Ruth Institute Blog

In this blog, I have often advocated that men learn how to talk to and deal with women most effectively. In my life, I have seen men lose their marriages because they did not know how to deal with their wives.  I’ve watched their interactions with their wives and feared correctly for their future.  I wished I could teach them what they needed to do to get better results from their interactions with their wives.  I have also met single men who were frustrated in their attempts to find love and marriage because of their lack of skill in dealing with women.  Having once been hopeless with women and having learned on my own what to do, I know the value of this knowledge. Read more…

from The Heritage Foundation

Marriage in popular culture has experienced its share of ups and downs, mostly the latter, in recent years. The decline of marriage has even spread to middle America, once the bedrock of healthy relationships and stable families. Men and women now increasingly forego the benefits of marriage for unstable cohabiting relationships and increasing numbers of children are born outside marriage. Despite these daunting challenges to rekindling positive popular attitudes toward marriage, the fight to restore the honor and stability of lifelong, married love is far from over. Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

A good, lasting marriage makes the spouses happier and healthier and increases their lifespan, compared with cohabitation. On average. That’s the net finding of a review of 148 studies in seven European countries, according to an editorial in the British Medical Journal.

So don’t let anyone kid you otherwise. A recent report from a New Zealand cohort study said that cohabiting relationships made the partners just as happy as marriage if they lasted. But they do not usually last as long as marriages, and that’s a fact. Read more…

by Carolyn Moynihan

As part of a “Sustainable Life” guide to a “healthier, happier 2011″ the Times has published a piece headed, “The Happy Marriage Is the ‘Me’ Marriage”.

Really? Yes, really, says Tara Parker-Pope.

The notion that the best marriages are those that bring satisfaction to the individual may seem counterintuitive. After all, isn’t marriage supposed to be about putting the relationship first?

Too right it’s counter-intuitive. And it doesn’t help to decorate this idea with a beautiful metaphor: Read more…

The Ruth Institute Launches Contest to Promote
Positive Views of Lifelong Marriage
SAN MARCOS, CA – The Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage Education Fund, announces its first annual Reel Love Challenge, a video contest for young adults, aged 18-30. The contest is open to all young adults, married or single, male or female, in college, out of college, or never been anywhere near a college. This contest is for everyone in the next generation to give their ideas about what sustains love over the course of a lifetime.

Young adults should submit 30 second to 3 minute videos on the Reel Love Challenge website answering either or both of these questions: What makes lifelong love possible? Why is it worth the effort? Contestants should enter soon and take advantage of the Early Bird Contest: $100 to the first 7 videos submitted before January 6, 2011. Read more…

by Margaret Somerville

A collection of in-depth essays on a beleaguered institution turns out to be a fascinating read.

I resisted reviewing this book, because, to be utterly frank, I thought I would find it boring, even though I am a lawyer. But being bored was not the only problem I foresaw; I also anticipated that I’d have to be less than enthusiastic about a text edited by two scholars whom I know and respect. So, very reluctantly, I agreed to write a “book note”, which is how I came to read it. But, as the saying goes, “You can’t judge a book by its cover”—or, more precisely in this case, its title. To my complete surprise, I found The Jurisprudence of Marriage and Other Intimate Relationships fascinating and eagerly read it from the first to the last page and learnt a great deal in doing so. I would strongly recommend it to anyone with a professional or personal interest in the contemporary family, its history and legal governance, the forces that are currently influencing it, and what we should and should not do in molding its future. Read more…

This article deals with a technique that is reputed to increase marital happiness among neurotic newlyweds.

Having read it, I’m not sure that this advice should be limited to couples containing neurotic partners.

After all, with this kind of thing do you really want to take any chances?

You can never really be too safe.

Seriously.  You’re better safe than sorry.

Really.

Be gracious when your spouse apologizes to you. “Thank you for your apology. I really appreciate you saying that to me.”

Doesn’t that come off even nicer than, “Apology accepted”? And especially more than “See, I told you I was right!” Get in the habit of accepting others’ defeat graciously, as well as your own!

Get all 101 Tips here.

This is a bit of a switch.

By Marianne Medlin

Denver, Colo., Nov 20, 2010 / 07:07 am (CNA).- Marriage and family experts argued against media coverage of a recent study that claims a large numbers of Americans view marriage as obsolete. Rather than endorse a negative interpretation of the figures, the experts argued that the same study shows the majority of young people today still want to get married. Read more…

Peep.

One of our critics suggested that NOM criticizes marriage abolition via redefinition but makes “not a peep” about divorce.  This is, obviously, not true.  It’s about to get still more laughably untrue with this post about the effects of divorce on happiness.  Peep. Read more…

by William C. Duncan, director of the Marriage Law Foundation, and a Ruth Institute Board Member.

