Fatherhood Channel
News and resources for dads and those who love them
News and resources for dads and those who love them
Kevin Costner is an actor, Oscar-winning director and musician, but when he’s at home with his family, he’s just Dad.
American Life News
“We kind of want to change the narrative of, like, not being there,” said Theo Pinson, the team’s newest dad with 8-month-old Alana. “We’re their heroes. We’re like their role models and stuff like that. They don’t know it how blessed they are, but you also want to give them the best life you possibly can.”
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Billboard Magazine asked the burgeoning artist Future: Do you think you can have fame and a successful marriage? “I feel like I can have both. When the time’s right, it’ll happen. It ain’t nothing that I’m really chasing. But I do dream of it, and I […]
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The former New Yorker who’d known the good life in Yonkers and Miami became homeless on the streets of his own community, sleeping on the cement in front of a local church, fighting off thieves after the few possessions he could carry, even his medicine … even his life. Homelessness came to an end when he discovered veteran benefits earned decades earlier that he never knew he had.
Housing Military and Veterans News Nonprofit TechnologyRobert Jacoby, 57, is a fighter. For much of his life, he was also known as an over-achiever.
“I used to be someone,” Jacoby remembers.
Jacoby’s father was a popular physician. He grew up enjoying “a country club life” – family, money, beautiful women, stability, “the whole nine yards.”
“When you’re exposed to money and you lose it all, it’s the worst,” he said.
His marriage ended. Dad died.
It wasn’t long before depression, anxiety, and Parkinson’s Disease got the best of Robert Jacoby.
The former New Yorker who’d known the good life in Yonkers and Miami became homeless on the streets of his own community, sleeping on the cement in front of a local church, fighting off thieves after the few possessions he could carry, even his medicine … even his life.
“I’m damaged a little bit,” he confided.
Three years after becoming homeless, Robert Jacoby is ready to “start my life again.”
“I quit some bad habits,” he said. “What happens now is the opportunities open up, this is a big start,” he said standing in front of his new Miami Beach apartment, beginning to reflect the confidence he’d long ago lost.
Jacoby found himself facing a hopeless situation last year when the owner of the transitional housing community where he’d slept for almost three years announced plans to remodel and ordered him out.
“I had crazy roommates who would shoot up with drugs, it was a bad atmosphere,” Jacoby said of his experience in the only housing he could find to help him escape the elements and begin tackling demons sabotaging his life.
Despite the drugs, the fights, and constantly having to protect the little he had, it was better than sleeping outside with no protection from anything and little hope for anything better.
At a moment of hopelessness, Jacoby discovered an option he’d never considered.
“I was desperate. My neighbors and friends said, ‘Bobby, you were in the military, there’s help available.’”
“I was desperate,” Jacoby said. “My neighbors and friends said, ‘Bobby, you were in the military, there’s help available.’”
Thirty four years earlier, then 23-year-old Robert Jacoby had enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He’d served honorably. The idea that his military service decades earlier earned him benefits that could help him through homelessness wasn’t something he’d considered.
With nothing to lose, he called Operation Sacred Trust in nearby Pembroke Pines, Florida to tell his story.
As a result of the support he received from Operation Sacred Trust, this veteran is homeless no more. Together with his adopted cat, Alex, Jacoby lives close to the ocean in Miami.
“I want to live.”
“I feel like a person now,” he says. “I wake up in the morning and I can’t believe it.”
“I want to live,” he says with determination.
He talks about making new friends, even dating, now that he has a budget that allows him to keep a roof over his head and decorate a little.
“You make a list and cross off one thing and then another and then another,” Jacoby said about making plans for the future.
Ana Rubirosa, helped Jacoby create a bridge to a future overflowing with potential.
“She always answered my calls,” Jacoby says of Rubirosa, the Operation Sacred Trust (OST) Care Manager who worked with him daily on their shared mission.
Rubirosa is one of eight full-time Care Managers at the South Florida Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program. Each of the agency’s team members are carefully selected from hundreds of applicants for their compassion, competence serving veterans in the midst of trauma, and ability to thrive under pressure.
With funding from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, OST operates as a division of the nonprofit Purpose Built Families Foundation. Since 2011, the CARF-accredited program has ended and prevented homelessness for thousands of veterans and their family members in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. On any given day, the agency’s care team is providing urgent assistance to as many as 200 homeless and at-risk veterans. Sometimes, even more.
“Very few people are prepared for what it takes to serve veterans through some of the most difficult periods of their lives,” said Camille Eisenmann, the agency’s Program Director whose son recently completed service in the Marine Corps. Eisenmann is constantly on the lookout for dedicated, skilled professionals with a passion for service and special place in their hearts for those who have borne the battle.
Seth and Stephanie Eisenberg co-founded Operation Sacred Trust at a time when thousands of Floridians were returning home after completing military service that often included difficult deployments with many suffering visible and invisible wounds of war.
The Eisenbergs said their goal was to ensure every South Florida veteran in need was treated like someone’s mother, father, brother, or sister. Today, they are hoping to expand OST to other communities where veterans do not have access to the same level of service and resources.
“The factors that lead to veteran homelessness in America are personal and unique to each veteran,” said Stephanie Eisenberg, who is President/CEO of Carrfour Supportive Housing, Florida’s largest nonprofit developer of affordable housing. “OST’s approach is woven around the unique needs, circumstances, and aspirations of each veteran family we serve.”
Seth Eisenberg is President/CEO of Purpose Built Families Foundation. He said OST is built on the awareness that veterans facing homelessness are at the highest risk for suicide and must receive rapid, personal assistance that’s consistent through every point of contact. That level of personal care, he said, is available because Operation Sacred Trust is built on a technology platform that frees up team members to rapidly provide direct client care.
“While veterans know Sacred Trust for the care they receive, what makes that possible is a technology foundation built on the Salesforce.com platform,” he said.
“Technology allows the nonprofit to practically eliminate administrative burdens that would otherwise keep team members from providing direct services and consume valuable time — a precious resource when helping a veteran overcome crisis,” said Jaymee Kent, the agency’s Chief Technology Officer who manages a four-person team responsible for ensuring uninterrupted technology support.
“From organizational memory that dramatically boosts collaborative potential to automating processes that are not unique to each veteran, we’re able to achieve efficiencies that were once impossible to imagine,” she said.
While Robert Jacoby and thousands like him will never see that technology, they experience the results. Within weeks of reaching out for help, Jacoby had the resources needed as a bridge to a fresh start, a plan for a better future, and keys to his new apartment that’s not far from the ocean.
For starters, he wants to be closer to his 90-year-old mother. “That’s my heart,” he said.
He’d also like to return to playing tennis, swimming, and making new friends.
