In the News

The Dallas Seminars were featured in November 1998 on NBC Nightly News, February 1999 on Positively Texas Channel 11 (CBS) and March 1999 on Fox 4 Nightly News.

Kelly Simpson has written articles for the 1999 February, April, and June issues, along with 2000 January issue of Today's Dallas Woman on Intimacy, Infidelity, and Physical Health & Intimacy.

THE DALLAS OBSERVER

Just Get Married! May 29, 2003

Bells will be ringing as a new pro-marriage, anti-poverty plan takes root in Texas

BY MARK DONALD

Mark Graham

Dallas marriage therapist Kelly Simpson hopes to spearhead the "Texas initiative," a broad-based Dallas effort to promote marriage and strengthen relationships by offering classes such as those she developed for the Army.

"Then there was the guy who loved his wife so much, he almost told her." --Anonymous

It seems a bit bizarre and a lot ironic that the Army, part of the mightiest military machine in history, is offering its troops a touchy-feely weekend workshop in romance. Yet eight soldiers and their spouses in various stages of connubial bliss are registered at a San Antonio Holiday Inn for a three-day course in the pleasurable arts. All hope--or so they say this May evening--to command a better understanding of the emotional needs of their companions by building the communication and intimacy needed to enhance their marriages. Hopefully, the sex will get better, too.

There was a time when the Army's attitude about marriage was different. "We used to say, if the Army wanted you to have a wife, we would have issued you one," says a company commander who attended the workshop. But now the Army, like much of the federal government, is in the business of promoting and strengthening marriage.

The Army got it right when it hired Dallas marriage therapist Kelly Simpson to teach romance skills to its fighting men and women. Simpson is attractive but unthreatening, girlish but gracious, farm fresh in her candor but Park Cities in her pinstripes. As she offers an overview of the weekend's activities, a playful smile deepens her dimples. Topics will include differing intimacy styles, the biology of love and ministering to each other's sexual needs. Several couples have previously attended her communication skills workshop, but it can't be easy for soldiers to talk about surrender--sexual, emotional or otherwise.

Simpson gets everybody on their feet, playing a game she calls "suck it up, blow it out." Each couple stands face to face--a drivers license pressed to the lips of one partner. The goal is to pass the license between partners, by blowing or sucking, and thereby mimicking the give-and-take implicit in a cooperative relationship. The spirit of the game is playful, but the sucking, blowing sounds have an undulating, erotic quality. Small wonder it's the last exercise of the evening before the couples retreat to their rooms.

"Each couple will receive a little brown goody bag," says Simpson, who has filled them with baby oil, string, candles and other trinkets in hope they might get creative with the menu of sexual options that will be discussed. "Research shows that the best sex happens in long-term married relationships."

I begin to wish I had taken my editor up on her offer and invited my wife to come along for the ride. Throughout the weekend, it becomes obvious the couples are growing more intimate, staring into each other's eyes during the exercises, listening without interrupting, passing out government-issued Kleenex as they openly recommit themselves to their marriage vows.

"This is not traditional marriage therapy," Simpson later says. "This is marriage education." No attempts are made to heal the inner child, to diagnose dysfunction, to blame Mom for neurotic behaviors. "There is lecturing and group discussions, which create the opportunity to take in information in a less defensive mode."

Marriage education is the centerpiece of the Bush administration's Healthy Marriage Initiative, a controversial social experiment that seeks to use federal welfare funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program to promote marriage and reduce divorce, particularly among the poor, whose children are five times as likely to live in poverty if raised in mother-only households. But family disintegration knows no economic boundaries, and states such as Oklahoma, which has become a national pro-marriage model, are already preaching a get-married, stay-married agenda to couples of every stripe. Simpson hopes to be at the forefront of a broad-based "marriage promotion program" in the Dallas area, using much of the same material she developed for the Army.

Though at first blush, the pro-marriage movement seems the agenda of the family-values crowd--religious conservatives locked in a cultural war with single moms, cohabitants and Hillary Clinton--a body of research from respected social scientists has given renewed zeal to those whose primary weapon had been a few selected verses of scripture. This research suggests that marriage confers undeniable benefits on children, couples and country. It has also drawn together an odd confluence of conservatives, sociologists, marriage educators, fathers' rights activists and divorce-law reformers who have found enough common ground to consider themselves a movement.

But weaving research into sound public policy is another matter. With the election of President Bush, marriage promotion found its champion and is now being touted as a palliative for poverty, a way for unwed mothers to wean themselves off welfare and for distant dads to reconnect with their kids--and a damn attractive family value for the rest of us.

Cynics might call the Bush agenda brilliant politics, the marriage of liberal social science with a conservative pro-family (anti-gay) agenda. Even less jaundiced critics claim the research results are overstated and filtered through an ideological lens that is unrealistic, simplistic and narrow-minded. Several women's groups fear that promoting marriage will coerce some women into abusive marriages and discourage others from leaving them. Advocates for the poor think the failure to marry is more a consequence of poverty than a cause. Liberals believe that valuing marriage over other family structures denies the reality of millions of children who are being raised by single parents, extended families, gay and lesbian couples or movie stars. Libertarians wonder what the hell the government is doing in the marriage business anyway.

