Pre Marriage Coaching

Recently a young woman called me to inquire about 'pre marital coaching.' "Do you have a program?" she asked. I said "Do you?" She laughed. I asked her several more serious questions: "Tell me what you think marriage is? What is your vision for you and your honey? What would a 'good' marriage look like? What are some indicators of a 'bad' marriage?

'How many marriages do you know or are familiar with (there's that old word family again) that you respect? Who in your lives could be a good model, a good coach or mentor for you? If your marriage was to fail what would you predict the cause to be?

'Is one of you more serious about marriage than the other? What gifts do each of you bring to relationship?'

I asked a few more. Then she stopped me. "I just wanted to know if you have a program/ seminar or workshop that we could attend," she said. "I haven't really thought about all those questions."

A good introductory 'course' on marriage would include those and many more questions and their answers. Chances are this young couple hasn't had a lot of help in thinking about marriage, chances are that they've seen a good number of failed marriages and that they want to 'do it right.'

We start out with huge hopes for the possibilities of our love. That's the good news. The uncomfortable news is that when this couple marries, few will help them establish a healthy path, few will be there to comfort and encourage, teach or coach them in how to transform their early enthusiasm into a life of rich possibility together.

The answer to her question? Yes, we do offer "pre marital coaching and seminars." We also offer email and phone coaching, resources, and workshops. We believe that marriage is a good thing and people of good will, as is this young woman, need all the support they can get.

The With These Rings Newsletter

New things are happening. This week we launch the With These Rings newsletter. You can receive a free copy of With These Rings, Volume I by subscribing and forwarding the newsletter to your own email address book. Just go to With These Rings or http://www.marriageconversation.com/ and sign on. Of course you'll have to send us your snail mail address as well.

The Newsletter is meant to serve the growing community of people who are interested in and invested in the Marriage Conversation. You'll get advice, tips, resources and articles. And we invite you to send us movie and book reviews (relevant to the Marriage Conversation), as well as any 'heads up' offerings (workshops/ seminars/ presentations) that you know about.

Some will want to take advantage of a new feature we'll be offering: email and phone coaching. Just let us know of your interest info@WithTheseRings.com and we'll respond within 24 hours.

For Therapists, Pastoral Counselors, and other help agents, there is an open invitation to become familiar with the With These Rings model. We offer seminars, online and phone coaching.

Please check out the new speaker's web site: http://www.stephenfrueh.com/ You can download what they call, in the business, a "one page" which will give you a thumbnail description of some of Stephen's keynotes and presentations.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Magnificent Seven: Does it make for a better Marriage?

The Magnificent Seven: Does it make for a better Marriage?

Seven is the atomic number of nitrogen, the number of spots on a ladybug and we know that most mammals have seven bones in their necks. We love seven.

Seven is the international direct dial for Russia. There are the Seven Hills of Rome, seven liberal arts and Seven Wonders of the world. A lot of folks are getting married on July 7th too.

God rested on the seventh day, Jubilee comes after seven times seven years, a Jewish bride and groom are feted with seven days of festive meals after their wedding (Sheva Berachot).

There are seven virtues – Chastity, Moderation, Liberality, Charity, Meekness, Zeal, and Humility. And these correspond to the Seven Deadly Sins.

Seven is the number of notes in the Western Major Scale. So, why don’t more people have seven children?

And look at this: the ‘number’ for women is four (4) and the ‘number’ for men is three (3). Seven represents the union of men and women. And, we are interested in union. It is also true that many marriages begin to break down at the 5 – 7 year point.

And, so we come to July 7, 2007 or 07/07/07 – men and women around the world will join together in holy matrimony on that magnificent day.

What do you think? Do they do this because it will be easy to remember their anniversary date (anything that can help guys remember is a plus). Or do many of us long to memorialize our joining in a way that reminds us of just how special this wedding is?

We live in a time of increasing consciousness about what the wedding is really about, what it should cost, where it should take place. Many couples are less worried about tradition (translate to ‘mother’s opinions’), show and pomp, and are more focused on affordability (as it relates to overall financial health), scale (do we really need to invite everyone we’ve ever met?), and meaning as they find it in their present lives.

We may be getting ready to take marriage itself more seriously – take a look at the recently published With These Rings, Volume I. After all, it is common for couples getting married to come from divorced parents. They will intimately know the pain and displacement that divorce offers children. Perhaps their own marriage will be created will more caution, more thought, and more counsel than that of their parents.

Seven also carries the idea of bringing spirituality and Godliness into the creation – in this case, into the marriage.

