Parents of American killed in terror attack promote tolerance with free iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad app

Four years after a terrorist attack that claimed the life of 16-year-old Daniel Wultz, his passion for doing good deeds continues through a free app for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

Four years after a suicide bombing that claimed the life of a 16 year-old Florida youth, two local nonprofits have teamed up to release an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad application to promote tolerance in the world.

Daniel Wultz, a student at the David Posnack Hebrew Day School, was visiting Israel with his parents, Sheryl and Tuly Wultz, during the Passover holiday on April 17, 2006 when a suicide bomber targeted the restaurant where Daniel and his father were having lunch. Both Tuly and Daniel were seriously injured. Daniel died 27 days later, on Mother’s Day, in a Tel Aviv hospital.

Throughout his young life, Daniel was particularly fond of performing good deeds, known in Judaism as “mitzvot.” As the fourth anniversary of the event approached, Sheryl and Tuly Wultz met with staff at the Weston-based PAIRS Foundation to consider ways to continue promoting tolerance and good deeds in Daniel’s memory. Following Daniel’s death, the Wultz Family created the Daniel Cantor Wultz Foundation to develop educational and sports programs that promote tolerance and acceptance.

Free app for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad guides youngsters through identifying and completing projects that promote tolerance and good deeds.

The group came up with the idea of creating an iPhone app called “Mitzvah Project,” designed specifically to guide youngsters preparing for a Bar or Bat Mitzvah to perform good deeds that help them learn about tolerance and launch projects to help families, peers and communities.

Steven Steinberg, a technical specialist at PAIRS Foundation, volunteered to oversee development of the project, including design, working with team members and programmers on implementation, and assuring Mitzvah Project was released on iTunes to coincide with the event that led to Daniel’s death. Other PAIRS team members, including Veronica Nijamkin and Seth Eisenberg, volunteered to work with the Wultz family to create more than a dozen projects that promote tolerance.

Click here to learn more about Mitzvah Project on iTunes or visit the Daniel Cantor Wultz Foundation online.

Parents key to reducing youth violence

Telling children not to feel what they feel can lead youngsters to stop confiding in trusted adults, giving more energy to bottled up feelings that can become destructive.

“Why are they so angry?,” columnist Ana Veciana-Suarez asked rhetorically in a recent Miami Herald (“Senseless rage sparks inexplicable tragedy,”  4/2/10), listing five tragic examples of teen-on-teen violence that have received national attention this year.

While each story is unique, the issue of young people’s feelings of anger, sadness, fear, and frustration turning deadly is not. For each example, there are dozens more that have not been featured by the local or national media. The murders of three teens in nearby Liberty City during the first three weeks of March alone went almost unnoticed by the press.

This month marks the 11th anniversary of the horrific killings at Columbine. More than a decade later, many schools have implemented valuable lessons. Yet millions of families and communities across the country are tragically missing in action when it comes to taking actions to make America safer for all our children. While school administrators, counselors, and educators struggle to assure the safety of children on their campuses, they cannot succeed without active community support that begins in each of our homes and neighborhoods.

Rarely is violence against children as premeditated as the attack that left 15 dead and 24 injured in Littleton, Colorado. More typically, it’s a result of young people without constructive, healthy outlets for upsetting feelings either unleashing stored up emotions inward or outward. Parental messages that urge children not to feel what they feel (“Don’t be angry,” “Don’t be sad,” Don’t be scared.”) often lead youngsters to stop confiding in trusted adults, giving more energy to bottled up feelings that can become destructive.

Emotions turned inward show up as sadness, depression, and at the extreme, suicide. For those who release their feelings outwardly, they can be unleashed as anger, rage, and at another extreme, violence.

Many young people do have much to be upset about. The financial stresses that are impacting millions of families touch their lives too, both as they witness increasing conflict and uncertainty within their families and become innocent victims of marital and family breakdown.

Many young people do have much to be upset about. The financial stresses that are impacting millions of families touch their lives too, both as they witness increasing conflict and uncertainty within their families and become innocent victims of marital and family breakdown. For others approaching the end of high school or college, educational and career aspirations may feel unobtainable as traditional paths to independence become increasingly elusive. Pressures to fit in, achieve academic success, and beat an uncertain path to a successful future lead many young people to despairingly surrender their dreams altogether.