As yet, there is little evidence of the pro-marriage movement in Texas, but our turn is coming. "We are getting pressure from the White House that we really need to do something in Texas," says Larry Brendel, regional program director for the Administration of Children and Families within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Texas conservatives are pushing bills this legislative session supporting marriage promotion as well as covenant marriage--a kind of über-marriage that eliminates simple no-fault divorces. A small but zealous group of family law attorneys claim they defend marriage in the courtroom on behalf of clients who are contesting their divorces. But when Brendel thinks about "doing something in Texas," he thinks about supporting, among others, Kelly Simpson, who hopes by the end of the year to launch what she calls the "Texas initiative," a nonprofit community-wide marital coalition of the willing.

That the federal government might fund relationship skills courses such as Simpson's that seek to educate couples in a variety of sexual styles--"gourmet sex, adventuresome sex, a quickie, self-care"--would seem to at least give the religious right pause. Only somehow, it doesn't.

"It's just not a liberal-conservative issue," Simpson says. "I see it as a necessity to help our culture raise healthy, happy, well-fed children. What's so controversial about that?"

"I never knew what real happiness was until I got married; and then it was too late." --Anonymous

I am happily remarried and have been able to achieve what marriage educators and social conservatives claim is a myth: a good divorce. Although I was no monument to matrimony when my ex-wife threw me out, I remember standing on the front porch and peering through the living room window at my son Adam, who was only 2 and staring back at me, crying. As a lawyer, I had done some divorce work and had represented too many dads who out of irresponsibility (theirs) or vindictiveness (theirs and/or their wives) had no relationship with their kids after the divorce was final. Staring at my son, I promised myself I would never be one of those dads. Anger subsided, civility returned and my former wife filed for divorce alleging no-fault grounds, which enabled us to share custody of our son for 16 years. Through remarriages, career changes and the birth of my second son and first daughter, we have attempted to keep Adam, now a college sophomore, at the center of our concerns. So when I look at the research, which states that on average children and parents in married families are happier, healthier, wealthier and generally less pissed off than those who live in single-parent homes, I think about Adam and wonder if the marriage movement is overstating its case.

Diane Sollee, the director of the Washington, D.C.-based Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education and head cheerleader for the marriage movement, does her best to convince me otherwise. She coined the term "marriage education" in 1996, the year she first organized her Smart Marriages Conference, which trains marriage educators in a dizzying assortment of relationship skills courses. She sees the movement more as a "marriage renaissance" and paints herself as a liberal feminist, which is disarming, coming from a woman who regularly lunches with Republicans.

For more of this article visit:http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/2003-05-29/feature.html/1/index.html

11/02/02 Saturday

THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS

Section:TEXAS LIVING Page:1C

THE EX FILES Why do serial spouses - from Liz to Billy Bob - have so much trouble getting it right, marriage after marriage?

By JOYCE SÁENZ HARRIS Staff Writer

The phrase itself only made it into the Oxford English Dictionary last year. But "serial monogamy" is not really all that new. The phenomenon has been around since way before Henry VIII, the 16th-century king of England who married six times in his obsessive quest for male heirs. Even citizens of the Roman Empire, as far back as the first century B.C., practiced serial marriage.

Before the 20th century, the combination of mortality in childbirth and primitive medical practices often resulted in shorter life spans, meaning many people were unfortunate enough to be widowed more than once. This was the case of some unlikely candidates for serial monogamy, such as Mary Baker Eddy, the thrice-wed founder of the Church of Christ, Scientist.

But today we have a different breed of serial monogamists: people who divorce repeatedly, going from one marriage to another in search of the "perfect" partner.

In some cases, real life may be not too different from the byzantine soap-opera travails of All My Children heroine Erica Kane (played by actress Susan Lucci). Erica has been married nine times to six men. She married three of her husbands twice each, and (oops!) had two illegal marriages to yet another swain.

On the soap, it's all fiction. But it's not all that far from fact, considering that actress Elizabeth Taylor has been married eight times, including twice to Richard Burton - and that she managed to acquire four husbands in the 1950s alone.

"I imagine Elizabeth Taylor choosing a dress in which to marry Richard Burton. Did she believe that this time everything would be different? That this time she would be true until death did them part? I marvel at such hopefulness." - novelist Ann Patchett, in The New York Times.

If we define "serial monogamy" as three or more marriages on one's personal résumé, the best-known serial monogamists are celebrities such as Miss Taylor, CNN talk-show host Larry King and actor Mickey Rooney, all with eight marriages each; and Hollywood's reigning champion, Zsa Zsa Gabor, with nine. Moving up as a contender is our serial bridegroom of the year, actor Billy Bob Thornton. He recently dispensed with Wife No. 5, actress Angelina Jolie - and he is only 47.

Many of us know someone who has shed his or her second or third spouse and plans another trip to the altar. The mom next door may have more than she imagined in common with model Christie Brinkley and actress Melanie Griffith, each of whom has been married four times and has three children, each child by a different husband.

This inherently creates difficulties. "The blending of children is one of the biggest problems," says Dr. Joan Robertson Cross, a psychologist whose Far North Dallas practice sees many couples working on third or fourth marriages. By the time a parent enters a third marriage, he or she is hauling the considerable baggage of children who resent the revolving door of stepparents and stepsiblings.

"Such children also grow up with a distorted idea of marriage," says Kelly Simpson, a marriage and family therapist at the Active Relationships Center in Dallas (www.activerelationships.com).

"Repeatedly changing partners produces a generation of kids who have never seen a marriage work," Ms. Simpson says. These children are likely to regard the opposite sex as untrustworthy, spouses as easily replaceable. The chances are poor that they will avoid the example set by their parents and achieve a stable marriage of their own.