We know deep longing for connection to one another, connection that transcends and undergirds physical intimacy. Marrying we marry our hopes and expectations as we see them in relationship to another. Our lover embodies our deepest needs – or so we imagine it to be – and for awhile at least, they may manifest an understanding of those needs. We believe in our partners in ways that they themselves never imagined.

Marriage is widely known to be a challenge after three or four years because the magical effects of newness, hormones and just plain busyness begins to wear thin.

A deep spiritual connection could sustain our love even as a well understood philosophy of commitment would inform our conversations. As we discover ‘who’ it is that we married, and as we slowly withdraw the ideals we put on them – we are invited to discover this stranger who we barely knew but whom we wisely chose.

Marriage is about companionship to be sure. It is also about learning to relate intelligently. Perhaps at a deeper level marriage is about discovering our own capacity to love.

Reported in the L.A.Times this morning, a young man talked exuberantly to a reporter about his coming marriage which would take place at 7am on 07/07/07. He said something like “we can’t miss. This love will last forever.” We all like magic. Perhaps believing in the alignment of sevens will take you where you are wanting to go. For my part, I see continual transformation of your loving as the deepest magic possible.


Stephen W. Frueh M.Div, PhD is a leadership consultant, couples’ coach, mentor, writer and speaker. He is a professional member of the National Speaker’s Association. He lives with his wife and nine year old daughter in Ventura County, California.

He can be contacted at:
Stephen@WithTheseRings.com
805 527 2600

Changing Civilization

This morning, someone I know really well told me a dream about her mother. Her mother, you might want to know, died many years ago. As she related the dream I realized she was re-evaluating the relationship she had with her mother. She was looking at the way she and her mother protected her father from all emotionally troubling information.

She and her mother thought of that as 'being kind' or 'being considerate' of the father who happened to be a busy professional man. As she talked she grew increasingly emotional. She was seeing the many ways she protects people of importance in her life. She was realizing too, that the protection wasn't really needed by those people and didn't help them or her at all. In fact, it hindered their ability to know her.

She was quickly moving into a much deeper realization. "If I stop protecting everyone from the things I know," she said, "I'll soon be living in a reality that I didn't create and cannot control. I'll be changing the entire premise of my life."

"You are changing civilization," I said. The civilization we know best is the one we grew up in and our most intimate knowledge of that civilization came from the interactions, emotion, spiritual orientation and physical presence of the two most powerful people in our lives - our parents.

You can look at history, your own, that way. You can begin to evalute the spoken and unspoken attitudes, beliefs, and expectations that your mother and father, their brothers and sisters and parents - the entire pantheon of ancestors that you bring into your living room, kitchen and bedroom.

In letting yourself 'see' your psychological/ emotional/ spiritual history you open the door to seeing your relationship more clearly. It just may be the beginning of the end of judging, criticizing, diagnosing and blaming your partner for all that's missing in your marriage.

When I Fall in Love..

"when I fall in love
it will be forever
or I'll never fall in love.

In a restless world like this is
love is ended before its begun
And too many moonlight kisses
seem to cool in the warmth of the sun

When I give my heart
it will be completely
or I'll never give my heart

And the moment that I feel that
you feel that way too
Is when I'll fall in love
with you....

A Tipping Point in your Marriage

Many marriages slide relentlessly into a sort of flat lined, vacant, humorless existence. But if you're reading this I have reason to believe you want something better. You might want a marriage that fulfills the promise of your enthusiasm the day you agreed to marry. You might imagine a relationship that works where conflict is an asset, intimacy is a felt need and frequently available, and where conversation is intriguing, challenging and meaningful.

You might want to realize the vision we've shared with you in the recently published With These Rings, Vol. I. We see marriage as full of promise. It is often unrealized and that explains the flat lined existence many couples live in.

Marriage is really three journeys within one journey. Each journey is legitimate in its own right and each journey is realized by your courage to embrace its challenges. You can't talk about these journeys in the usual way. They are not "linear," reasonable, sequential or predicable. We think the journeys can only be talked about in something approaching mythical language.

Stories serve us well here. Like the teachings of Jesus, our stories carry meaning far beyond the details. We look for milestones. And we look for turning points. Turning points?

A good marriage will build a base that is founded on what each individual in the marriage already knows. They'll work something through or out - like the purchase of a house, or an agreement on child care. But there will come a time when what you believe is challenged by your partner. It needs to be. New information has been accrued. New understanding of needs has surfaced. Times change. We grow.