Each November, our family puts up a blank poster board on which each member of the family can list the things they are grateful for. The list ranges from the confident handwriting of my wife to the shakier marks of the younger children who are tracing something written by an older sibling or parent (mine is closer to the latter). I have not see the phrase “lifelong love” on that poster, but it is always implicit—when “mom and dad” are listed or when my wife and I write each other’s names or when the brothers and sisters list each other. Our family is thankful for lifelong love. Read more…

Here’s a good interview by the authors of a good book.

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=109

RUTH INSTITUTE ANNOUNCES POSTER CONTEST AS PART OF

“REEL LOVE CHALLENGE”

Photo Contest Invites Creative Slogans

SAN MARCOS, CA – The Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage Education Fund, announced a one month poster contest as part of its first annual Reel Love Challenge, a video contest targeting college students around the country, and aimed at promoting a positive view of marriage and lasting love.

The poster contest, which runs through the month of October and will award a flip camera to the winner, invites contestants to submit a photo holding a sign that completes the phrase “Reel Love Is ­­____.”

The poster is available for download at the contest’s website, http://www.ruthinstitute.org/reellovechallenge/posterContest.

Submissions will be received until October 31, and a winner will be announced November 1.

The one month poster challenge is part of the Ruth Institute’s Reel Love Challenge, which invites college students around the country to submit 30 second videos to the contest website answering the question “How is lifelong love possible?” Video submissions will be accepted from September 20, 2010 until February 1, 2011, followed by an awards ceremony in San Diego where finalists’ videos will be viewed and winners will be determined by a panel of notable judges.

To schedule an interview with Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, founder of the Ruth Institute, contact Mary Beth Hutchins by e-mail at mhutchins@crcpublicrelations.com

From the web page of our friend, Wintery Knight:

Please click this link and read this post by an Australian medical doctor. (H/T Craig)

Here’s the graph which is based on data from the National Survey of Family Growth, 2002:

Marriage stability vs. number of lifetime sexual partners Read more…

Does this sound familiar?  “My husband drives me crazy!  How hard can it be to pick up a sock and put it in the laundry?  I mean, it’s not like he’s actually busy–he hasn’t fixed the leaky sink that I mentioned two months ago, or mowed the lawn, or cleaned up that mess in the garage.  And now that football has started, I never see him…”

I used to join in with this sort of talk. I considered it “casual complaining”–nothing serious, certainly. Sometimes I would even trot out my husband’s faults in an effort to sympathetically let a girlfriend know that her husband isn’t all that bad–all husbands “do stuff like that”. I hoped it would make her see that it really wasn’t worth complaining about. But that probably wasn’t the effect; my “complaining” ended up justifying her complaining.

Then something I heard (on the radio? at a seminar?) made me think about what I was doing to my husband.  Read more…

Picture yourself five years from now. See yourself grateful that you stuck with your spouse. Researchers from the Institute for American Values followed couples in crisis who contemplated divorce. Five years later, most of those who stayed married were glad they did.

Remind yourself of this the next time you think you can’t take any more. Take a deep breath, pull your shoulders back, and keep moving forward, doing what needs to be done to make things better.

Want more marriage-saving tips? Find all 101 here.

Today, I discovered a blog called “[Expletive] Feelings.”  Considering my stoic, unsentimental and unromantic outlook, I knew that I found kindred spirits in the writers of this blog.  Sure enough, I found this post.  It’s every kind of awesome I can think of.  And more.

In it, he says just about exactly what I’ve been saying on these pages.  But he says it without as much cheeky sarcasm and obscure cultural references randomly hidden among the hyperlinks.  He also says it with the authority of a psychiatrist.

But, dude, check this post out:

I love my wife, and I have since we met in college. She’s also been very devoted to me, supporting my fledgling career as an artist and even taking a part-time job as my manager (on top of her full-time job, which supports us both). The problem is that, as much as I love her and as much as I’ve tried to ignore my feelings for other men, I’m pretty sure I’m actually gay. To admit that I’m gay would mean divorcing her, which would not only break her heart when all she’s ever done is sacrifice everything for me, but throw every aspect of my life, personally and professionally, into chaos. I don’t want to hurt her or lose her, and, well, I don’t want to go on welfare. My goal is to be true to both of us. Read more…

It’s a great way to keep your head clear. But does anybody care, I wonder?

by Carolyn Moynihan

It is always gratifying when research coincides with common sense and everyday experience, as in the case of a new study showing that a relationship in which sexual intimacy is delayed is more likely to endure. Read more…

Considering the posts I have written on romantic love and on sentimentality, some readers of this blog may have the mistaken impression that I am unromantic.

This is not so.

Recently, I saw a movie, the movie featured the recitation of some poetry.  That got me to thinking about my wife’s upcoming birthday.  So, to honor this blessed event, I have written a poem in my wife’s honor.   I hope you enjoy. Read more…