Serial monogamists "most definitely come out of similarly fractured households," Ms. Simpson says. Dr. Cross agrees: "There is a correlation in divorce. If one of the partners in a marriage has been married three times, 9 times out of 10, that one is from a divorced home."

"Same old slippers, Same old rice, Same old glimpse of Paradise." - poet William James Lampton, "June Weddings"

Why do people repeatedly fail at marriage? It's not a matter of socio-political philosophy, for sure: Those who have had three spouses include staunch conservatives such as Newt Gingrich and die-hard liberals such as Jane Fonda. A couple's level of marital commitment is far more likely to be shaped by parents and siblings, other married friends and religious beliefs.

First marriages usually falter when the heat of romance cools unexpectedly. This coincides with the waning of a potent "chemical cocktail" that, when released in the human body, makes one feel sexually attracted to - "in love" with - another person. After a few months, perhaps up to two years, that initial thrill is mostly gone. Unless romance has ripened and matured into a committed, selfless relationship, the partners are likely to feel vaguely dissatisfied. Sexual relations may diminish drastically, especially after childbirth. But another attractive person can make that chemical cocktail kick in again. Eventually it's the same song, third verse.

If you fit this pattern, you're merely in love with love. Like any addiction, the "love drug" requires more frequent doses to maintain its kick. That's why serial marriages or other monogamous relationships may get successively shorter in duration.

Couples who work to save a marriage and succeed are likely to be influenced by "subliminal pressures from their families, their friends and their faith," Ms. Simpson says. Those partners tend to have more intact extended families, with parents and siblings in stable marriages.

Couples may have a better support network if they have a religious reason For marital commitment. A social group of happily married friends also can exert a subtle force, "because friends don't like to see their friends get divorced," Ms. Simpson says.

"It was the triumph of hope over experience." - Dr. Samuel Johnson on the subject of remarriage, 1770

Can serial monogamists ever find true happiness? Yes - but not unless the serial bride and groom learn some hard lessons. Otherwise, "you can marry five times and never learn anything," Ms. Simpson says.

Key points:
No serial spouse is an innocent party to marital disaster.

All serial spouses have repeated poor choices and negative behavioral patterns.

They are destined to fail unless they change themselves.

They must team up with their spouse to break the destructive patterns.

Dr. Cross and Ms. Simpson agree that the serial spouses who seem to try hardest are working to save a third marriage. "I see a lot of good marriages coming out of No. 3," Dr. Cross says.

So, if what was learned in No. 3 had been learned in No. 1, more first marriages presumably would survive.

Elizabeth Taylor, now 70, once said of her eight marriages, 'What do you expect me to do? Sleep alone?' And Zsa Zsa Gabor, 13 years older and wed nine times, said, 'Personally I know nothing about sex because I've always been married." - columnist Susan Ager, the Detroit Free Press .

Is serial monogamy the symptom of a society that now treats marriage vows as disposable?

"No question about it," says Ms. Simpson. "People cut the line a lot faster than they used to."

They also hedge their bets more. Modern couples often live together for years, believing that a "test drive" will avert divorce, says Carina Chocano, a writer for the online magazine Salon.com. But the National Marriage Project, affiliated with Rutgers University, found that cohabitation before marriage actually increases the likelihood of divorce by 46 percent.

"There's a reason a 'test drive' lasts 10 minutes instead of three years," Ms. Chocano wisecracks. "Because at the end of three years, you want a new car." Ms. Chocano is the author of Do You Love Me or Am I Just Paranoid? A Serial Monogamist's Guide to Love (Villard Books; $9.95), which will be published in January. She describes it as a comic takeoff on earnest self-help books and "girl guides" to male- female relationships. But the writer also has real-life experience to share: She says a pattern of serial monogamy is quite usual among today's singles, be they gay or straight. Careerist types especially tend to date well into their 20s and 30s.

At 34, Ms. Chocano is thinking of marrying her live-in boyfriend, who is her third lengthy post-college relationship. "When you live together, you're 'committed,' but ambivalent," she says. Getting married requires a leap of faith for her generation, the first to grow up with parents who were likely to be divorced.

"People are understandably gun-shy about getting married, because who wants to go through three divorces?" Ms. Chocano says. "Three break-ups are bad enough." She cites a male friend who emerged in his early 30s from a short-lived "starter marriage."

The divorce, he said, "was just like breaking up - only with paperwork."

From the TODAY section of the Dallas Morning News, Friday, July 14, 2000

For couples, love can be biggest obstacle

By Kristen Kauffman

With the divorce rate hovering around 50 percent, many folks who are marrying today have already felt the sting of divorce, whether through the experiences of their parents or a close friend, or from their own previous marriage.

So, in the past decade, counselors and religious officials have expanded efforts to try to improve the chances of marital success. Many churhces and synagogues, for example, now require couples to go through premartial counseling before they take their vows.

The biggest problem many of these couples face, most counselors and therapists agree, is that they're in love.

That's right: in love. Because the marriage starts off with such a strong love, the couple often isn't prepared to deal with the rough times ahead. The couple isn't ready for the heard work it takes to build love into a relationship.

"There is a large segment of the population that believes if you love somebody, it will all work out," says Dr. Anna Beth Benningfield, a Dallas therapist and president of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapists. "There are people who love each other who get divorced."

The goal of most premarital and early marital counseling is to get partners to see beyond the romantic love they share and learn how to handle the typical problems that most couples encounter once the marriage is under way.