The opportunity for your relationship has "tipped" into bigger and deeper possibilities. It is at this point that some seek therapy. The story/ stories surrounding this time will hold lots of drama. Some think their relationship is over. Some believe they no longer love. But if you can stay the course, the discoveries are life altering. This is why we call most divorces abortions.

The tipping point may be as simple as the surrender to a new way of seeing. It may involve the discovery of deep empathy. It may mean you are discovering a new level of your own authority.

We say, trust it. Don't run. Don't diagnose your partner. Don't judge, theorize, speculate. Instead, Stop. Look. And Listen to what's going on. You may be on the edge of a whole new way to relate, expand, and enjoy your choice of partner.

Kludging the Marriage Conversation

Kludging the Marriage Conversation

We’ve often referred to divorce as the abortion of a promise, a miscarriage of hope. We see that many couples who divorce do so because they lack a truly compelling marriage paradigm. ‘What? I thought it was because they were ‘incompatible’ or didn’t love each other any more.’

It’s not that simple. Without a viable and relevant model to inform their thinking about the journey of marriage, they will mistakenly focus on diagnosis of each other.

They may dumb down conversation, reducing their complaints to “we’d have a good relationship if it weren’t for you.” (that, by the way, is the title of an interesting book by Dr. Bruce Derman)

Focusing on what’s wrong with our partners, or indulging in fantasies such as ‘we just don’t have anything in common,’ or ‘love doesn’t last forever,’ or ‘she’s just not the woman I (thought) I married’ – seduce into a rationale that justifies our relational incompetence.

Some of us kludge. I’ll tell you a story about a recent conversation with one of my sons regarding computers, software and solutions to challenges. He described a ‘work around’ which, as I understood it, was a temporary solution to a difficult problem.
“Like divorce” I said. No, he said. “I think of divorce more as giving up on an engineering project – deciding not to engineer rather than actually trying to do the work. A kludge is still work. It’s just a quick solution to get the thing up and running with the knowledge that you will need to come back later and re-engineer it…If you get a divorce, you are deciding to abort the relationship. There may be more work to do with your kids etc. But the couple divorcing is quitting the work (and challenges) of marriage – an engineering project left undone.”

So, I said, maybe we could call an affair a kludge. Or, maybe coldness, distance, abuse, superiority, diagnosis… would qualify to be called kludging. All quick ‘solutions’ to present challenges that do not last.
But the analogy breaks down there. Because in the case of marriage these “solutions” are not only temporary – they get you out of working on the problem or challenge – they are also harmful, toxic and lead towards patterns that ultimately destroy.

But kludge isn’t thought of as a bad temporary solution. It is only a temporary but necessary one. So are there good kludges in relationship?

The recently released With These Rings Vol.I offers long and short term solutions to relationship challenges that actually work. Couples that have given up hope, couples who chronically argue or no longer communicate, couples whose intimate conversations have steadily decreased in frequency find good information and solid coaching in this book. I’m Stephen Frueh, the author, and I promise you you’ll get a great deal of useful information from With These Rings. If you don’t, mail it back to me and I’ll refund your money.

As my wife walked in the front door, arms full of groceries, I said, ‘need help?’ “I need a whole lot more than help with the groceries,” she said as she put the bags on the table. “Wow” I thought. “That’s a loaded response. Should I ‘go there’ or let it go?”

We talked of the demands on her time and energy, of both of our busy schedules, of how little time we had with each other. Later I got some take out and set the table in the RV, put on some classical music, opened a bottle of Sake and we sat and talked. I kludged her.

That brief moment didn’t solve any of our bigger (and long term) challenges, but it did address the immediate need for a course correction. It did keep our marriage going even with all the built in challenges and it reminded us that bigger solutions to busyness had to be addressed.

The many dynamics of successful relationships can overwhelm us. Or we can take a proactive approach, embrace challenge and the conflict that comes with it and intentionally look for lasting solutions to relationship destroyers. Kludge when you have to but don’t forget to come back and create new pathways to intimacy.

If we don’t, every day will look a lot like yesterday.

Why don't you just admit it?

I discovered some time ago that when it came to actually loving another human being I was short in skills. Relationally incompetent is what I called myself. Oh, I knew how to 'fall in love,' I knew how to sentimentally attach to another, and I was expert in creating a need to be needed.

One night I told my wife "I have no idea how to love you." She soon admitted she was challenged there as well. Could it be we made a mistake? I thought that there must be other possibilities.

