I’m proud to announce that my premarital counseling service has been featured in the Bridal Guide of the Sacramento News & Review. You can read the full story here. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to be featured in the News & Review, and found the whole story very well done. At the same time, two items in the story should be clarified.
First, I have likely seen hundreds of couples since I started working with couples in my master’s degree program eight years ago. I have not, however, seen “nearly 100 couples for premarital counseling since [I] started practicing over a year ago.” Would that I could, but my university work takes a lot of time as well. This description was apparently just a mismatch of information – I’ve been fully licensed for about a year and a half, and have worked with couples since 1999.
Second, the quote “There has never been a couple who split up during counseling” is out of context. I have never had a couple break up in the process of premarital counseling, which was the context of that part of the interview. Of course, when working with couples in other situations (that is, not specifically premarital counseling), I have had some couples who came to the decision that separation was the best choice for themselves and their families. While I am always saddened to see couples separate, I respect their choices, and I help as much as I can to make the split as peaceful and amicable as possible.
Overall, the story on my practice is very well-done, as is the entire Bridal Guide. If you're planning your marriage for sometime in the next year, please give it a look! If you are interested in learning more about my premarital counseling program, please click here.
New at LiveScience.com
Posted 2 August 2007
Key to successful marriage: Say 'thank you'
A successful relationship depends not just on how partners divvy up the household chores, but also on how they express gratitude. [...] “The division of labor at home is probably one of the most frequent causes of conflict between couples,” said Benjamin Caldwell of Alliant International University in California, who was not involved in the new study. More...
New in Resources
Posted 24 July 2007
Marital therapy cost-effective for insurers, government
A study I recently coauthored is featured in the current edition of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, the leading journal in the field. My coauthors and I found that both health insurers and the government would ultimately save money, above and beyond what they spent, if they paid for the screening and treatment of marital problems. A good summary of the article, with audio from me, can be found here. I've also made other additions to the information on my research projects. More...
New in Blog
Posted 5 June 2007
Domestic Partnership Law May Expand
The Sacramento Bee has an interesting story today on a proposal to expand the state's domestic partnership law. It would allow any heterosexual couple to register a domestic partnership. They would then get all the legal rights of married couples. More...
New in Blog
Posted 1 March 2007
It's Not Whether You Fight, It's How
Hat tip to SmartMarriages and Diane Sollee. -bc
How a Couple Fights is a Strong Predictor of Divorce
Baylor University - Feb. 5, 2007
by Matt Pene
While all couples may have conflict in their relationship, a Baylor University researcher has found it is not if a couple fights and argues, but how they communicate during their conflict that can determine whether a couple will stay together for the long haul. More...
New in Blog
Posted 17 January 2007
Love Lost and Found
The following is excerpted from a beautiful article appearing in the Wall Street Journal last week:In the late winter of 1999, Amy and I filed for divorce. As is obvious, we never followed through on the paperwork. This weekend, in fact, we are celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary. And based on how close we've grown in the past seven years, I have no doubt we'll be together for the duration. More...
New in Blog
Posted 5 January 2007
Happiness = Marriage + Money
So says an article posted yesterday on WebMD. According to a recent Gallup poll, 64% of married people say they are very satisfied with their personal lives; only 43% of single people felt the same way. Money helps, too--a large majority of those with high incomes reported being very happy with their personal lives. More...
New in Blog
Posted 3 January 2007
Married life lie of the day
"Majority of women would reconsider their spouses" screams a news release put forth today from Woman's Day magazine and AOL.com. Their joint survey of more than 3,000 women found 36% would not remarry their husbands if they had it to do over again, and another 20% weren't sure. Don't take it too seriously. More...
 New in Book reviews
Posted 2 January 2007
Marriage and Caste in America
In the year 2000, about 10 percent of mothers who had college degrees were living without husbands. Among lesser-educated mothers, more than a third were living without husbands. There is a Marriage Gap in the United States, concludes Kay Hymowitz, and it is directly related to social class. Most of Marriage and Caste in America is a cogent exploration of that gap, including its origins (it was around 1980 that the family-forming trends of college graduates and less-educated women parted ways) and its current state. More... |
 | | New in Book reviews
Posted 2 January 2007
On Truth
On Truth is the followup--the author cheekily calls it a sequel--to the Little Bestseller That Could, 2005's On Bulls*** (title sanitized for your protection). Like its predecessor, On Truth is an index-card-size hardcover of about 100 pages, though those pages are full of the ten-dollar words you would expect from a Harvard professor. It's light reading for the perversely intellectual. More... |