"Before the marriage, people are resistant to the idea that they're ever going to have problems," says Dr. Everett Worthington, author of Hope-Focused Marriage Counseling: A Guide to Brief Therapy (Intervarsity Press, $22.99), a text for marriage counselors. "They have to be inoculated against the idea that no problems will occur."

Dr. Worthington says couples first must figure out which areas of their relationship are strengths and which are weaknesses by asking themselves some key questions, such as:

Do you have the same core vision for your marriage?
Do you differ in basic values, such as child-rearing, relations with in-laws, religion or others?
Do you communicate well? If not, where is the weakness?
Can you resolve differences without hurting or devaluing each other and without holding a grudge?
Do you have similar expectations about your furture together?

These are the kinds of questons that romantic partners need to explore before marriage; they can do so in both religious and secular settings.

Decon Don Forbrich runs Holy Trinity Catholic Church's premarital counseling program, which includes encounter weekends and sessions with a "sponsor couple," selected from among church memebers whose marriages have endured.

"The pain of divorce, even when it's a bad marriage, is so intense," says Mr. Forbrich. "We want to give couplese the tools they need to have a better chance for a happy marriage."

"Relationships aren't built only on love," says Rabbi Mark Kaiserman of Temple Emanu-El. "Premarital counseling is one way to help a couple lookpast their love and at the other issues that can come up."

The synagogue requires couples to go through premarital sessions with the marrying rabbi and sometimes refers couples to professional marriage counselors.

Steve and Kathy Whitney married two years ago after taking an intensive six-month relationships course developed by PAIRS (Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills) International of Pembroke Pines, Fla. The program, founded by therapist and author Dr. Lori Gordon, is offered in the Dallas-Fort Worth area by serveral therapists, as well as in 50 other U.S. cities and 16 other countries. www.ActiveRelationships.com

Both Steve and Kathy had been married before and wanted to learn a new way of relating to a spouse, especially because they would have the added pressure of blending their families.

"If we hadn't take the classes, we'd have probably killed each other by now," says Mr. Whitney with a laugh. He says in his first marriage, he "didn't have a clue" how to handle problems that came up.

In the PAIRS course, they learned how to listen to and understand each other, how to dedicate time to each other and how to keep the relationship fun.

"I'm still in love as much as when we married, even though we have a lot of stress and problems with teenage kids," says Ms. Whitney. "You can't just have the love, you have to be able to live with each other, too."

What the Whitneys are talking about is what licensed marriage counselor Gay Jurgens refers to as "real love."

Ms. Jurgens has been leading 20-hours "Getting the Love You Want" workshios for engaged and married couples in Dallas for two decades. Developed by Dr. Harville Hendrix, the program is used nationally by thousands of therapists to help couples take the journey from romantic love to "real love."

"Real love is giving another human being the kind of love they need," says Ms. Jurgens. "To know, understand, accept, value and appreciate your partner as they really are."

She says once romantic love becomes frustrated by the reality of marriage and commitment, couples can begin to fight, criticize, nag, manipulate and coerce each other into changing. That's when couples can wing up in divorce court -- or become determined to re-commit, change themselves and do the hard work of relationships.

Ms. Jurgens also teaches couples to "re-romanticize" their relationships by showing caring every day, planning a surprise for each other every month, continuing to "date" each other, taking time to listen to and understand each other, and creating fun together.

Dr. Worthington recommends that couple keep in mind from the beginning of their relationships never to put down their partners. In fact, he defines "real love" as valuing your partner and being unwilling to devalue him or her.

"Treat your partner as a pearl of great value, that this is a precious person, someone you prize, someone you care for," he says. "Devaluing is insulting them, treating them as if they have nothing ot say, showing them that other things are more important or that you'd rather be somewhere else, using put-down humor. It's toxic to marriage."

Steve and Kathy Whitney say they continue to use the relationship tools they learned in counseling. They even went to some follow-up sessions to continue strengthening their marriage.

"I recommed... [couples counseling] to anyone and everyone that's getting married," says Ms. Whitney.

Kristen Kauffman is a Dallas freelance writer.

From the TODAY section of the Dallas Morning News, Thursday, February 26, 1998

Between ‘Yes, dear’ and ‘Huh?’ lies tricky terrain

By Karen M. Thomas

This is how Mike Connor’s marriage used to work.

Something he did, said or didn’t say caused his wife, Karen, to stew. For days. On the fifth day, maybe, the stew boiled over and his wife finally told him what bothered her.

But by then, Mr. Connor had forgotten the entire incident. And he couldn’t remember even when his wife replayed the event as she complained because, he now admits, he wasn’t listening.

"I’m thinking, ‘Yeah, OK, whatever. Next issue,’ " says the McKinney man, who has been married for five years and 11 months.

Their marriage, says Mr. Connor, was tumbling to disaster.

According to a recent report, the Connors were indeed doomed for divorce. Psychologists studied 130 newlywed couples for six years in an effort to predict marital success or failure. The report, produced by the National Council on Family Relations, was published Saturday in the Journal of Marriage and the Family.

What they found was that the happiest marriages resulted when husbands not only heard their wives, but were able to agree or sympathize with their feelings. The wives in those marriages offered their complaints gently and sometimes even with humor.

And, in the most surprising finding of the study, active listening skills routinely used by therapists to help those in troubled marriages like the Connors’ were simply not effective.

