Only a tiny proportion of couples who have children but do not get married will still be together by the time their offspring are teenagers, according to stark new predictions.
A study by the Marriage Foundation calculates that cohabiting couples who have children are more than twice as likely to split up as those who had tied the knot beforehand.
But of those who do not then go on to get married after having children, only a handful will still be together by the time the child is 16, it claims.
And it predicts that half of children born today will have been through a family break-up by the time they are 16.
The foundation, set up by the High Court judge Sir Paul Coleridge, said that the findings show that the idea of being “happily unmarried” is a myth.
And it accused the Government of being fixated with trying to “airbrush” the importance of traditional marriage out of discussion about family break-up, with an emphasis on “long term stable relationships” instead.
Full report here.
Men and women are different by God’s design. When we don’t understand the differences between us, we will experience rejection and long-term frustration.
For married couples, listening is one of the most important skills you can have. When couple counselling the single biggest issue is the couple’s failure to communicate. How well you listen has a major impact on your marriage, your job job, and on the quality of your relationships with others.
We listen to obtain information.
We listen to understand.
We listen for enjoyment.
We listen to learn.
Given all this listening we do, you would think we’d be good at it!
In fact most of us are not. Especially married couples. Depending on the study being quoted, we remember between 25% and 50% of what we hear. That means that when you talk to your boss, colleagues, customers or spouse for 10 minutes, they pay attention to less than half of the conversation. This is dismal!
Turn it around and it reveals that when you are receiving directions or being presented with information, you aren’t hearing the whole message either. You hope the important parts are captured in your 25-50%, but what if they’re not?
Clearly, listening is a skill that we can all benefit from improving. By becoming a better listener, you will improve your productivity, as well as your ability to influence, persuade and negotiate. What’s more, you’ll avoid conflict and misunderstandings. All of these are necessary for workplace success!
Good communication skills require a high level of self-awareness. By understanding your personal style of communicating, you will go a long way towards creating good and lasting impressions with others.
The way to become a better listener is to practice “active listening”. This is where you make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying but, more importantly, try to understand the complete message being sent.
In order to do this you must pay attention to the other person very carefully.
You cannot allow yourself to become distracted by whatever else may be going on around you, or by forming counter arguments that you’ll make when the other person stops speaking. Nor can you allow yourself to get bored, and lose focus on what the other person is saying. All of these contribute to a lack of listening and understanding.
Tip: If you’re finding it particularly difficult to concentrate on what someone is saying, try repeating their words mentally as they say them – this will reinforce their message and help you stay focused.
To enhance your listening skills, you need to let the other person know that you are listening to what he or she is saying. To understand the importance of this, ask yourself if you’ve ever been engaged in a conversation when you wondered if the other person was listening to what you were saying. You wonder if your message is getting across, or if it’s even worthwhile continuing to speak. It feels like talking to a brick wall and it’s something you want to avoid.
Acknowledgement can be something as simple as a nod of the head or a simple “uh huh.” You aren’t necessarily agreeing with the person, you are simply indicating that you are listening. Using body language and other signs to acknowledge you are listening also reminds you to pay attention and not let your mind wander.
You should also try to respond to the speaker in a way that will both encourage him or her to continue speaking, so that you can get the information if you need. While nodding and “uh huhing” says you’re interested, an occasional question or comment to recap what has been said communicates that you understand the message as well.
Becoming an Active Listener
There are five key elements of active listening. They all help you ensure that you hear the other person, and that the other person knows you are hearing what they say.
Tip: If you find yourself responding emotionally to what someone said, say so, and ask for more information: “I may not be understanding you correctly, and I find myself taking what you said personally. What I thought you just said is XXX; is that what you meant?”.
Key Points
It takes a lot of concentration and determination to be an active listener. Old habits are hard to break, and if your listening habits are as bad as many people’s are, then there’s a lot of habit-breaking to do!
