The Hindu : International : A check-up... for marriages

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Feb 05, 2005

International

International

A check-up... for marriages

ALBANY, FEB. 4. Open up and say "ah." It cannot hurt, and it may well help. The New York Association for Marriage and Family Therapy is offering free marriage check-ups — sans tongue depressors — during Valentine's week, February 14-18.

"Most people are attentive to their health and get an annual check-up. Unfortunately too many couples ignore the health of their marriage and take their relationship for granted," says David Olsen, president of the Albany-Hudson chapter of the New York Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. "A marital check-up is a great way for a couple to get a quick picture of their marital health and begin to take action to build an even healthier marriage."

The check-ups, which will allow couples to meet a therapist privately for an hour, are designed to identify strengths and potential trouble spots in relationships. (You need not even be married in order to participate.)

The sessions begin with a checklist that includes such questions as: Do you have fun when you are together? Do you spend time talking privately? Can you talk about almost everything? Do you compliment each other? Do you feel appreciated? Do you tell each other your feelings?

At the end of the hour-long session, a couple will leave with a "`Couples' Summary" sheet that includes suggestions and recommendations from the therapist.

"Marriage is hard. It's good for us, but it's hard," says Elizabeth Reid, a marriage and family therapist who is one of 17 therapists participating in the programme. She says a big part of the reason so many couples drift apart is that they put their relationship into cruise control and assume that everything is fine. "But what happens is, life takes over, work takes over, kids take over and stress takes over," Ms. Reid says. "Couples don't think about their marriage enough."

A couple's lack of good, healthy communication can be corrected, Ms. Reid says.

In her regular marriage counselling sessions, she uses as a primer an article written by Becca Cipriani that begins: "Once there was a happy couple who'd never had a fight the entire time they'd been married... then they went to their wedding reception."

The point being that fighting is a given. But fighting fair is not.

The sessions will touch upon the rules of engagement — how to turn disagreements into productive communication that can bring about clarity and understanding.

Ms. Reid notes the four factors — contempt, criticism, defensiveness and stone-walling — that can really make a relationship go south, as identified by the marriage researcher, John Gottman, the co-author of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (Crown, 1999).

The "four horsemen," Mr. Gottman calls them.

"But there are little things you can do that can help," Ms. Reid says, "like if you need to make a criticism you ought to have five compliments for every one."

Typical hour-long marriage therapy sessions in the U.S. cost around $100 (about Rs. 4,350), Ms. Reid says.

"We are holding these free sessions because we want people to see the resources available before their marriages are in trouble."

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