So does this mean, to have a strong, stable marriage, men need to toss aside that macho John Wayne-stance and instead opt for the wimpier "Yes, dear" shuffle? Do wives need to shove down their anger and try to make nice?

Not at all, say several Dallas-area marriage therapists and some of the couples they counsel. All the research suggests, they say, is that couples need to think kinder. Think gentler. Think friendship.

The focus on men, they say, is necessary to make them more tuned in to the emotional dance of a relationship, a role that women have traditionally taken on.

"It’s saying, ‘I am man enough to listen to my wife. I am secure in my masculinity,’ " says Joan Cross, Ph.D., a Dallas marital therapist. "It doesn’t mean that you are going to go and do exactly what she tells you."

Barbara Gold, who now lives in Florida and formerly ran Men Are From Mars/Women Are From Venus relationship workshops in the Dallas area, says women learn to give "until they are maxed out. And then we get into resentment. We just feel resentful for having given too much. So when they have become angry, maybe they do need the man to say, ‘OK, yes dear.’

"But I hate to give the idea we would start a movement towards men just always giving in. I think we just wish men would find that middle ground. For men, it’s all or nothing. It’s not giving in, it’s just the need to know that your point of view counted."

And what do the men say? Even though research conducted by psychologist John Gottman of the University of Washington says active listening skills aren’t effective, for men who didn’t know how to hear their partners, the skills are at least a start.

"I got divorced last year after 27 years of marriage and then started a new relationship," says Steve Whitney of Dallas. "I decided I wanted to go through some training, I guess I would call it."

Mr. Whitney and his partner, Kathy Karls, enrolled in Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills (PAIRS), a relationship workshop that spans either one-day sessions, two-day sessions or a 120-hour semester-long class.

"What we’re working on is good will," says Kelly Simpson, a licensed marital therapist and PAIRS leader. "The heart of intimacy is confiding. I say the greatest gift they can give you is to care."

In PAIRS, couples learn language such as "giving a haircut" - asking a partner for permission to rant uninterrupted to get the anger out. Or about "allergies," the baggage from their partners’ past that may cause an eruption. And they learn those darn listening skills where a partner paraphrases the other’s concerns to make sure it was heard properly.

"I don’t ever consciously say, ‘OK, we’re having a problem. Exercise 37,’ " Mr. Whitney says. "It’s not even an exercise anymore. It’s just more of an understanding of why she is reacting this way or why I am."

"We just find that we stop and think," says Ms. Karls. "Sometimes it’s best not to talk about something immediately. Maybe you should wait until you cool down."

How does the Connor marriage work now?

Three weeks ago, the Connors attended a two-day PAIRS workshop. The experience, Mr. Connor says, has given him hope of making it to his sixth wedding anniversary next month.

"Our relationship has been revolutionized, and we have the opportunity to succeed where once we didn’t think there was any," he says.

The listening skills are important, says Mrs. Connor. But the workshop restored their feelings of good will toward each other. And that allows the couple to work together to get to the heart of an issue and resolve it.

"I know good will is such an ambivalent term. We didn’t know we have that, but we didn’t," she says. "Now it’s a feeling of cooperation and that’s really helpful."

What Mr. Connor learned in the workshop, he says, were skills and the discipline to actually listen to his wife.

"It’s not always that you need to be right," he says. "Sometimes you just need to be heard and validated by the person that you are closest to. You want to know that you’re point of view matters.

"I can tell you that even though I thought I heard my wife before, she finally knows that I hear her now. I can’t answer how that is or why that is. But it’s a wonderful feeling for her and for me, too."

Wednesday, December 31, 1997
Park Cities Section
The Dallas Morning News

KELLY SIMPSON

The family therapist and her husband
help other twosomes improve their togetherness

"Our relationships are something we are in with very little preparation. It's difficult to know the skills to maintain an intimate relationship."
--- Kelly Simpson

By Lee Zethrus
Special to The Dallas Morning News

     Kelly Simpson had no idea a routine business gathering would change her professional and personal life. Last spring, while at a conference in Washington, D.C., the marriage and family therapist kept hearing about a back-to-basics program geared to help families or couples in any stage of a relationship.

     The program, PAIRS, an acronym for "practical application of intimate relationship skills," is the brainchild of Lori Gordon, another family therapist based in a Northern Virginia suburb of Washington. PAIRS, which Dr. Gordon created in 1984, offers skills training instead of therapy.

Program participants trace their families' emotional history, then figure out their own personality quirks before moving on to a couples' awareness segment that deals with roles husbands and wives assume, their communication styles, their methods of expressing affection or anger and more.

   Ms. Simpson was so impressed by the program, she trained with Lori Gordon. "It's so wonderful to see people become so much happier,"says Ms. Simpson, a Highland Park resident.
"That's really enough reward in itself." Perhaps, but now Ms. Simpson and her husband, Rob Crawford, a corporate securities lawyer, offer PAIRS courses too. Mr. Crawford went for some training, and a lot of his role in their joint venture is to offer the male viewpoint on couple interaction. With Dr. Gordon as guest leader, Ms. Simpson will offer an abbreviated, 14- to 16- hour version of PAIRS, which focuses on positive and practical ways to enhance a relationship, in a weekend workshop Jan. 10 and 11 in Dallas.
    She also offers a more in-depth version in a semester format listing about four months. Cost for the programs are about $14 per hour per person.
    To date, Miss. Simpson and Mr. Crawford have guided about 20 people through their program. Many people arrive with plans to divorce, she says. But most come away with a new outlook for themselves and a stronger relationship. The skills training focuses on self- and couple-awareness, communicating, sexuality and sensuality, fighting fair and negotiating. Although the semester program totals about 120 hours, Ms. Simpson says it translates to very little time invested in something very important. "In our society we say it's okay to spend a lot of time and money on things like tennis lessons or learning to do something we like," she says.
    "But our relationships are something we are in with very little preparation. It's difficult to know the skills to maintain an intimate relationship." Ms. Simpson says even she has put the course to the test in her home - balancing her career with her husband's job and a household of six children. "It's taken our relationship to a much higher level," she says. Mr. Crawford looks at it in a more down to earth light. "Relationships are like everything else," he says. "If you want to get better at something you have to practice."