Be deliberate with your listening and remind yourself frequently that your goal is to truly hear what the other person is saying. Set aside all other thoughts and behaviors and concentrate on the message. Ask questions, reflect, and paraphrase to ensure you understand the message. If you don’t, then you’ll find that what someone says to you and what you hear can be amazingly different!
Start using active listening today to become a better communicator, improve your workplace productivity, and develop better relationships.
A very thought provoking letter from Jimmy Evans, Marriage Today
I haven’t been shy about detailing the rocky early years of my marriage to Karen. Both of us were certain that our marriage was destined for greatness—that we would never fight, never get tired of each other, never worry about money or kids or any of the petty things other couples argued about.
We both knew we were the perfect match and nothing could stand in our way. We were confident. It only took two weeks for us to realize how misplaced our confidence was.
I don’t remember the first argument Karen and I had after we were married, but I do remember wondering if the fighting would ever stop. One argument would flow into the next one, like an endless raging river. Though we kept fighting, neither of us ever won.
After three years, we hit rock bottom, numb and out of love. We were barely speaking. Both of us were thinking about leaving.
What happened to turn things around in our marriage? How did we ever get from that point to where we are today—two giddy old married people who can hardly keep their hands off each other?
The truth is, it wasn’t any one miraculous event, but a long series of small decisions and attitude changes followed by more decisions and attitude changes. It was a journey.
But like all journeys, it began with one critical, monumentally important first step: We gave up.
There came a point when we both realized we simply could no longer make it on our own. We understood we were completely incapable of putting our marriage back together again—at least on our own power. So we quit trying. We put down our weapons and surrendered.
No one would have blamed us for leaving each other. Looking back, I’m surprised I never got to that point of no return, and even more surprised that Karen didn’t. I was an emotional bully. Almost anyone else would have left me.
But somehow we both found the strength to do the right thing. We surrendered our marriage to God. We opened our hands and hearts and gave ourselves over to His will, recommitting ourselves to the relationship. Little by little, day by day, we began to rebuild the love that had died.
It didn’t happen overnight. It was a daily process of dying to self, getting up each morning and deciding to be nicer to each other than we were the day before. More forgiving. More loving. More selfless and caring.
In short, we did with our marriage what God asks each of us to do in our own Christian walk. Instead of focusing on our own selfish desires, we focused on the needs of the other. I started learning Karen’s needs and looking for ways to fill them. She did the same for me.
We gave up trying to make it on our own and instead leaned on God to rebuild the love affair we had so callously destroyed. That has proven to be the most supernaturally rewarding decision we could have ever made. What about you? Is it time for you to give up?
Trust fools you into remembering that your partner was more considerate and less hurtful than he or she actually was reports Science Daily. New research from Northwestern University and Redeemer University College (Ontario, Canada) is the first to systematically examine the role of trust in biasing memories of transgressions in romantic partnerships.
People who are highly trusting tended to remember transgressions in a way that benefits the relationship, remembering partner transgressions as less severe than they originally reported them to be. People low on trust demonstrated the opposite pattern, remembering partner transgressions as being more severe than how they originally reported them to be.
“One of the ways that trust is so good for relationships is that it makes us partly delusional,” said Eli J. Finkel, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at Northwestern.
Laura B. Luchies, lead author of the study, said the current psychological reality of your relationship isn’t what actually happened in the past, but rather the frequently distorted memory of what actually happened. “You can remember your partner as better or as worse than he/she really was, and those biased memories are important determinants of how you think about your partner and your relationship,” she said.
Researchers have long known that trust is crucial to a well-functioning relationship. “This research presents a newer, deeper understanding,” Finkel said. “It reveals that trust yields relationship-promoting distortions of the past.”
Said Luchies, assistant professor of psychology at Redeemer University College: “If you talk to people who really trust their partner now, they forget some of the negative things their partner did in the past. If they don’t trust their partner much, they remember their partner doing negative things that the partner never actually did. They tend to misremember.”
British parents don’t eat with their children – or, if they do, it’s in front of the telly, according to a new survey. No wonder we’re in the midst of a child obesity crisis. Get off the sofa, cook a family meal, and eat it together, says Sally Peck.