“Seeing Mr. Jacoby embrace his potential for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is what it’s all about,” said Jacob Torner, OST Engagement Director.
How does the team celebrate Mr. Jacoby’s success, Torner is asked.
“When serving veterans is your passion, the celebration is the act of service itself,” he said.
“The real celebration,” he added, “will come when there is housing available in our community — and every other community — so no veteran ever sleeps on the pavement, park bench, abandoned building, shelter, or anywhere else that deprives them of the freedoms they sacrificed to give the rest of us.”
“That’s our sacred trust,” Seth Eisenberg said. “As a team and community, it’s a responsibility we embrace with mind, heart, and spirit everyday.”
Discover how the offspring of the legendary Allman Brothers Band handle expectations as artists and parents.
Music NewsLast year, the sons of giants released their first album Down to the River and they’ve already built a wonderful fan base on the road. Mixing up their long set with new music, picks from their solo work and classic Allman Brothers tunes, the Allman Betts Band is remarkable.
by Todd McFliker
Photos by Jay Skolnick
Devon Allman is the son of the late great Gregg Allman, and Duane Betts’ father is Dickey, two founding members of the Allman Brothers Band. Berry Oakley, Jr., the son of the Allman Brothers renowned bassist is also part of the crew.
Last year, the sons of giants released their first album Down to the River and they’ve already built a wonderful fan base on the road. Mixing up their long set with new music, picks from their solo work and classic Allman Brothers tunes, the Allman Betts Band is remarkable.
Devon Allman has a 20-year-old son, Orion. When I interviewed Devon about the Wanee Music Festival 2017, he discussed his role as a dad while on tour.
“I opted out of touring and making records for the first 5 years of his life to build a foundation with him. That was crucial to our bond. Now he knows his dad tours a couple weeks and then comes home a couple weeks. We maximize time together and never take it for granted. Balance is everything.”
Devon Allman
The seven musicians are made up of four guitarists, two drummers and a keyboard player. Concertgoers are always excited to experience modern classics, including “Melissa,” Ramblin’ Man” and “Midnight Rider.” During “Blue Sky,” Devon joins Duane on chorus and all four guitarists jam in unison. Spectators can also expect timeless covers, including John Lee Hooker’s “Dimples,” as well as Prince’s “Purple Rain” with a Southern gospel feel. Just like the son of a king, Devon always delivers astonishing fingerwork.
Onstage at Pembroke Pines’ Charles F. Dodge City Center in South Florida on October 27, 2019, Devon used a gorgeous black instrument.
“While I’m proud of my family’s mark on rock history, I have my own story to write and my own work to do.”
Devon Allman
“This is my dad’s acoustic guitar right here,” he said. “I thought it would mean so much more to bring it out and play it for everybody than for it to be behind glass in some museum… I finally flipped it open and it smelled like an AC/DC concert.”
Devon told the crowd that the Allman Betts Band tries to balance where they came from with their own material. He said that if they came out and performed no Allman Brothers whatsoever, it would be kind of lame. At the same time, if the band came out and did an entire set of just the Allman Brothers, it wouldn’t be very cool either. That’s why they always mix it up for their audiences.
Berry Oakley, Jr. completely agrees.
“Being the son of my father, everyone expects “Whipping Post” right off the bat,” he told me in 2019. “Okay, I get it. But I am doing my own thing. So it’s tough. The name helps open doors, but you have to know what you’re doing. I’ve seen the door slam in a lot of people’s faces. So you can’t just rely on the name.”
Onstage, the boys are nothing short of spectacular. The Allman Betts Band certainly earns respect for themselves as talented musicians and performers, doing their fathers’ names proud. “While I’m proud of my family’s mark on rock history, I have my own story to write and my own work to do,” Devon Allman explained to me.
Derek Trucks is the child prodigy nephew of the Allman Brothers’ drummer Butch Trucks who began playing the late Duane Allman’s slide-guitar spot at age 20. He once told me that coming from rock royalty can be a double-edged sword.
“Being tied to the Allman Brothers’ name and legacy when I was a kid certainly helped get gigs,” Derek Trucks said. “But at some point, it becomes restrictive. Some people come out to a show expecting a certain thing. If it’s not what you are doing, there will always be some sort of disappointment. That’s why you always have to be clear in what it is you are doing and give people more than what they’re expecting. If you have an artistic vision and you’re into it, you go with it.”
The Allman Betts Band is currently on the road around the world with dozens of upcoming concerts through the summer of 2020. The talented ensemble will appear at Revolution Live in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday, April 25th to help celebrate this year’s Wanee festival.
Todd McFliker, a special contributor to Fatherhood Channel, is the author of “All You Need Is Love to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb: How the Beatles and U2 Changed the World,” available on Amazon.
Who are the warriors searching alleyways, parks, and abandoned buildings for homeless veterans like Tony Rankin? Reza Kavoosi is on the front line of a war fought in every American community.
Military and Veterans News Nonprofit philanthropy
“In order to be anything, you must be brave enough to fail.”
Kirk Douglas, who died this week at 103, will long be remembered for those words.
At the State of the Union, President Trump featured one man who learned life takes more than bravery and courage.
Army Veteran Tony Rankin was applauded for overcoming the loss of his family, addiction, and homelessness. For many of his fellow servicemen and women, the story is different.
More than 7,000 brave American veterans die at their own hands each year. They would fill the House Chamber where President Trump spoke 16 times over between State of the Union speeches.
More than 7,000 brave American veterans die at their own hands each year. They would fill the House Chamber where President Trump spoke 16 times over between State of the Union speeches.
Tens of thousands more are holding on to the very edge of life.
Reza Kavoosi knows them well. Kavoosi is a warrior who protects the warriors.
Day and night, Kavoosi searches alleyways, public parks, and abandoned buildings for brothers-in-arms. He knows that finding the Tony Rankins is as urgent as any life or death challenge.
Kavoosi, 34, was born in Khuzestan, an industrial southern province of Iran, as the 18-year Iran-Iraq war approached its end. As a doctor, his mother relocated frequently to serve Iran’s most distraught communities, giving her son, whose name means “contentment,” lifelong lessons about service, sacrifice, and resilience in the face of suffering, trauma and despair.
At 15, she got Reza a passport and offered him the opportunity to experience life a world away from the traditions and ancient history of Khuzestan.
Arriving in Budapest, Hungary to finish high school, culture shock came quickly as Kavoosi watched people dancing in the streets, kissing in public, and speaking freely — freedoms very different than those he’d known in traditional Iranian communities.
“You couldn’t do any of that in Iran,” he said in an interview with the Deseret News. “It took a while for me to adjust to my freedom. But once I had this new lifestyle, I knew I couldn’t go back.”
Budapest would be a temporary home. His yearning was America.