PEOPLE Newspapers
Thursday, December 25, 1997
Front Page Story

New Beginnings

Counseling seeks to renew the pleasure in family relationships

by CAROLYN TILLERY
Staff Writer

Can't teach an old dog new tricks? He or she has always been that way? We resolve to lose weight, stop smoking and eat healthily, so why not strive to make marriages more fulfilling? Family therapist Kelly Simpson said it's as easy as wanting to keep pleasure in the marriage - and its starts with listening.
     "Oh, I hear that all the time," she said with a laugh and a reminder that people are not dogs and do have the power to change., "It's absolutely not true. People don't change because they see no need or they choose not to.
     "When people begin to understand that they're not being controlled, then often times they choose to change. They have to understand their partner and their partner's needs enough to want to change."
    Simpson uses the PAIRS - Practical Application of Intimate Relationship Skills - technique, which is skill training, not psychotherapy.
     "The biggest soap box I have is that people think they have to be impaired to come into a program," she said. "No one is born with the skills to fight fair, anymore than they naturally have the skills to destroy a relationship.
     "People destroy relationships by default. When they don't know what to do, they resort to what they remember. If their mother or father always reacted to a certain circumstance a certain way, they resort to that.
     "It's not a matter of being stupid; they don't know about hidden rules and expectations. We want people to succeed first rather than having to learn by making hurtful mistakes."
     Sadly, Simpson said, many marriages break down because people mistakenly believe they've fallen out of love, when what they've really done is lost pleasure in each other's company because of outside stresses and lack of communication. Often times when the "magic" they first experienced disappears, they believe it's over, she said. "They worry they've done something wrong when the magic isn't there," she said. "The magic is that chemistry that makes up the attraction or newness."
"Love is about pleasure. We desire to be with people we feel pleasure with. We want to be with people we can confide in, feel important to and those who make us feel cared for. They feel they've fallen out of love, when sadly they're just not experiencing the pleasure."
     Losing that pleasure in each other's company is helping to send divorce rates up and leaves people seeking answers to why their marriages failed, she said.
     "With the high divorce rate, people are starting to be more careful with their relationships," Simpson said. "Dallas has a particularly high divorce rate."
     According to a study conducted by Time magazine in 1995, some 4.6 million couples a year visit 50,000 licensed family therapists, up from 1.2 million in 1980.
     "Let's face it, you never know when someone is going to die," she said. "We think divorce is high, what about all those who are living together unhappily? We have to learn how to make ourselves truly happy."
     Careers and hectic schedules wreak havoc on marriages. Simpson said that couples should spend 15 minutes each day just "checking in with each other."

"Praise something that the other did and may not have realized you noticed. For example, 'Thank you for complimenting me in front of our parents, yesterday.'
     "Share wishes, hopes and dreams and fantasies. 'Boy, if I won the lottery, I'd put us on a plane so fast for Cancun.'
     "And don't just complain," she advised. "Tell them what you want. Make a specific request so the person has an idea what you want and why. Don't just nag about something."
    Unfortunately, Simpson said, people work harder on their careers than they do their most important relationships.
     "We train for years about our career to get it right," she said. "We don't train five minutes for our relationships. At work we are not vulnerable. We don't want to hear other folks' problems or feelings. However, the skills at work are often the opposite of what you need at home. Work skills are aggressive and competitive and that's the last thing you need at home."
     Those attending PAIRS come from all different histories and experiences. Although the majority are distressed couples, many are people who have divorced and don't want to repeat past mistakes; others are parents learning to communicate better with their adult children; while some are happily married and wanting to learn communication skills to ensure they stay that way.
     Some divorce attorneys, Simpson said, are starting to recommend couples take PAIRS counseling. Of the 13 couples one attorney recommended to the course, Simpson said, 12 were able to save their marriages.
     The past can be a heavy weight to drag into a marriage, she said. But it walks down the aisle with the couple, nonetheless.
     "Couples have to examine family beliefs." Simpson said. "Until you ferret out invisible loyalties, two people can have differences causing one to believe the other is trying to sabotage the relationship.
     "Learning that the other person is different doesn't mean you have to be like them."
     Simpson has a little personal knowledge about conflict. She and husband Rob Crawford have six children.
     "We have a blended family," she said with a big smile. "All the kids are with us at least half the week with the exception of the one (in college) at A&M. We know a lot about conflict; we live with it all the time."
      Her husband, an attorney, went to a training seminar with her and was hooked. Now he helps teach PAIRS classes.
      "It affects the men wonderfully," Simpson said. "They can come in and feel safe. Some consider therapy as male bashing. This isn't that way at all. It really helps to have a man in the course teaching it with me. It's especially good for the guys, because my husband isn't a 'touchy-feely' kind of guy."