Those who do stay the course often have assets in their lives – human assets – that support, encourage, and urge them forward:

• Parents who model healthy conflict resolution skills within their families; ·
• Parents whose actions regularly show children they are valued and loved; ·
• Parents in whom they can safely, consistently confide and seek comfort.

Communities in which children are regularly deprived of these vital family resources are far more likely to produce angry adolescents who are a threat to themselves and others.

Programs that encourage caring, responsible adults to spend hours each month mentoring youngsters have proven themselves invaluable when children aren’t able to seek support from their own parents.

While some parents may not naturally have the skills to model healthy conflict resolution within their homes and create relationships in which it’s safe for children to seek counsel and comfort, educational programs that teach relationship skills to adults have been shown to make a difference.

Assuring more children grow up with two parents who are actively engaged in their lives within neighborhoods where caring adults are regularly a positive influence is the most important contribution we can make to a future that’s safer for all of our sons and daughters.

The Power of Partnership

Saylen, David, Xavier Moore Jr. and Seth Eisenberg applaud for Congressman Kendrick Meek during Miami meeting with the Congressman via Skype.

Shortly after the devastating earthquake in Haiti, I messaged U.S. Congressman Kendrick Meek via Facebook with information about a PAIRS class we were teaching in the heart of Miami’s Little Haiti community to help formerly homeless residents of a Carrfour Supportive Housing Community develop stronger relationships with their neighbors and loved ones. Almost instantly the Congressman personally responded via Facebook, directing me to his Miami District Director, Joyce Postell, with a request that I call her with information about the event. When we began the class several days later — sharing exercises to help the participants understand and express emotions, confide with loved ones, and work through conflicts in ways that deepen their closest relationships — Congressman Meek’s Director was there on his behalf.

I was immediately impressed with Congressman Meek’s responsiveness and technical savvy, his genuine concern for the residents of his District, and tangible desire to learn about innovative approaches to improving the lives of the most vulnerable citizens in our community.

We followed up with the Congressman Meek’s staff to schedule a personal meeting with him in Miami to give us a chance to share more with him about our work in his district and nationwide, hear from him directly about his longstanding efforts to support legislation and initiatives to improve the lives of his constituents, and talk about his campaign to become Florida’s next U.S. Senator.

We particularly wanted Congressman Meek to meet Xavier and Saylen Moore and their two young children, third grader David and first grader Xavier Junior. The Moore Family lives in Liberty City, one of America’s most distressed neighborhoods just miles from downtown Miami where drugs, crime, and deadly violence is part of the daily life of children and adults in the community. We met the Moore Family in February during a PAIRS’ training for parents of children at Liberty City Elementary School. The two of them represent only a small number of residents in Liberty City who are married. Recent statistics revealed that just one in ten Liberty City households include married couples. Their ability to navigate the challenges of their relationship has enabled them to actively support their children’s academic success and their own. Saylen Moore is just weeks away from completing her graduate degree in Social Work. Xavier Moore is Vice President of Liberty City Elementary School’s Parent Teacher Association and, for the past six years, has been able to stay out of the crime and violence that is often the foundation of the lives and struggles of Liberty City’s residents, most of whom live in poverty.

Xavier and Saylen Moore listen to Congressman Kendrick Meek via Skype meeting.

At the beginning of March, as Xavier was preparing to follow-up on his experience in the PAIRS class by attending a four-day intensive program to deepen his skills and learn to help others in his community, his 19-year-old brother, Zachary, was shot to death walking home from a club. I called him after learning of the shooting, listening to his heartache over the loss of a brother he helped raise, and encouraging him to come to the training. He said he was coming for his brother, committed to learning and working in his memory to help create a different future for his family and others.

During his days in the training, other young people in Liberty City lost their lives to violence in the streets of the community. While Xavier used the tools he learned in PAIRS to release the intense emotions of his grief within the class, others were continuing to kill each other.

Xavier and Saylen Moore, along with Seth Eisenberg, respond to Congressman Kendrick Meek during meeting via Skype.