“America was my dream — it represented freedom and the chance to do something important with my life,” Kavoosi said. “My parents always told me there was no other country like it in the world.”
His dream came true in 2006 when he was accepted into a prestigious international program at Brigham Young University in Salt Lake City, Utah.
“When things got tough, I was reminded that it was my duty to give back … I owed it to my fellow soldiers to do a good job and fight for my flag and my country,”
Reza Kavoosi
Committed to repaying the country he cherished, Kavoosi enlisted in the U.S. Army, deployed to Afghanistan as a Ranger and interpreter, and took on dangerous counter-terrorism missions, “knowing that a single bullet could take my life away and all that I loved.”
“When things got tough,” he recalled, “I was reminded that it was my duty to give back … I owed it to my fellow soldiers to do a good job and fight for my flag and my country,” Kavoosi said about long days and nights serving in Afghanistan. During lonely nights far from home and family, he took comfort unfurling an American flag on the most remote Afghan mountaintops.
“As we celebrate Tony Rankin,” said Jacob Torner, Kavoosi’s team leader at the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program in Pembroke Pines, Florida, “we must remember there are tens of thousands more hanging on to life.”
“Finding them where they are,” Torner said, “is our sacred trust.”
A 74-year-old Army veteran became homeless in Broward County recently after 33 years at the same apartment.
Fortunately, the help this Florida senior urgently needed was looking for him.
Housing News philanthropy
In the military, if you were supposed to have feelings, they would have been issued. Although emotional numbing may help warriors survive the battlefield, as civilians, they may be paying a heavy price that’s impacting homelessness, addictions, and suicide. At a recent conference on patient centered care, leaders said they’re hopeful about the future.
Culture Health Military and Veterans Research“Emotional numbing” is contributing to Veteran homelessness, addiction, and suicide, a former VA Chief of Chaplains said.
“Everyday, we see the direct connection between relationship breakdown and homelessness,” added Jacob Torner, director of one the nation’s leading accredited, nonprofit programs combating Veteran homelessness.
The connection is showing up in data analysis powered by the program’s technology infrastructure originally donated to the veteran service group by Salesforce Foundation.
Purpose Built Families Foundation’s analysis of five years of Salesforce data reveals changing trends in veteran homelessness and relationships. For the fiscal year that ended September 30, 2019, just four out of every 100 homeless veterans were married or in a committed relationship, a 69 percent decline since 2015, reported Chief Information Officer Jaymee Kent.
The study comes out as Pew Research Center released two related reports: “Marriage and Cohabitation in America,” and “Key findings about America’s military veterans.”
Pew’s marriage report reveals “U.S. adults are delaying marriage – or forgoing it altogether.” The Veterans study finds “for many U.S. veterans who served in combat, their experiences strengthened them personally but also made the transition to civilian life difficult.”
Purpose Built Families’ analysis indicates significant differences in relationship status for veterans seeking to prevent homelessness and those who became homeless.
In 2015, 24 percent of veterans qualifying for emergency assistance to prevent imminent homelessness reported being married or in a committed relationship,” Kent said. That percentage decreased annually, reaching a low of 15 percent in 2019, she reported.
Thirteen percent of literally homeless veterans reported being married or in a committed relationship in 2015 versus four percent in 2019, Kent added.
“In 14 years serving post-9/11 Veterans as a VA Chaplain, I frequently saw the consequences of heroic servicemen and women who were unable to reconnect with self and others through their transition from active duty to civilian life,” Dr. Clyde Angel said at the recent Planetree International Conference in Orlando. Dr. Angel is Executive Vice President of Purpose Built Families Foundation.
“Beyond military service, the loss of close relationships is the most consistent shared experience — at home, work, often everywhere.” Torner told global leaders in patient-centered care.
“Homelessness, suicide, addictions — at the root, they are about losing our sense of connectedness and belonging,” Purpose Built Families Foundation CEO Seth Eisenberg said. “Urgently treating the symptoms is a matter of life and death, but the future depends on investing better and smarter in prevention,” he stressed.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof is calling for a “war on loneliness.”
“It touches almost every one of us at some point,” Baroness Barran, the current [British] minister for loneliness, told me. “It can lead to very serious health consequences for the individual and leads to erosion of our society, where people become isolated and disconnected.”
~ Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, Nov. 9, 2019.
“Emotional openness and physical closeness, including skills that promote vulnerability, confiding, listening with empathy, proactive problem solving, and understanding feelings provide a path to healing,” Dr. Angel said as he spoke of preventative efforts to help “veterans learn practical, usable skills to express emotions and feelings to family and friends that were difficult due to the symptoms of emotional numbing.” Dr. Angel cited the Warrior to Soul Mate program as an example of VA’s commitment to patient-centered care that focuses on whole health, involves veterans and significant others, and builds vital relationship enhancing skills. More than 1,000 VA chaplains and behavioral health professionals have been trained to facilitate Warrior to Soul Mate. Last year, VA purchased licensing rights to expand the program to every VA medical center nationwide.
The Purpose Built Families report analyzed Salesforce data from 1,443 very low-income veterans who were homeless or facing homelessness and qualified for assistance from the agency’s nationally-accredited Operation Sacred Trust program. Operation Sacred Trust is a public-private partnership significantly funded by U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Supportive Services for Veteran Families program. The nonprofit distributed more than $4.2 million to prevent and end homelessness for thousands of South Florida veterans over the past five years.
Torner said the veterans assistance program knows helping veterans strengthen relationships with family, friends, and social supports gives them a better chance of staying housed after assistance ends.
At weekly orientations for homeless and at-risk veterans in Broward and Miami-Dade counties, Torner said facilitators introduce educational skills for relieving painful emotions, such as the “Emptying the Emotional Jug” exercise.
Within minutes, he shared, veterans begin forming strong bonds with each other, confiding, deepening empathy, experiencing vulnerability with another person. “We’ve repeatedly seen those connections last long beyond their program participation,” he added.
“They say, ‘In the military, if you were supposed to have feelings, they would have been issued,'” Eisenberg said. “Maybe that’s necessary on the battlefield, but what about in the bedroom, playroom, as parents, lovers, partners, and everyplace else life leads,” he asked rhetorically.
While there’s no greater urgency than helping a homeless veteran move into safe, stable, sustainable housing where they can reconnect with community, Dr. Angel, Torner, and Eisenberg agreed that lasting success is built on resilient relationships — with neighbors, employers, co-workers, family, and friends.
“The tragic irony,” Eisenberg said, “is that most of what leads to breakdowns is people doing what they were told — don’t complain, don’t be afraid or confused, don’t rock the boat, don’t be vulnerable … all these lessons that may have helped people survive other periods in their lives, but can do the exact opposite under different circumstances.”
