More and more couples are participating in marriage education and relationship skills training. Two recent studies provide strong scientific evidence that brief educational programs deliver lasting improvements in marital satisfaction, resilience, and can prevent divorce.
Gary Jones says it’s a huge challenge for couples to have a healthy marriage when they have never seen a healthy marriage. Together with his wife of 43 years, Gary Jones leads a marriage ministry in Lincoln, Nebraska.
A North Dakota bill that sought to delay divorces and require marriage counseling or mediation now asks for an interim state study to examine the physical, emotional and financial impact of divorces involving dependent children.
Going to a marriage therapist may be one of the worst decisions a couple can make for their relationship. For many, it’s the beginning of an expensive, time-consuming journey that often contributes to divorce. Through incompetence, neutrality, pathologizing, and undermining relationships, therapists can actually harm marriages and lead couples rapidly down the road to divorce. Consider asking these important questions before deciding if marriage therapy is right for you. As an alternative to marriage therapy, many couples have found marriage education far more effective.
Research demonstrates that PAIRS relationship skills training, a behavioral/cognitive educational approach developed, evaluated, and refined over a quarter century, has the potential to reverse the trend of marital and family breakdown and significantly contribute to strengthening families and improving outcomes for children.