Saturday morning, as we were making final preparations for our meeting with Congressman Meek in Miami, his staff let us know that he had been held in Washington by the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who had scheduled a historic vote on landmark healthcare legislation for Sunday. They said that Congressman Meek would attend via Skype so he could talk to the Moore Family and others and that his wife, Leslie Meek, had flown in from Washington to be with us in person.

Once again, the power of partnership became powerfully apparent. The Congressman’s partnership with his devoted wife allowed him to keep his commitment to our group through her presence. She listened and spoke on his behalf while Congressman Meek followed along via Skype and also offered words of comfort and encouragement to the Moore Family.

Judge Leslie Meek, wife of U.S. Congressman Kendrick Meek, with PAIRS group following meeting in Miami Beach.

I cannot imagine a more tangible example of a dedicated public servant demonstrating his commitment to using every available tool to connect to his constituents. From Facebook and Skype to the meaningful message Leslie Meek’s support showed for empowering her husband’s passions and promises, the experience left each of us impressed, touched, inspired and hopeful.

Hurt People Hurt People

“Hurt people hurt people,” a youngster shared in a recent conversation about bullying at a local elementary school.

“Hurt people hurt people,” a youngster shared in a recent conversation about bullying at a local elementary school.

In an instant, I too was back in elementary school, present to 38 years of feelings about the kid who bullied me in fifth grade; remembering my mother’s boyfriend, Joe Griffis – a retired marine colonel she’d fallen in love with after his return from Vietnam – urging, insisting, almost requiring that I stand up to the bully. My adult gut still twisted in knots as I recalled the fear I felt as I realized at the age of ten that I had no choice.

I searched my mind for evidence that the boy who so hurt me with his taunts, threats, shoves and constant belittlement may have been hurting too. After nearly four decades, I couldn’t find his face, name or any other memory to identify the boy, just the feelings of shame, fear, anger, and sadness I felt and the horror that overcame me during those days as I arrived at Sleepy Hollow Elementary School on the bus from our home in nearby Lake Barcroft.

Hurt people hurt people?

Eisenberg Family, circa 1963. From left, Milton Eisenberg, Lori Eisenberg (now Lori Gordon), Beth Eisenberg (now Beth Redwood), Jonathan Eisenberg; in father's lap, Seth Eisenberg; Front and center, David Eisenberg.

I thought of my older brother – seven years my senior — and his bullying that became my daily life from the time our oldest brother graduated high school and left for college. Had he been hurt, I wondered? What was he so angry or sad about that led to the physical and emotional violence he subjected me to when he thought he could get away with it?

With few exceptions, I felt very much alone during those years, withdrawing into myself or hidden behind my camera from threatening people and events.

Today I realize how much I wasn’t alone; that my experiences are repeated daily in classrooms, playgrounds, neighborhoods and increasingly in homes, retailers, offices, and courtrooms too. Story after story in newspapers, magazines, journals, television, and blogs reveal children and adults leaking bottled up feelings of anger, fear, sadness, guilt, jealousy, and frustration by bullying others.

Some seventy years ago, Albert Einstein, one of the world’s greatest scientists, said:

“The world is a dangerous place; not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing …”

Einstein was referring to a different kind of bully; bullies who capture the reins of political, economic, and military power and turn their sites on innocents. In either case, witnesses to intolerance, abuse, and the fanaticism that can be borne from both are not innocent bystanders – the very essence and meaning of their lives emerges from the decisions they make to act, speak or, tragically, look away.

Having survived my childhood, raised two sons through their own elementary, middle and high school years, and spent hundreds of hours in their classrooms and many others teaching skills for healthy relationships, here are some suggestions for people living, learning, playing, or working with a bully.

1. Know that a bully’s actions are about the bully, not the target. When people bottle up emotions such as sadness, fear, anger, frustration, and guilt, those feelings have energy that doesn’t just disappear. For some, feelings leak out through bullying, threatening, sarcasm, taunting and other dirty fighting tactics until eventually either imploding, which looks like sadness, depression and at the extreme suicide, or exploding, which comes out as anger, rage, and at another extreme, physical violence. Either way, the actions reflect what’s happening inside the person bottling up their feelings. Those who are closest to them – at home, work, schools, and neighborhoods – are rarely the cause of the intense emotions, although they are often the targets.