HARP Article

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HARP Ribbon Cutting Article

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Feb. 22, 2007
Contact Information:
Dr. Kim Kotrla, School of Social Work
Baylor University
254-710-4434

Baylor Social Work Professors Evaluate Program to Strengthen Marriages of Hispanic Couples

Hispanic couples and families are the focus of a new $2.5 million grant aimed at creating healthy relationships. Two Baylor School of Social Work professors, Dr. Preston Dyer and Dr. Kim Kotrla, will be evaluating the new five-year Hispanic Active Relationship Project (HARP), which was created by the Active Relationship Center (ARC) in Dallas, which received the grant.

The Hispanic population is growing faster than all other ethnic or racial groups, according to U.S. Census data. Hispanics face a 34 percent chance that their first marriages will end in separation or divorce within 10 years, according to data from the National Survey of Family Growth. For all women, the likelihood of divorce is increased by factors such as marrying at a younger age, having a lower level of education or having a child prior to getting married, according to National Center for Health Statistics data.

ARC created a program specifically designed to provide skills in building healthy stable, relationships in Hispanic couples then pilot-tested the program at eight sites throughout Texas in 2006.

The pilot study was unique in several ways, Kotrla said. “As far as we know, this is the first study on marriage education with participants who are primarily Hispanic,” she said. “At least half of them were first-generation immigrants.” Recruiting was done largely through churches. The pilot program began with 177 individuals who were surveyed before, immediately following and three months after completing the program.

Dyer and Kotrla were asked by the ARC to evaluate the program and what they found is encouraging, Dyer said. Evaluation of the pilot revealed that participants had increased marital satisfaction, improved communication and conflict resolution skills, and decreased negative interactions.

At the completion of the workshop, 93 percent of the participants had more confidence that they would be with their partner in years to come, while three months later, 97 percent of the participants felt this way. Just following the workshop, 97 percent reported they were spending more time having fun and enjoying friends with their partner/spouse, while three months later, 99 percent reported this.

Of those completing the program, 97 percent at the conclusion and the three-month follow-up agreed that they possessed the tools to discuss issues with their partners without fighting. After the workshop, 98 percent of the attendees said they would invest more time in their relationship; 99 percent said they would do this three months later.

Dyer, who is a certified marriage enrichment leader and trainer and has led marriage enrichment events across the United States, is excited to see the skills learned in the workshops being used by couples months after the sessions ended.

“It’s not just comprehension of the content,” Dyer said of the results. “We looked at how couples changed their behaviors into the future.”

After evaluating the 10-month pilot project, Dyer and Kotrla were asked by the Active Relationship Center to submit a program evaluation plan to accompany a grant application to the Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Of the more than 1,500 applications that were received, the ARC was one of 150 that received funding. The $2.5 million grant will be used to implement the HARP program in Cameron County, Texas, which lies at the southernmost tip of the state.

Cameron County is 86 percent Hispanic. Significant proportions of the adult populations do not have a high school degree, and one-third of families, and more than half of children, live in poverty; almost one-fifth of the families live on less than $10,000 per year.

The center chose to focus its efforts in a community where there are high rates of poverty, out-of-wedlock births, and low levels of educations and incomes, all of which can be significant stressors on relationships, according to Kotrla.

Dyer and Kotrla will continue to work with the ARC in implementing the HARP- Cameron County project and currently are in the process of developing evaluation instruments, which they will use to track the progress and effectiveness of the program. The first workshops are scheduled to begin in March.

“The ultimate goal of the project is to strengthen relationships,” Kotrla said, “which in turn, will hopefully strengthen families, create better outcomes for children, and eventually strengthen communities.”

Dyer agreed, adding that when adults and children feel safe in a marriage or relationship, everyone benefits.

For more information , contact Dyer (254-710-6230) or Kotrla (254-710-4434) at the Baylor School of Social Work.

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Cameron County Receives $2.5 Million Grant to Strengthen Marriages: Funds are part of federal government’s “Healthy Marriage Initiative”

Media Contact:
Suzi Prokell suzi@prokell.com
(817) 598-1556

DALLAS – December 11, 2006 – Active Relationships, a proactive family wellness organization, announced today that Cameron County will be the beneficiary a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services grant. The sum of $2.5 million, across a five-year grant, is part of a national “Healthy Marriage Initiative”. Cameron County’s Hispanic Active Relationships Project (H.A.R.P.) was one of 124 grantees to receive an award - out of more than 1,600 applicants across the nation.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, married Americans became a minority for the first time in 2005. Passed in January 2006, the “Healthy Marriage Initiative” will provide more than $100 million per year in federal funding to stem the tide of nationwide family dissolution, through programs that promote skills for healthy marriage. The national initiative will utilize existing evidence-based skills education programs, such as Active Relationships, that have proven effective across communities. This is the first time that Congress has authorized spending on marriage education.

“We are thrilled that our efforts in Texas have resulted in an opportunity for Cameron County to build great marriages and therefore strengthen families,” said Kelly Simpson, founder of the H.A.R.P. project and director of Active Relationships, the organization that piloted the H.A.R.P. program. “There is so much to know about creating a successful marriage and unfortunately most of us never had education in these skills and neither did our parents, or their parents. We are just expected to know how.”