Eisenberg hopes the studies will influence local and national strategies.
“Relationship breakdown is significantly preventable,” Eisenberg said.
Dr. Juan Flores had just sat down in French class at South Broward High School on the morning of September 11th. He went on to become one of more than four million who offered his life to protect America after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Not yet an American citizen, Flores knew when the second plane hit the World Trade Center that it was his nation that was attacked, his duty to respond.
Military and Veterans News WorldVeterans Day is Monday, November 11, 2019.
Fewer than 10 percent of America’s adult population have served in the military. On Veterans Day, we honor the nearly 20 million Americans who have served.
Each of these heroes among us has a name.
One name is Dr. Juan Flores.
In a recent conversation at the Operation Sacred Trust Supportive Services for Veteran Families program in Pembroke Pines, Florida, Dr. Flores recalled the precise moment he decided to enlist in the military.
“The teacher rolled out a TV, plugged it in, and turned on the news,” the former South Broward High School student remembered.
It was two minutes after nine.
“As soon as it turned on, maybe five seconds later, we watched the second plane hit,” Flores recalled.
“Watching that second airplane hit the tower, I wanted to go defend my country,” he said.
September 11, 2001.
Flores is one of more than four million who volunteered his life to fight for America after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This generation of warriors is “more likely to have been deployed, seen combat, and experienced emotional trauma,” according to a recent Pew Research study.
He had immigrated to South Florida from Peru and was not yet an American citizen, yet Flores knew that September morning that it was his nation that was attacked, his duty to respond.
After his Marine Corps service, including multiple deployments, Flores earned his Bachelors and then went on to become a Chiropractic doctor.
Despite eight years successfully pursuing a medical career, Flores realized his passion was serving those who had borne the battle.
He knows too many who served and have not survived. For Flores, the call of duty continues.
More than 100,000 post-9/11 Veterans have died since their military service. Fewer than one in ten died as a result of combat or during active-duty service.
For Dr. Juan Flores, the tragedy of 9/11 became a call that continues daily as he searches South Florida’s streets, alleyways, hospitals, and shelters; answers calls, texts, and emails; whatever it takes to be there for fellow Marines and other service members who have fallen on hard times.
On Veterans Day, we honor these heroes who live among us.
This hero’s name is Dr. Juan Flores.
“Every conversation around me, people were saying, ‘This is real. This is real.’ And then I see the news caption, ‘America Under Attack,'” Michael Desir remembered. Three post-9/11 Veterans offer an intimate perspective on the people behind the numbers.
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In the 18 months since her younger brother killed himself in the parking lot of a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, Alissa Harrington has joined a support network, passed the bar exam, become an advocate for veteran suicide prevention and continued to share his story.
American Life Military and Veterans NewsIn the 18 months since her younger brother killed himself in the parking lot of a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, Alissa Harrington has joined a support network, passed the bar exam, become an advocate for veteran suicide prevention and continued to share his story.
By NIKKI WENTLING | STARS AND STRIPES
Originally published: October 4, 2019
WASHINGTON — In the 18 months since her younger brother killed himself in the parking lot of a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, Alissa Harrington has joined a support network, passed the bar exam, become an advocate for veteran suicide prevention and continued to share his story.
On Saturday, she’ll share that story again at an event recognizing the first-ever Veterans Suicide Prevention & Awareness Day in Minnesota – an annual statewide observation. Harrington, by appealing to the Minnesota legislature and testifying about her brother, helped create Veterans Suicide Prevention & Awareness Day with a bill that passed in March. Harrington, her husband and father were on the floor of the legislature when representatives voted unanimously in favor of it.
“It was very emotional for me,” she said of testifying. “To be there as a witness to my brother’s story and to so many veterans’ stories was very powerful. I felt like I had a lot of responsibility to get my point across.”
Harrington’s brother, Justin Miller, was a Marine Corps veteran who deployed to Iraq in 2005. He went to the emergency room at the Minneapolis Department of Veterans Affairs in February 2018, struggling with suicidal thoughts. After spending four days at an inpatient mental health unit, Miller, 33, was discharged, went to his car and shot himself. Police found his body the following day, his phone full of voicemails and texts from his father, Greg Miller, with one message sent over and over again: “I love you. We love you. Come home.”
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A Memorial Day challenge to “make their courage, our courage … their commitment, our commitment.”
American Life Guest Columns Health Housing Military and Veterans News Nonprofit OpinionWe won’t get wet, moving or challenged talking about swimming, riding a bicycle or climbing a mountain. How many calories will we burn chatting, contemplating, posting, or tweeting, no matter how interesting, innovative, or inspiring?
Yet, those actions are the beginning and end of so much good intention in the world that typically has the shelf life of expired milk left to warm on an immaculate kitchen counter.
We’re doing that already, many think and say when challenged to consider how humanity near and far will tackle our most urgent social challenges.
So why are so many still barely surviving in poverty?
Why do we have neighbors who are hungry and homeless?
Why are our children, brothers, sisters and parents searching for relief in substances rather than human connection?
Why are so many imprisoned, bullied or living in fear?
Why do marriages borne of passion and potential so frequently disintegrate despite our most fervent prayers and intentions … despite it all.
Why are Veteran lives more threatened from their own hands than any external foe?
Talking, contemplating, trying … that’s not the same as actually acting.
Being in action requires getting wet, moving, climbing … despite the uncertainty, discomfort and fear, committed to overcoming each obstacle because what you’re doing matters.
It gets messy.
It takes courage, perhaps even more.
Imagine preparing for an Olympic swimming match without getting in the water, trained by a coach who’s never been in.
Consider that in the context of preparing others for life, or learning from life, or recovering from life — any aspect of life.
Each of those lives sacrificed for our freedoms can no longer do that for themselves.
In their memory, we can get wet, riding, moving and climbing through actions that make a difference — despite the discomfort and uncertainty.
Imagine what we can accomplish when their courage becomes our courage.
With their courage as ours and their commitment as our commitment, we will create homes, neighborhoods and a world that honors each and all.
Seth Eisenberg is President/CEO of Purpose Built Families Foundation, a nationally-accredited nonprofit based in Pembroke Pines, Florida.
Camille Eisenmann helped distribute more than $4.3 million in emergency assistance for homeless and at-risk Veteran families in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
NewsCamille Eisenmann recalls hearing about the program to help Broward County homeless Veterans just after Christmas in 2013. Weeks later, after applying for a case manager position on indeed.com, the Bismarck, North Dakota native began actively serving local Veterans facing hard times.