As I walked by enormous queues to get into the Museum of Natural History yesterday in South Kensington, I was thrilled to see so many children of all ages waiting to enjoy a worthwhile entertainment over half term. True to their national heritage, these children were exemplary queuers, patiently waiting with their parents and nannies in a line that snaked almost to the V&A entrance.
However, I was disappointed, at 11.30am, to see so many kids snacking on individual packets of crisps while they waited. How difficult is it to cut up a pear and some cheese to bring for your child instead?
It is estimated that one in 10 children aged 2-10 in Britain is obese, a third of primary school children aged 10 or 11 are overweight, and diet-related diabetes in kids is rising.
Full article here.
The UK has one of the highest rates of family breakdown in the Western world with just two thirds of children living with both parents, according to research by a global development organisation reports the Independent.
The UK comes only behind Belgium, Latvia and Estonia in the list of countries where both a child’s father and mother live in the same household. The analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) showed that just 68.9 per cent of children live with both parents in the UK, well below the average of 84 per cent. The figures have been described as symptomatic of an “appalling epidemic of family breakdown” by social justice campaigners.
The lowest percentage of all was in Latvia at 64.9 per cent, while the highest was in Finland where it stood at 95.2 per cent. The UK is in contrast to other Western European countries such as Germany which stands at 82 per cent, Italy at 92.1 per cent, Spain at 91.5 per cent and France at 79.5 per cent. The United States also had a much higher number of children living with both parents, at 70.7 per cent.
The figures, which looked at the living arrangements of children aged between 0 and 14 in 30 OECD member countries, relate to 2007. They also show that the proportion of children living with their mother and not their father in the UK is 27.6 per cent, while for those living with only their father it is just 2.4 per cent. Only Latvia has a higher percentage of children living with only their mother, at 30.2 per cent.
Christian Guy, managing director at the Centre for Social Justice, said: “Timid politicians are becoming numb to Britain’s sky-high family breakdown rates. Behind too many front doors family instability damages adults and children. Yet, as these OECD figures show, broken families are not some inevitable feature of modern society or ‘social progress’. All kinds of transformational help can be offered to parents and couples when they come under life’s pressures. It is time for people who oppose things that would stem the tide of breakdown, such as backing marriage as the most stable path for children, to stop playing politics. Our forgotten families need all the help we can offer.”
Harry Benson, communications director at the Marriage Foundation, said the statistics should “convince politicians of all colours of their utter failure to deal with the central social problem of our times”. He added: “The latest UK data tells us that 450 of every 1,000 children will experience the break-up of their parents before their 16th birthday, largely the result of the trend away from marriage, in particular the collapse of unmarried families. This appalling epidemic of family breakdown costs the taxpayer at least £44 billion per year, more than the defence budget. Yet government has no policy whatsoever to reduce or prevent the continued rise. The Marriage Foundation has been established with a primary purpose to confront this very serious national issue. We will not rest until the tide has been turned.”
“What is love” was the most searched phrase on Google in 2012, according to the company. In an attempt to get to the bottom of the question once and for all, the Guardian has gathered writers from the fields of science, psychotherapy, literature, religion and philosophy to give their definition of the much-pondered word.
The physicist: ‘Love is chemistry’
Biologically, love is a powerful neurological condition like hunger or thirst, only more permanent. We talk about love being blind or unconditional, in the sense that we have no control over it. But then, that is not so surprising since love is basically chemistry. While lust is a temporary passionate sexual desire involving the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and oestrogen, in true love, or attachment and bonding, the brain can release a whole set of chemicals: pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin and vasopressin. However, from an evolutionary perspective, love can be viewed as a survival tool – a mechanism we have evolved to promote long-term relationships, mutual defence and parental support of children and to promote feelings of safety and security.