Soon we were openly talking about our own fears, insecurities and just plain lack of information. We had assumed that because we loved each other we would know how to love each other. Wrong. They are not at all the same. In fact, it may be the easiest thing in the world to feel love for another. We feel love for puppies too and we easily fall in love with entertainers whose performances touch us. We sometimes 'love' teachers and we tell ourselves we love our children.

But loving our children like loving our partners is altogether a different matter. We saw that we had a lot of growing up to do. We also saw we would need to ask a lot of questions. In the Russian poet, Anna Akmatova's poem The Guest, there is this line "tell me how they kiss you. Tell me how you kiss."

Loving may simply be intelligent listening, genuine questioning, and non possessive caring of two human beings who are deeply interested in each other.

We welcome your thoughts on loving and love.

Summer's Coming

Every family with school age children faces the challenge of helping those children maximize the joys of summer. The experiences that enrich their lives may not be confined to the movies they see or the television they watch. Summer offers unstructured time that is valuable in itself.

Consider creating conversations with your children about their visions, ideas and desires for spending time in which no school bell rings, and no time frame is relevant. We look for relationships we want to encourage, projects they can do on their own with just minimal supervision, books to read, and artistic talents to explore. A recently published book The Do It Yourself family by Eric Strommer is a good place to start.

You can act as a "consultant" to your child's sense of what they want to do and where they want to spend time. We've helped several families establish a 'no tv' zone for the entire summer. The days are long, the opportunities almost endless and there's plenty of time.

We ask you to write to us, give us your ideas for helping children utilize summer as a time of growing and expanding. We look forward to hearing from you.

Weekends in paradise

This is the Memorial Day weekend and we're not going anywhere, not doing anything, not stressing about what we should be doing and not competing with what the neighbors are doing. We're home. Our home is situated on a hill in eastern Ventura County. A little piece of county land called an Urban Rural Reserve. Nice name.


Since they named it that they've put more traffic on the street at the bottom of the hill, added houses in the city strip of land next to our reserve, built a presidential library on a nearby hill and more or less stripped away a lot of the 'rural reserve' part. But it's still our small piece of paradise.

This weekend we'll barbeque, tend to the yard, play games with our children, listen to some music, read a few stories and through it all, learn a little more about each other. For us, it's not a weekend to go away but a weekend to go towards each other. We'll create a little of the rural reserve right in our own back yard.

What was I thinking?

I'm really into the marriagen conversation. So much so that I sometimes overlook all the fun I'm having in my own marriage. Last night my wife Lynn, bustling about preparing for a day of jury duty that would pretty much wipe out all the other things she would want to be doing on Friday, well, she handed me a big brown envelope and said "this has to go to the Post Office tomorrow morning."

"What's inside?" I said, knowing full well that she was mailing the final edited version of her doctoral dissertation. "It's my thesis!" she said, I thought, somewhat impatiently. She's been working on that thing this last year and trying to balance being a mom, a grandmom, a wife, a professional (therapist), a major part of a new organization etc. During that time I have tried my best to fill in for her wherever possible but I have my own challenges.

We looked at each other over the big brown envelope that contained so much of her: intelligence, wit, passion, resiliency, doggedness - and knew something right there. Our marriage was more than what she calls "the regular" meaning, I think, companionship, tenderness, shared dreams. Our marriage was also a shared partnership in which we both acknowledged each other's hard work and supported each other's individuality and sense of purpose.

In all that, I sometimes forget how much fun it is to live with her, tease her, challenge her and fight with her. Last night we connected over a brown envelope. This morning I stood for 25 minutes in a line at the Post Office holding her in my hands. Then I mailed her.

Focus on the Big Stuff

The computer technician is down in my guest house office and I have irritated him by asking too many questions. He's the best at what he does that I have ever found so I tread lightly. Recently I had a friend instal some added memory and as a result my computer went belly up. The friend said it had nothing to do with him. "Must be a ______problem," he said.

I called my computer guy and he came over and spent three hours fixing what my friend may or may not have done. Then the computer guy said this. "Would you coach a couple if several other coaches or counselors were also coaching them?" I said no, and saw what he meant.

The small picture is that I thought I was getting a break by having my friend instal the additional memory. The straight shot is, maintaining computers is a lot like relationships generally, you want to be sure you're all working from the same playbook.

What I often forget is the big picture. My wife is irritable but it has nothing to do with me. She's tired, parented out, frustrated by her own business, dealing with aging. The big picture is my love for her and her right to live her life, have her feelings, experience her frustrations without it being a statement about me.