When Eisenmann began work at Operation Sacred Trust, a public private partnership between the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Purpose Built Families Foundation, her son was enlisting in the U.S. Marine Corps. As he trained and deployed overseas, Eisenmann deployed locally, helping distribute $4.3 million in federal aid to disrupt homelessness for thousands of Veterans in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
Five years later, Eisenmann leaves her agency’s Pembroke Pines headquarters each Tuesday to meet Veterans at the Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care for Homeless Veterans assistance center in Broward County.
Collaboration with VA is important to reaching and helping Veterans when they’re most in need, she says.
Stephanie Berman-Eisenberg is president of Carrfour Supportive Housing in Miami and a co-founder of the Operation Sacred Trust program.
“Collaboration is key,” Berman-Eisenberg says. “It takes partnerships, investments, and concerted action from every level of government to disrupt homelessness.”
Last year, Miami-Dade County was able to declare an end to chronic Veteran homelessness. Berman-Eisenberg hopes Broward isn’t far behind.
“The intentions are there,” she says. “Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s national leadership for Veterans, together with dedicated VA, city, county, state and nonprofit coordination is helping.”
“Florida’s congressional delegation has led the way helping allocate and direct millions of dollars in federal resources to our community,” Berman-Eisenberg says, “It’s up to all of us locally to come together every day until no Veteran is homeless in our community.”
After 20 years in the Army, former First Sgt. Eddie Miller was in and out of addiction, homeless on the streets of Miami.
Housing Military and Veterans News Nonprofit
Unlike many popular self-help and motivational training programs, PAIRS isn’t about the presenter; it’s about the participant.
American Life Education Inside a Marriage and Relationship Education Class Lifestyle & Leisure Marriage Education Military and Veterans NewsDon’t expect Tony Robbins, Les Brown, or Nick Vujicic to be giving you any tips in a Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills (“PAIRS”) class. Unlike many popular self-help and motivational training programs, PAIRS isn’t about the presenter; it’s about the participant. More and more, those participants are passing it on.
Since the seventies, participants in PAIRS classes are typically couples, family members, friends, co-workers, even teammates who will continue working their new relationship boosting skills long beyond the class bell. In fact, U.S. military Veterans are now experiencing the PAIRS program en masse across the United States, following the 2018 U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs purchase of licensing rights to the PAIRS Essentials curriculum as a foundation of an innovative, research driven approach to whole health. VA’s decision to license PAIRS evolved out of a decade of firsthand experience seeing positive outcomes.
PAIRS’ focus on its participants is partly due to its experiential nature. In PAIRS classes, participants move quickly from conceptual psycho-educational material to practical, real-world application. In the safe environment of the classroom, participants learn how to release upsetting emotions, have a fair fight for change, and co-create meaningful connections.
The unique classroom environment is created by PAIRS facilitators who are vetted and trained to create just the right mix of professionalism and vulnerability in the classroom. Program leaders say that environment is an important foundation of the program’s lasting impact.
About training the next generation of PAIRS facilitators, National Training Director Julie Macias says “It is essential to not only fully embrace empathy and self-discovery, but also master setting the bar for vulnerability through their own careful dialogue to create a confiding and transformative classroom experience.”
About its experiential focus, Purpose Built Families Foundation CEO Seth Eisenberg says “Hearing, reading or talking about swimming doesn’t do much to prepare you for the ocean. Metaphorically, PAIRS helps people discover that they know how to swim, strengthen those abilities, consider when to stay out of the water, and have the best chance of making the most of the experience.”
Participants leave with tangible tools in hand such as wallet cards and phone Apps they can pull out the next time they would like to bring up a concern and achieve productive results, or a list of their favorite ways to feel cared for that they can pin to the fridge as a reminder.
However, the skills that PAIRS teaches aim to go way beyond relationship cohesion and towards major societal change. PAIRS has shown research-validated success in increasing resilience and reducing the negative side effects of trauma on the Veteran community. Classes have been taught in schools in an effort to reduce bullying and school violence through increasing social support. PAIRS licensed trainers receive extensive training to integrate PAIRS into community-wide efforts that address the root cause of critical social challenges, including marriage and family fragmentation, relationship breakdown, parenting, school safety, homelessness, employment, recidivism, teen pregnancy, team work, and a range of other areas influenced by the capacity and resilience of human connection.
About recent efforts to aid the Parkland community and provide supportive services to homeless Veterans and their families, Seth Eisenberg says, “Overcoming trauma is about relationships, not only a conversation.”
Written for FatherhoodChannel.com by Jessica Loeb, a graduate student in Marriage and Family Therapy at St. Thomas University and a Senior Program Specialist for Purpose Built Families Foundation in Pembroke Pines, Florida.
In the workplace, empathy is a crucial skill for both organization leaders and mental health professionals.
American Life Culture Marriage Education Medicine News ResearchEmotional literacy is not just an important trait to integrate into your personal life. Learn how empathy in the workplace contributes to a number of positive outcomes, whether in client interactions or manager-employee relationships.
In our contemporary world, technology has changed the way we interact. The self – or, our ideal, projected self – is at the center of our online social media presence and reputation. We have become socialized to be overly individualistic, as a writer for the American Counseling Association writes.
As changes continue with each new technology, how we continue to communicate will depend on our ability to practice empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
While empathy and emotional literacy are essential components in close relationships, they are also necessary within our organizational networks and client interactions. As diversity and inclusivity issues continue to be at the forefront of management best practices, these traits become even more crucial to a balanced, healthy organization.
Empathy drives positive bonds throughout the workplace structure. A study from the Center for Creative Leadership, which gathered data from 6,731 managers across 38 countries, showed that empathic practices within the workplace structure were related to positive job performance.
Another notable point from this study is that having empathy and showing empathy are not the same thing. Managers must not only experience the feelings others are feeling, but they must also share and verbalize those emotions to be effective.
Because some managers will be better at exhibiting empathy than others, it’s important to understand that empathy can be learned. Organizational leaders first need to talk about empathy – define it, show it, and let managers know that it matters just as much as the organization’s bottom line.
Then, leaders should explain how employees can exhibit it through caring, seeking understanding, and listening. Simply giving time and attention to employees will help encourage empathy in the workplace.
The Harvard Business Review (HBR) published an article last year that outlined another reason empathy is a workplace requirement: the fact that 18 percent of the U.S. adult population suffers from an anxiety disorder and that one in four adults experience mental illness of some kind each year.
This means that “workplace cultures need to make room for the wide range of emotions we experience,” as the HBR article indicated. Additional support from management is one way to acknowledge these complex, varied experiences and emotions.
One strategy managers can use to further show empathy and understanding is directly asking employees about their thoughts and feelings with surveys or dedicated discussions. These gestures show that their feelings matter, that they are being heard, and that their opinions are taken into account when managers make organizational decisions.
This all contributes to a workplace that fosters empathy.