• Jim Al-Khalili is a theoretical physicist and science writer
The psychotherapist: ‘Love has many guises’
Unlike us, the ancients did not lump all the various emotions that we label “love” under the one word. They had several variations, including:
Philia which they saw as a deep but usually non-sexual intimacy between close friends and family members or as a deep bond forged by soldiers as they fought alongside each other in battle. Ludus describes a more playful affection found in fooling around or flirting. Pragma is the mature love that develops over a long period of time between long-term couples and involves actively practising goodwill, commitment, compromise and understanding. Agape is a more generalised love, it’s not about exclusivity but about love for all of humanity. Philautia is self love, which isn’t as selfish as it sounds. As Aristotle discovered and as any psychotherapist will tell you, in order to care for others you need to be able to care about yourself. Last, and probably least even though it causes the most trouble, eros is about sexual passion and desire. Unless it morphs into philia and/or pragma, eros will burn itself out.
Love is all of the above. But is it possibly unrealistic to expect to experience all six types with only one person. This is why family and community are important.
• Philippa Perry is a psychotherapist and author of Couch Fiction
full article here
Years ago a couple had a rebellious young son. He was a very difficult child and was often caught doing something wrong. Whenever it happened, this young man would immediately transfer the blame to someone else. It happened like clockwork. He would come under scrutiny, he would be threatened with discipline, and he would find someone else to blame. "My friends put a rock in my hand," he would say. "They made me do it! They told me to throw it at that car or they'd make fun of me!"
You might laugh at the exaggeration of that statement, we can see right through it. Of course—but that wasn't the case for the kid's parents. They seemed to sympathize with him every time. "Poor Johnny, his friends made him do it." Before long, the parents were actually becoming adversarial with anyone who called "Johnny" to account. While they meant well, they were doing a great deal of damage to their son.
Rather than teaching him he was personally responsible for his behavior, they were teaching him that it was all right to make someone else take the fall.0
From time to time, our schools and culture get focused on combating peer pressure. That's a good thing, because peer pressure can cause children to do things they wouldn't normally do. But we can't let peer pressure become an excuse.
Our own kids are growing up, we tell them we don't care how much peer pressure they come under; peer pressure doesn't justify bad behavior. We hold them responsible for their actions. We make sure our kids know they have to learn to overcome obstacles and that no matter how much they complain or moan or blame others, their behavior was their own responsibility.
What we need to realize as parents is that children learn by watching the examples of their mother and father. If the father is constantly blaming the mother or the mother blaming the father, our kids will pick up on this. Before long, the child will learn that blame-shifting means avoiding responsibility. It doesn't matter whether two parents are blaming each other, their bosses, the government, the president, or anyone else. Children will observe that behavior and begin to use it.
Please understand, fathers and mothers and husbands and wives: Regardless of what anyone else does, we are personally responsible for our own actions.
Jesus hung on the cross, looked down at the people who crucified Him, and said, "Father, forgive them." If there ever was a time when a person was justified to seek revenge or do something wrong, it was then. But Jesus did what was right. In spite of the incredible pain, emotional pressure, and persecution, He did the right thing.
Through personal example and training, we must teach our families that each of us is responsible for doing what is right. No one else controls us. We control ourselves, and God holds us responsible for our own behavior. What are your children learning by watching you? Are you being a good example? Regardless of what anyone else does, we are personally responsible for our own actions.
Are passionate and rewarding relationships really possible in a world where marriages seem to be failing left and right?
The answer is YES, according to Lifelong Love Affair, the newest book by MarriageToday cofounder and host Jimmy Evans. God didn’t create marriage to frustrate men and women or make them feel inadequate. He created this covenant relationship to meet our deepest needs and desires. He created marriage to be filled with passion, purpose and excitement. Even better, God created marriage to last a lifetime.
Don’t settle for a mediocre marriage.
Learn from Jimmy Evans how to embrace God’s dream for your marriage, how to cultivate romance and fun, and how to fulfill your spouse’s spiritual, emotional, and sexual needs. Transform your marriage into a lifelong love affair!
The book is available on Amazon here