwhelmed by it all and doesn’t know what else to do.
Q & A: Why Does He Just Sit There?
Filed under: Ask, Communication, Conflict, Female Point of View, Male Point of View, Relationship Patterns, Relationship Patterns
Question: My boyfriend and I have been arguing a lot lately. He just doesn’t get it. Nothing gets resolved, and I am so frustrated with him! Now when I try to bring the issue up, he just ignores me. I can’t get him to talk at all! Why does he just sit there?
Answer: The answer is both simple and confusing in that, despite popular male opinion, men are actually much more complicated than they seem. Most of us (men included) have been terribly misinformed! In reality, men are more emotionally sensitive than women. They will do anything and everything they can to avoid conflict with the women they love. Their fight-or-flight response kicks into high gear at the very onset of a disagreement, and because they don’t want to fight, they take flight (withdraw). Women also don’t realize that men experience the very same emotions that women do, but express them differently. Men don’t just don’t have the words to express how they are feeling, so most of their emotional expression comes out as indifference or anger, two extremes.
It doesn’t have to be like that. Both men and women need a better understanding of the male emotional experience. Learn more in Why Won’t He Talk To Me? The Simple Truth About Men and Intimate Communication.
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