While empathy in the workplace can be driven by relationships between managers and employees, in mental health professions, empathy is one of the most important factors in client relationships.
In the medical field, empathy is required to treat and care for patients effectively. Being able to show empathy builds trust and satisfaction with patients and leads to successful treatment plans, as a study published in Scientific Reports indicates, which analyzed data from over 1,000 healthcare professionals.
Perhaps with physician-patient relationships more than other types of professional bond, it’s crucial to show patients that their thoughts, feelings, and emotional experiences are understood.
This is of course also true within the counseling and mental health professions, where the client-counselor relationship can be entirely at stake if the patient does not feel heard or understood.
The idea of using empathy as a tool for better psychopathological assessment was introduced at the beginning of the twentieth century, and considered one of the most important discoveries in the social sciences.
This is because both experiencing and displaying empathy allows mental health professionals to connect with, understand, and eventually help clients. It’s crucial for these professionals to not only sense what their clients may be feeling, but to also step into their shoes and experience what it feels like to have those feelings.
This process is also referred to as cognitive empathy, or perspective taking, and essentially means that we become able to identify and understand someone else’s emotions. Affective empathy refers to the sensations or feelings we have when mirroring what someone else is feeling; when we share their feelings.
Experienced social service professionals are likely practiced listeners already. Additional actions that show empathy include:
These are just some of the ways therapists and counselors can show empathy during client interactions. The bottom line is that clients should feel heard, understood, accepted, and encouraged.
Within workplace interactions as well as client relationships, empathy at its heart allows people to both experience and exhibit acceptance as a foundation to learning and growth.
Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills (PAIRS) nurtures and promotes healthy relationships of all kinds. Whether training instructors and educators or offering research-validated relationship skills, PAIRS is committed to helping create a safer, saner, more loving world. Over 40 years of experience, PAIRS has found empathy to be one of the driving forces of a healthier, happier society.
Contact PAIRS to learn more about relationship-building training programs.
Billie Eilish, billion stream pop star, has a superpower, and it’s not her voice.
American Life Entertainment Lifestyle & Leisure Music News“‘When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’ traces a clear arc: from bravado to melancholy,” Jon Pareles writes about billion stream pop sensation Billie Eilish.
“I can’t even tell you how anxious I’ve been to get this album out,” Eilish told culture reporter Joe Coscarelli from her parents’ tiny kitchen earlier this month.
Eilish’s songs are “the work of a very small, decidedly innovative family team.”
“Eilish writes and records her songs with her older brother, Finneas O’Connell, working largely at home,” Pareles reports (“Billie Eilish Redefines Teen-Pop Stardom on a Haunted, Heartfelt Debut Album“).
Maggie Baird and Patrick O’Connell, once hopeful actors with their own stardom dreams, are a constant presence helping even more ambitious dreams come true for son Finneas and daughter Billie Eilish.
Near the end of her debut album, the 17-year-old turns to themes of grief, suicide and loneliness; familiar experiences for some of the pop star’s biggest fans.
Many South Florida youth continue to struggle from the traumatic events of February 14, 2018, when a former classmate murdered 17 students and staff at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. April 20, 2019 is the 20th anniversary of Columbine.
This month, two teenage survivors of the Stoneman Douglas shooting took their lives. The father of a youngster killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut did too.
Those tragic stories made headlines.
Few know anything about 4,000 other Americans who took their lives in the last month or thousands more contemplating suicide this very moment.
While Eilish’s more melancholy songs focus on the grief and loneliness felt by many in an America where suicide is a leading cause of death for teenagers, her life itself may point to the solution. Surprising to many, her real superpower may not be her voice, but her close family.
“Our closest relationships can be life saving,” said Seth Eisenberg, CEO of nonprofit Purpose Built Families Foundation in Pembroke Pines, Florida.
“For many, relationships with family, friends and social supports are the best defense against loneliness, grief and depression, yet as a society our focus is often pathologizing, diagnosing and treating symptoms instead of helping resolve the underlying deprivation of meaningful human connection,” he said.
Eisenberg said Eilish can do a lot of good showcasing a strong family to adoring fans.
Two decades of experience serving people impacted by trauma, including thousands touched by homelessness, poverty and the invisible wounds of war, leaves Eisenberg hopeful about the future.
“For many on the edge of life, the answer is literally in our hands,” he said. “We’ve seen the difference we can make by helping people improve communication, conflict resolution, and skills for emotional awareness and connection that are vital to sustaining close relationships.”
“Whether those lessons come from a classroom, training or the inspiring family of a pop star like Billie Eilish, learning to create, sustain and protect close relationships is our best hope for a safer, saner, more loving world,” he said.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. You can also text TALK to 741741 for 24/7, anonymous, free counseling from the Crisis Text Line.
The whole health approach is improving outcomes for Veterans. Online experiential learning, such as a recent Warrior to Soul Mate training, is helping make programs and services more accessible to military families nationwide.
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The whole health approach is improving outcomes for Veterans. Online experiential learning, such as a recent Warrior to Soul Mate training, is helping make programs and services more accessible to military families nationwide, said Purpose Built Families Foundation CEO Seth Eisenberg.
Chaplain Mike McGruder did not have to leave her home or office at the VA’s Pacific Islands Health Care System in Honolulu last week to actively engage across thousands of miles with other VA professionals in a 32-hour live virtual classroom. She did have to wake up early to be in front of her computer screen at four in the morning ready to teach and learn.
Julie Macias, Purpose Built Families Foundation’s Program Director, facilitated the online experiential training from Florida for VA leadership in Hawaii, Oregon, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. She was assisted by Program Specialists Alan Young in North Carolina and Jessica Loeb in Florida.
At the end of the training, Chaplain McGruder said she felt better equipped “doing what I care about deeply … provid[ing] care to our Veterans.” She said the training will help her help Veterans by providing “tools for communicating vulnerabilities and express[ing] empathy.”
“The intensive virtual training is a sign of the times,” said Seth Eisenberg, CEO of the nonprofit Purpose Built Families Foundation.
“Doing more with less while strengthening training quality, experience and fidelity is a constant priority,” Eisenberg said.
“We reduced costs by more than $40,000 by hosting the training online instead of purchasing flight tickets, hotels, supplies and paying for multiple trainers and staff to travel to lead an in-person event,” Eisenberg said. He calls the foundation’s collaboration with VA Chaplaincy “a model of public-private partnership inspired daily by our shared commitment to America’s military families.”
Macias said the training “was an invaluable experience and such a success.”
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs purchased licensing rights to the PAIRS curriculum as a foundation of their approach to whole health. Over the past decade, more than 800 VA chaplains and behavioral health professionals have been trained to lead PAIRS classes that integrate interpersonal communication and conflict resolution skills with a proven approach to deepening emotional awareness and connection. Eisenberg said he expects more than 7,500 VA chaplains and behavioral health professionals will be trained to lead PAIRS classes.