2. Share your feelings about being bullied with a trusted friend, family member, or counselor. Feelings have energy. Negative energy can be toxic, like poison. Holding in negative emotions, especially for long periods of time, is like keeping poison inside. Before long, it spreads and infects others. Finding positive ways to release negative emotional energy is vitally important to both emotional and physical health. Some enjoy nurturing conversations, meditation and physical activities; others have found benefit from PAIRS Emptying the Emotional Jug, Heart Math, Steven Stosny’s H.E.A.L.S., and similar exercises.

3. Create boundaries that define unacceptable behavior. Differences are a natural part of any close relationship; in fact, every single human being is unique. What are the boundaries – some call them belt lines – appropriate for you in your closest relationships? It’s important to know your boundaries and clearly communicate them to others, whether at home, school, or work. Some may not be bothered by a raised voice or certain language while others might take great offense and consider those actions “below the belt.” In some cultures, people naturally touch each other; other people might consider any physical contact inappropriate. Know your boundaries and speak up to let others know what is, and isn’t, okay for you.

4. Encourage compassionate support both for victims and bullies. When someone you know has been bullied, reach out with compassion and respect. Ask how you can help. Listen with empathy and understanding to their experience. Support the person in seeking and getting assistance needed to get through the situation. Actively help create an environment in which future threats of bullying are eliminated. At the same time, recognize that people who bully may be crying out for attention. At school, support zero tolerance for bullying by insisting that people who bully be counseled, including involving a parent, and separated from others who have been the target of their actions until they recognize their behaviors are unacceptable, accept the consequences, and apologize to those they’ve wronged.

5. Never keep it a secret; call attention to bullying. While some think they will boost their popularity and low self-esteem by taunting, threatening and abusing others publicly, many bully only when they think they won’t be seen, caught, or prevented from lying about their abusive behaviors. Don’t let them succeed! Whether you’re the target or witness, call attention to bullying and help create a world in which others don’t have to fear emotional or physical abuse at home, school, work or anyplace else. People who are abusive to others need attention so their actions don’t escalate. People who are victims need active, compassionate support within a culture that collectively protects every human being’s right to live, learn, play and work without being bullied.

Impact of PAIRS in Reducing Bullying Behaviors

“The skills have helped me better control my anger.”

~ Kevin, 18

“The information has taught me how to show and control my emotions.”

~ Robin, 17

“PAIRS has give me so many new and positive ways to express my anger.”

~ Jessica, 16

“My experience in PAIRS allowed me to relieve so much stress and pain.”

~ Danyell, 17

“PAIRS has made me aware and of ways in which I have been dirty fighting, I now have the tools to positively release my negative feelings.”

~ Melodie, 33

“The emotional jug allowed me to release so many negative emotions.”

~ Jennifer, 31

Additional Resources:

• Parent Teacher Association

• National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center
• U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

• The Nemours Foundation

• American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

• American Association of School Administrators

• State of Washington Department of Labor

• Workplace Bullying Institute

Jerry Seinfeld’s The Marriage Ref Normalizes Relationship Differences

Tom Papa is the Marriage Ref in Jerry Seinfeld's new comedy on the challenges of love and marriage.

Jerry Seinfeld’s The Marriage Ref premiered on NBC last night with an intimate peak into the lives of two couples navigating the unique challenges of their relationships.

While the particular issues highlighted in this first episode were unusual – a husband wanting to keep his deceased dog’s stuffed body in the family room and another eager to install a stripper’s poll in the bedroom – differences in every human relationship, especially between intimates, are not.

Together with panelists Alec Baldwin, Kelly Ripa, and Seinfeld himself, host Tom Papa navigated the very real issue of relationship differences with lighthearted humor that is too often missing when couples find themselves at odds with each other.

With weekly episodes beginning this Thursday in Jay Leno’s previous 10:00pm time slot, celebrity panelists such as Madonna, Tina Fey, Eva Longoria Parker, and Larry David are sure to bring a valuable message to millions of couples: differences are a normal part of every relationship. Learning to deal with them with humor, empathy, respect and structure is a message that can make a difference for countless marriages.

Ultimately, few couples will bring the challenges of their lives to the show’s panel of comedic commentators and analysts. In the process, however, many more will find new perspective, strategies and opportunities to become their own marriage refs. As those insights help couples reach out to each other with love, levity, empathy and respect, Jerry Seinfeld’s journey through the absurdities and inanities of modern life has the potential to be a brilliant success.

