What are current resources to work toward a healthy marriage?

First, laypeople and church community groups seem to be most effective in marriage renewal. By the way, SO IS A CRISIS! Pain, as one late mentor told us, “is a terrible companion, but a great teacher!” Also growing movement of marriage mentors, national marriage gatherings and cooperative movements such as “Marriage Savers” are now identifying helpful, healthy marriages. In some communities clergy come together and draft a community marriage policy, then publish it in the local paper. That lets the community know that churches no longer want to be “marriage mills” but instead will become “nurture mills,” taking people from being single life to entering into a healthy picture of a growing marriage.

Second, there is a serious body of research and writers coming together to study the long-term effects of divorce, of co-habiting, of sexual behavior and desire. Names to watch are Scott Stanley, John Gottman, Judith Wallerstein, Maggie Gallagher, David Popenoe and Michele Weiner-Davis among others. Most are Ph.D.s who write at a popular level. All are all engaged in serious, ongoing research, studying the flaws and flows of marriage in our society. All have websites or can be found using a search engine such as www.google.com

Third, the absentee father has now emerged as a serious issue needing help to restore healthy families. While this may seem a bit politically incorrect, a 1996 Gallup poll showed 79.1% of Americans believe “the most significant family or social problem facing American is the physical absence of the father from the home.” Research shows that 90% of all homeless and runaway children did not have a father in the home. 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes. And 63% of youths that commit suicide had absentee fathers.

Divorced fathers are often stereotyped as deadbeat dads or Disneyland dads. True according to some studies, some men are escaping from marriages into work, computers, excessive time with hobbies and of course, the old escapes of alcohol, spending and affairs along with newer escapes like internet pornography. Are all divorced dads neglectful or irresponsible or being dead bolted out of their children’s lives by the courts or are they just giving up? More research and better fathering skills are needed to accurately assess the missing dads.

Hey, this was supposed to be about healthy trends! These sound like alarms. True. Yet turning any of these around seems to make for better or healthier families.

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Author: Tom Tyndall
Category: Marriage
Published: 01.28.09