PAIRS is an acronym for “Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills.” The curriculum was originally created by Marriage and Family Therapist Lori Heyman Gordon more than 40 years ago as an educational approach to boosting personal, marital and familial resilience. PAIRS draws on the experiential family systems approach of Therapist Virginia Satir and Psychiatrist Daniel Casriel’s focus on the centrality of “bonding.”
In the VA system, PAIRS is marketed as “Warrior to Soul Mate.” Purpose Built Families Foundation is responsible for global training, distribution and management of PAIRS programs.
“The online training explored comprehensive knowledge that underlies the PAIRS Essentials: Warrior to Soul Mate Edition curriculum in order to provide an experiential and research background for every exercise,” Macias said.
“It also served to create a robust support network needed to bring Warrior to Soul Mate to life at every VA facility and consistently deliver significant program benefits,” she added. “By internalizing the experiential and instructor experience, training intertwined the two to engage facilitators in mastering creating a vulnerable and confiding setting.”
Eisenberg said Purpose Built Families will expand the use of virtual classrooms to serve diverse audiences throughout the world.
“We are bringing a safer, saner, more loving world to life,” he said. “It can’t happen soon enough.”
Dr. Bernard Guerney was one of the giants of 20th century psychotherapy. He died Saturday from complications of cancer.
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Lori Heyman Gordon, 90, created the PAIRS program to help marriages and families worldwide. She died Thursday, March 21, 2019, at her home in Bethesda, MD.
American Life Marriage Education News Nonprofit PAIRS FoundationLori Heyman Gordon, the creator and founder of PAIRS, a comprehensive education program designed to nurture and sustain healthy relationships on behalf of a safer, saner and more loving world, died peacefully Thursday morning at her home in Bethesda, Maryland. She was 90 years old.
Lori Heyman Gordon, the creator and founder of PAIRS, a comprehensive education program designed to nurture and sustain healthy relationships on behalf of a safer, saner and more loving world, died peacefully Thursday morning at her home in Bethesda, Maryland. She was 90 years old.
Ms. Gordon was the daughter of Julius and Bertha (Hahn) Heyman, and grew up in Staten Island, New York. Her father died suddenly from a heart attack when she was 15, and her mother died from cancer a year and a half later while Lori was still in high school. Determined, she finished high school and was accepted by Cornell University. In her sophomore year, she met and then married a law student after a three-month courtship. In 1950 she graduated from Cornell and they moved to the Washington, D.C. area.
While raising four children, she went back to school and in 1963 received a Masters from the Catholic University School of Social Work, after which she pursued her lifelong passion to help children by helping their parents create and sustain loving, resilient marriages.
Ms. Gordon developed The Family Relations Institute into a successful counseling practice and brought leading therapists from around the country to teach locally. Virginia Satir, known as the “mother of family therapy,” became her mentor.
In 1975, she was invited to become an adjunct professor at American University for a new graduate program on marriage and family relationships. It was there that she developed a 120-hour course for couples, which she called PAIRS (Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills), that was eventually taught to many thousands throughout the United States and internationally, touching countless lives across the globe. Thousands of clergy, behavioral health professionals and others have been trained to lead PAIRS classes.
From inception, the mission of PAIRS was to teach those attitudes, emotional understandings, and behaviors that nurture and sustain healthy relationships. It was one of the first comprehensive education programs in the United States designed to feature skills training to reduce breakdowns in relationships and impact the range of outcomes that emerge from relationship breakdown.
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs licensed rights to make an adaptation of Gordon’s PAIRS program accessible to every Veteran family in America as a foundation of VA’s approach to whole health. VA chaplains and counselors nationwide are actively involved in that endeavor, which is known in the VA system as Warrior to Soul Mate.
Ms. Gordon’s first marriage ended in divorce, but her second marriage, to Rabbi Morris Gordon in September 1982, was a true marriage of soul mates. They explored, taught, counseled and crusaded together. As Lori described Morris, he “makes possible the impossible and probable the improbable.”
In 1993, Ms. Gordon published her first book, Passage to Intimacy. In reviewing the book Clifford Sager, the Director of Marital and Family Therapy at New York Hospital – Cornell Medical Center, wrote, “After 40 years as a psychiatrist and marital therapist, the PAIRS program is my most valuable professional and personal tool.” In 1996, she published her second book, Love Knots, which Harold Kushner, the author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People, described as, “A treasure trove of liberating wisdom.”
Ms. Gordon lived her later years traveling between Virginia and Florida. She returned permanently to Bethesda in November 2018 and recently celebrated her 90th birthday there at which time she remarked how young she felt and how happy she was to be surrounded by family and friends.
Ms. Gordon is survived by four children, Beth, Jonathan, David, and Seth, their spouses Daniel, Lisa, Fran, and Stephanie, and ten grandchildren, Jessica, Lauren, Evan, Adam, Benjamin, Joshua, Sara, Alex, Michael, and Zachary. Her second husband, Morris, was with her in spirit until the very end. They are survived by his daughter Arlene, son Albee, son-in-law Ami, two grandchildren, Rani and Dana, Inbar (the wife of their late grandson Guy), and great grandchildren.
Memorial services will be held at Washington Hebrew Congregation, 3935 Macomb Street, N.W., Washington D.C. on Monday, March 25, at 10 a.m. A committal service will take place at Arlington National Cemetery in early 2020.
Should friends desire, contributions may be sent to Purpose Built Families Foundation, support@pbfamilies.org.
A Navyman stationed in Okinawa won first place in an international contest for his active commitment to marriage and family through deployment.
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A U.S. Navyman stationed in Okinawa won first place in an international contest for exemplifying commitment to marriage and family throughout separation due to military service.
While the Sailor has chosen to remain anonymous, his efforts to stay connected and fight for his marriage and family while separated by nearly 8,000 miles got the attention of PAIRS Foundation, a Florida nonprofit that has developed and researched evidence-based skills for strengthening interpersonal relationships since 1983.
“Max,” not his real name, uses an exercise taught to him by a Navy Chaplain called the PAIRS Daily Temperature Reading to proactively connect with his wife (“Abby”) and family stateside nearly every day.
Max agreed to allow his almost daily posts to be shared publicly, offering an intimate, deeply personal look at the challenges shared by many other military men and women through months or more of service assignments that leave them far from the families they love.
As first place winner, Max won a $750 Amazon gift card that he immediately chose to give his wife.
To learn more about Max and Abby’s struggle to keep their 15-year marriage alive through the challenges of service, sacrifice and separation, visit marriage.am.