Life, Love Lessons from the Developmentally Disabled

Sanford Rosenthal, a veteran PAIRS instructor who lost his vision to retinitis pigmentosa, teaches relationship skills to a developmentally disabled group at ARC Broward.

Nearly 50 million Americans live with a disability. For many within this community, the challenges of sustaining relationships can be life and death matters.

This week, I joined Sanford Rosenthal, a veteran PAIRS instructor and social worker who lost the last remnants of his vision several decades ago to the disease retinitis pigmentosa, to introduce PAIRS relationship skills to 70 disabled adults and staff members at ARC Broward.

The private, not-for-profit organization provides daily support and assistance to children and adults with mental retardation, autism, Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy and other developmental disabilities, delivering a continuum of support to over 1,000 children and adults.

The audience fast embraced our invitation to begin an adventure into the miracles of their own lives and relationships, eagerly sharing insights into the logic of love and emotions from the unique perspective of the severe challenges they face daily.

As we introduced Virginia Satir’s powerful stress styles of communication, the men and women eagerly offered comments and perspective on behaviors such as people pleasing, blaming, computing, and distracting through facial expressions and words many struggled to share.

When we began teaching Satir’s Daily Temperature Reading, a powerful exercise for nurturing cherished relationships, hand after hand quickly rose for a chance to participate through heartfelt, specific appreciations for the people who make a difference in their lives. Many motioned to staff members, urging them forward to thank them personally for their daily counsel, faith, and support; others turned to one another to offer a warm embrace, words of acknowledgment, and other verbal and non-verbal expressions that communicated their gratitude. The 90 minutes allowed for our brief presentation could have easily turned into a full day, as the courage and example of each class participant inspired similar expressions from their enthusiastic peers.

Although close in proximity, this group – like similar groups in communities throughout our nation — lives a world away from millions of Americans who are not afflicted with a life-altering disability. It was impossible not to be touched by the deep gratitude they expressed for those who met their most basic human needs – someone to listen, believe in them, truly see them.

I suspect Sanford and I both left the group having learned as much, if not far more, than we shared.

I returned to my nearby home, wife, and nine-week old son more aware of my ability to speak, learn, listen, and share; more grateful than ever for the resources, freedoms, lessons, and challenges of my life as I reflected on the overwhelming obstacles each of these men and women endure daily to continue their own. I recalled my adolescent experiences with the late Virginia Satir and Daniel Casriel — the energy, authenticity, and faith they brought to developing the exercises and insights we shared with this audience, trusting they were smiling upon our efforts, offering their own blessings to the lives of these extraordinary human beings, grateful that their lives, values, and passions were continuing to make a difference in the world.

And I thought of Satir’s poetic words, “I am me,” penned in response to a teenage girl decades ago who turned to her for guidance as she struggled to understand her own life:

“I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it — I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know — but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.”

Answering the Call

Sleeping on Maybelle's Lap, 1965.

I’ve often wondered if my life would really be different if someone had answered my mother’s phone call in the early sixties when she reached out for a therapist to help save her marriage to my father. The story I’ve heard recounted many times since is that it was the end of summer, a last desperate attempt to rescue a 17-year marriage, but since no one was available to help, the chance for reconciliation passed. Their union, and the last hope for our intact family, dissolved forever.

By four, Maybelle, a young widow who had arrived in the Washington, D.C. area from South Carolina seeking respite from the poverty and discrimination of the time that faced many African Americans in the south, became my primary caretaker.  Her devotion, love and joyful spirit remains my fondest childhood memory.

The youngest of four, by my twelfth birthday, I became the only child regularly living in our comfortable suburban home. For the most part, it was Maybelle and me, as my mother’s constant routine included busying herself to emotional and physical exhaustion week after week, year after year, serving her therapy patients and a father lawyering himself tirelessly for elite corporate clients and the new family he quickly created, with little time, patience or apparent desire to stay engaged in the life of a son he barely knew.

Throughout it all, Maybelle and I always found reason to laugh.