“Counselors, doctors, teachers... anyone can be better at marriage and it is so important for our culture and well-being,” added Simpson. “Healthy, loving marriages are the cornerstone of strong families and strong, happy families are the cornerstone of the community. If marriages cease to exist because people do not believe they can work, our families are at extreme risk, and our community and ultimately the infrastructure of our nation are at risk.”

Statistics indicate that children of single parents are far more likely to grow up in poverty and become victims of abuse and neglect than children in households led by both parents, assuming those parents know and practice the skills for healthy relationships.

Simpson, H.A.R.P.’s project director, and Gloria Miranda-Cavazos, H.A.R.P. Cameron County program director, will bring trainings for key community leaders to Cameron County. Once trained, these community leaders will implement seminars for couples and youth within their own communities.

“H.A.R.P. is a very unique resource to our community. There are existing resources for couples in crisis, like domestic violence services or couples needing counseling, but there has been a lack of resources for middle of the road couples, until now,” said Miranda-Cavazos. “H.A.R.P., through marriage education, is going to help couples in our community build stronger marriages for healthier families.”

H.A.R.P.’s goal is to reach 400 Cameron County couples per year to strengthen existing marriages, prepare those considering marriage, or help those who are not married and who have children together establish stable co-parenting relationships for their children. Additionally, the program plans to educate 240 Cameron County youth on important conflict resolution, emotion management and vital communication skills for healthy relationships.

For more information, visit www.HARPCC.com on the Internet, send e-mail to HARPCC@harpcc.com, or call (956) 544-7165.

Upcoming H.A.R.P. offerings include:

Active Communication - January 5-6 (a 16 hour “Train the Trainer” seminar to become certified to teach seminars for couples)

Active Relationships for Young Adults - January 25-27 (to become certified to teach seminars for youth)

ABOUT ACTIVE RELATIONSHIPS
Active Relationships (AR) is a Texas-based proactive family wellness organization that provides educational seminars around the world for individuals, couples, families, churches, businesses, military personnel, government agencies and non-profit organizations. AR programs have been successful and internationally used across the U.S. including in (but not limited to) the Air Force, U.S. Air Force Europe, Army, National Guard and Head Start.

Utilizing more than a decade of experience educating couples and training professionals, including military personnel in the U.S., Asia and Europe, Active Relationships’ founder Kelly Simpson, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, is an internationally known author and speaker. Simpson trains community leaders to teach couples, singles and youth seminars that include proven skills and effective exercises to make successful relationships possible. For more information please visit www.activerelationships.com on the Internet or call 877.724.7789.

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Extension trains to help military families cope
By Amanda Karr akarr@coxnc.com

The Daily Reflector

Published May 26, 2006
Couples dealing with military deployment have a new place to seek support and advice.

During a two-day workshop ending today, state cooperative extension agents are undergoing training on how to help couples and families through what can be a stressful time, particularly for National Guardsmen and those in the reserves.

"Military families on a base would have available a whole array of life skills available to them. For those that don't, we want to supplement those services, and to do that we really need to touch the local community," Karen Smith Rotabi, support programs coordinator for Citizen Soldier Project, said.

The Citizen Soldier Project is a civilian group based in Chapel Hill that promotes outreach to military personnel and their families. The group helped organize the training with faculty in East Carolina University's College of Human Ecology.

Although family counseling seems an atypical job for cooperative extension agents, who are perhaps better know for working with farmers, strengthening families is part of the organization's mission.

In Pitt County, Susan Reece is the family-consumer science agent. She runs programs in stress management, nutrition and finances, among other topics. She said she hopes the training will expand her outreach.

"I'm hoping to take the information out to citizen soldiers, those that just came back from being deployed or about to go to help create a more harmonious family and help them feel better about leaving," she said.

Reece was one of more than 50 cooperative extension agents across the state who attended the training run by Kelly Simpson, a Texas marriage therapist and author of "Active Military Life Skills."

While Reece joined more than a dozen others at ECU's global classroom building, other agents across the state watched and interacted via a video feed on college campuses from Appalachian State University to Elizabeth City State University.

Attendees discussed general relationship skills, such as the importance of communication, as well as issues more specific to couples separated by deployment, such as making the most of short phone calls home and what to discuss during that time.

"With deployment in the civilian world, not only do they worry about the businesses they leave behind, but also finances, insurance, kids. There are so many facets of it. In addition to the stresses of a regular relationship, they have to deal with stress above and beyond," Simpson said.

Peggie Garner, Onslow County extension director, already has some experience dealing with military personnel through the military bases located in her area.

"We want to try to empower (couples) by giving them information so they can make the calls they need to make," she said. "It's a great opportunity for those not in the military community to provide support and preparation for reservists who may have thought they might not go anywhere," she said.

With cooperative extension offices located across the state, just like the more than 20,000 reserve and guard members in North Carolina, those involved in the program hope the message reaches the families who need the advice.

Amanda Karr can be contacted at akarr@coxnc.com and 329-9574.
Author Kelly Simpson speaks to a group from the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service on Thursday at the Science and Technology Building at ECU in Greenville. Simpson was training the agents on how to help military families and couples deal with seperation issues after deployment. Greg Eans/The Daily Reflector
(c) 2006 Cox Newspapers, Inc. - The Daily Reflector

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contact@activerelationships.com
Active Relationships Center
Kelly Simpson M.A. Psyc., LMFT, CSC
25 Highland Park Village, Suite 100-734
Dallas, Texas 75205

Office: 214.369.5717
Toll Free: (877) 724.7789
Fax: 214.369.4914