Seven Thousand Miles Away, U.S. Navy Couple Struggles to Protect Own Marriage, Family
It’s not love we can honestly promise when we unite our lives. How can we promise a feeling that naturally waxes and wanes through the transitions and passages of our lives?
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It’s been 40 years since mom warned me to be careful with the word “love.”
“You know what you mean, but others might have a different interpretation,” is how I remember her counsel to the curious teenager that was me.
At the time, I wondered what she could possibly know of love. Her 17-year marriage to my father had ended before I remember being able to speak. Boyfriends and lovers had dramatically come and gone. Yet her life was deeply immersed in work as a devoted marriage and family therapist daily committing body, heart, and mind helping others protect what she, until then, could not.
Yet her counsel remained.
In relationship skills classes I’ve taught to many thousands over the past two decades, I rarely missed the opportunity to ask, “What does love mean to you?”
As my own marriage unraveled when my first two sons were youngsters followed by girlfriends and lovers who dramatically came and went, I became far more comfortable asking questions than offering advice.
What I’ve realized as witness to seemingly countless definitions as unique as each speaker, by seemingly countless children whose lives have been turned asunder by parents bungling along a search for lasting love, by seemingly countless signs of pain, anger, and despair more often than not deeply related to stories of love lost, betrayed, withheld, squandered or never present, is that it’s time to stop lying about love.
For much of the last century, the ruse about love woven into the psyche of baby boomers and the generations they reared wrought havoc that forever altered the landscape of America’s families and neighborhoods. The descendants of the greatest generation have increasingly found themselves mired in mine fields of cynical despair fueled by expectations for a magical destination at the end of a lonely trek over dark, desert highways.
Chart topping lyrics of Johnny Rivers (“Baby I Need Your Loving”), Perry Como (“And I Love You So”) and dozens by the Beatles (“All You Need is Love,” “All My Loving,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Love Me Do,”), Dylan (“Love You Too Much,” “Watered Down Love,” “Love Rescue Me,” “Abandoned Love,” “Love Sick”), Zeppelin (“Whole Lotta Love”), Whitney (“I Will Always Love You”), Lionel and Diana (“Endless Love”), Beyoncé and Jay-Z (“Crazy In Love”) and many more seduced generations to love as an ultimate destination with no road map for the journey.
“Love is a feeling. Marriage is a contract. Relationships are work.”
That understanding, a foundation of relationship skills training that my mother began developing 40 years ago with the launch of the first course on the “practical application of intimate relationship skills,” more commonly known as “PAIRS,” and which I’ve actively continued, is central to helping couples navigate an odyssey that begins with falling in love before fast dissolving or evolving into a marathon challenge for which few are prepared.
“If our parents didn’t love and understand each other, how are we to know what love looks like,” Thich Nhat Hanh asks in How to Love.
The truth about love can be found in its very root: The Latin word “libet,” meaning “it is pleasing.”
It’s not love we can honestly promise when we forever unite our lives with another in traditional marriage vows. How can we promise a feeling that naturally waxes and wanes through the normal transitions, chapters and passages of our lives?
It’s commitment we can promise, including the commitment to a marital contract and the work of a relationship.
Remaining a partner who is “pleasing” is the formula for lasting love. What’s pleasing, or a pleasure, changes with the progression of life.
If love is to survive, the ruse must not.
The most precious seeds will never flourish without the attention they need to fulfill their potential and neither will relationships that begin with falling in love – that’s the easy part — and are sustained through perhaps the most meaningful work of our lives: learning and acting to remain a pleasure to those we cherish and who we want to cherish, be drawn to, and love us back.
That truth about love offers opportunities for experiences of intimacy and happiness that can touch the world for generations.
There were fewer high profile celebrity divorces in 2015, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of couples who were celebrating together a year ago who won’t be in each other’s arms or watching Anderson Cooper, Kathy Griffin or Donald Trump ring in the new year tonight.
American Life Entertainment Marriage Education News PAIRS FoundationThere were fewer high profile celebrity divorces in 2015, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t lots of couples who were celebrating together a year ago who won’t be in each other’s arms watching Anderson Cooper, Kathy Griffin or Donald Trump ring in the new year tonight.
Although Mad Men star Jon Hamm and actress Jennifer Westfeldt never married, they let friends and fans know in September that their 18-year date had come to an end.
Real Housewives star Yolanda Foster and musician David Foster announced their separation at the beginning of December after less than five years of marriage. Foster made it to six with previous beau, Mohamed Hadid.
“Underworld” director Len Wiseman and British actress Kate Beckinsale split up after more than a decade of marriage. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner did too.
It took just two years for Halle Berry and Olivier Martinez to call it quits, almost the same time it took tennis star Ryan Sweeting and 8 Simple Rules’ Kaley Cuoco to throw in the towel.
Actress Pamela Anderson folded for the third time on poker player Rick Salomon. The couple wed in 2007, split two months later, married again in 2014, divorced the same year, and then tried another time.
Mandy Moore and Ryan Adams ended their marriage just shy of their sixth anniversary. For Patrick Dempsey and Jillian Fink, divorce meant the end of a 15-year marriage. It was nearly 30 years for 7th Heaven star Stephen Collins and actress Faye Grant
Former NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens (San Francisco, Philadelphia, Dallas, Buffalo, Cincinnati and Seattle) may deserve the record for 2015’s worst marriage fumble. Owens and Rachel Snider kept their marriage together for just three days. “Not to be mean or negative,” Owens said after their divorce was finalized, “but I’m honestly glad it’s over with … I learned my lesson and my life is in a much happier place.”
Most divorces never make headlines, regardless of consequences that typically impact families for generations.
There’s good news in many indications couples are increasingly thoughtful about marriage. That doesn’t mean we’re all destined to happily ever after, but getting hitched after someone is more settled in life and has a better sense of their individual and shared values, dreams and aspirations goes a long way towards knowing how to keep the flame alive.
Another positive is how many more people are learning that becoming the right person has as much to do with sustaining love and intimacy than meeting the right person, although that definitely has an impact.
Secular, evidence-based relationship skills trainings that barely drew notice in the 80’s and 90s’ are more often a consideration for couples before and after they say “I do.”
PAIRS, originally a 120-hour semester long course for relationships that retired marriage and family therapist Lori Heyman Gordon launched at American University in the late 70’s, has a following of more than 150,000 fans on Facebook with intensive nine-hour classes delivered regularly to Veterans, active-duty military and others throughout the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.
To give a boost to couples’ vows to make a happy marriage a bigger priority in 2016, PAIRS launched Marriage.am this month to provide significant free content from courses many have paid thousands of dollars to attend.
Let’s raise a toast to a 2016 that’s an even better year for love, marriage and families across the world, beginning with yours!