How does this relate to the computer guy? Well, if I could see the big picture of his knowledge and care of our computers I wouldn't even consider having someone else put their hands on the keyboards.
Marriage is far more intricate and also simpler than my challenges with this computer and its software. The key seems to be to focus on one thing at a time. Paying attention to my anxiety rather than her challenges clears a path to intimate conversation in which I ask questions rather than speculate on her motives.

My friend who installed new software was oblivious regarding how our computers are networked, the impact his programs would have on our firewalls and the work we had already done in the area he was trying to correct.

Like marriage, he would have served me better if he had asked a few questions before assuming he knew what was needed.

Life is short. Embrace your Marriage

We're back. With These Rings Vol.I is now available at our web site www.WithTheseRings.com and through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and AdvantageBookstore.com Vol.II will be out by early summer.

The Marriage Conversation is beginning. We were privileged to have a full hour radio interview with Shannon D. Sanford of WBTQ in New York. You can listen to it by going to her web site or WBTQ. We'll have it posted on WithTheseRings.com as well.

We're inviting you to participate in a conversation about marriage. Post your comments, ask your questions, send silly ideas. We'll look at all of them.

Today's silly idea appeared in yesterday's (Sundays) New York Times (May 13, 2007) in the Week in Review section (p.14). You have to see it to believe it. It's an ad by a Chicago attorney that reads "Life is short. Get a divorce."

We're used to things being dumbed down but is this the crudest yet? Let me know your ideas, opinions, etc.

marriage conversation

What's yelling about? Who are you yelling at? Step back. Ask yourself this: what is happening right now that has me so scared? What is in my memory bank? What does this remind me of? What am I afraid I'm losing/ is going to happen? Who is biggest in my imagination right now?

Yelling takes you away from what you need and pulls you into your fear. The trick is to 'sober up' and let go of the emotional rush that you get when you connect to your fear.

Stan and Dee feed off each other's fear. Their children are learning how to duplicate their patterns and if Stan and Dee don't soon stop their self indulgence, the children will have a lot of work to do in their own marriages.

What would be most helpful to say to Stan if you were on the phone?

What are you yelling about?

We can see/ hear/ feel the hysteria in the family. Also, it's not hard to get Stan's sense of love for his family, and that his competence is heavily challenged. What would you do? What would you say?

What are you yelling about?

I am a marriage coach which is a lot different than being a marriage counselor. Coaches can coach which means we often direct and advise - not so common among counselors. The couple I will tell you about is not fictional so I will change identifiable characteristics to protect their dignity and privacy. You will not be able to identify them from this blog even if you had a list of every couple I've worked with over the past 25 years.

Stan and Dee called to get some help. I happened to pick up the phone and got them "live." In the background I could hear children screaming and Stan was saying, no, yelling, "give me a little space!" When he got to a quieter part of the house he was crying. "We're a mess" he said. "Everyone is yelling and now it's getting physical. I don't know what to do!"

We started with basic information. What's going on. How did this begin? Tell me a little about who is in the most pain. Who is the most frightened? Stan said, "frightened? No one is frightened. Everyone is mad as hell. My son came home and changed the TV to a program he wanted to see and all hell broke loose. My daughter hit him. My wife hit my daughter and this just as I came in from work. I started yelling for everyone to calm down, but it only got worse. Dee pushed me and told me I had no business yelling, that I was always yelling and that's why nobody respected anyone in this family. Then she started yelling at all the children to go to their rooms. No TV tonight! My son threw his backpack at the TV as he went by it to go up the
stairs." He started crying again. "I think we're falling apart."

Podcast #9: Spirtuality and grief

How your spiritual instincts show up in the face of grief -- yours or others. If you have faced grief you know how difficult words can be.

Listen to my podcast on this topic here.

Podcast #8: Dealing with personal pain

Do you remember a time of great personal pain? Many of us are wounded but for some the wounds seem to get in the way of personal relationships.

Listen to my podcast on this topic here.

Podcast #7: Lifeless marriages

Do you ever wonder why so many marriages seem lifeless, boring or even deeply troubled? How many marriages do you know that would make a good model for your own marriage? Marriage needs a whole new way of imagining its promise, its richness, and its complexity.

Listen to my podcast on this topic here.

Podcast #6: Chronic arguments with your teenager

Do you find yourself having the same argument over and over again with your teenaged child? Teens like to challenge authority, but in order to speak with authority, you have to know a few basic things.

Listen to my podcast on this subject here.