I don’t remember anyone ever asking if I’d done my homework, how I’d done on a test, what was happening at school, with friends, or talks about drugs, alcohol, sex or much of anything else important. I do remember my father’s rage when he had to take time from his busy law practice to go to court with me as a young teenager after I got in trouble for being delinquent. I can still see his angry face and feel his words as he told me how ashamed he was and that he’d never forgive me for embarrassing him.

The lessons I learned came mostly from friends I found whose parents were nearly entirely absent from their lives too. Many others emerged from the promises I vowed to myself during those years to one day give my own children a different childhood. When I found myself in a painful, destructive marriage with their mother, it took years to finally surrender to the realization that I could not save them from the legacy of divorce. Although I knew that what was in my hands was the ability to stay actively involved in their lives through shared custody, coaching their sports teams, volunteering in their schools, and choosing career and life decisions that allowed me to make being their father my top priority throughout their childhood years. Together, we could learn as much as possible about breaking the cycle of divorce to help our family and others.

Nearly half a century after the phone call that wasn’t answered for my parents and the marriage that wasn’t saved, I regularly find myself seeking out the young children of couples who attend marriage education classes I now help organize and teach to thousands of couples in South Florida and elsewhere, silently pledging to each of them that I will always do my best to competently answer their parents’ calls.

Last week, I had a chance to review and report on research looking at the impact our brief workshops are having on their parents. The results brought statistical, scientific evidence to support the testimonials and grateful appreciations that have become almost commonplace at the conclusion of our 12-hour classes. I was particularly eager to see the results from the fathers of these children, hoping to finally find an answer to the question I’d asked myself about my own parents’ relationship for much of my life.

In our six-month follow-up with nearly 500 men, we found:

• 95% reported improvement in communication with their partner;
• 93% reported improvement in regularly sharing appreciations;
• 92% reported improvement in their ability to resolve conflicts constructively;
• 84% reported improvement in their physical intimacy;
• 89% reported improvement in their ability to confide emotions;
• 94% reported improvement in their overall relationship.

[For a copy of the full report, see fatherhood.pairs.com.]

Would that have been enough to save my parents’ marriage, I wondered? Had my parents attended our class, would it have changed the course of my own life? While I’ll never really know the answer to that question, I do know that for these children, they’ll have a better shot at keeping the childhood, support, encouragement, and resources that are lost by millions of youngsters when their parents breakup, the childhood I lost too.

From her home in heaven, I hear Maybelle’s laughter, feel her warm embrace, and find comfort in the idea that perhaps that’s the grand scheme of it all.

Step Back from the Brink

A recent PAIRS Foundation study found that four out of five couples on the brink of divorce can transform their relationships through participation in brief, evidence-based marriage education classes.

A recent PAIRS Foundation research report found that four out of five couples on the brink of divorce can transform their relationships by participating in brief, evidence-based marriage education classes led by qualified instructors. The PAIRS study offers ample cause for distressed couples to step back from the brink of marital breakdown to explore how relationship skills training programs such as PAIRS could be the difference between creating a future of family and personal harmony or the lifelong cost and impact of marital breakdown.

The PAIRS study is additional evidence that the most important step a couple can take when facing a crisis in their marriage is not therapy, counseling, a divorce attorney, apathy, resignation or surrender, but enrollment in brief marriage education classes that are widely available online and in person at locations nationwide.

My own life was forever impacted by my parents’ divorce when I was barely a toddler. My father’s parents also divorced during the earliest years of his childhood. Like my father, I became an adult with no model of what a healthy relationship based on love and intimacy looked or felt like. I didn’t even know what I didn’t know – something we call “unconscious incompetence” — about the skills I’d need to sustain a happy marriage or the shared values and qualities I should look for in a potential long-term partner.

I married and had children knowing from the outset that divorce was an option. When my children were about the same age I was when my parents split-up, their mother and I separated and eventually divorced. Three generations of marital and family breakdown has taken a toll on each of us and those we love. Surely we’ve survived, and in some areas thrived, but we will never recover the years squandered, the lost opportunities and memories, the price children paid for not growing up with the support, security and model of a stable, two-parent home, and the financial and emotional scars that never fully disappear. It didn’t have to be; it shouldn’t have been.

My professional involvement in the field of marriage education over much of the past 15 years – personal experiences with thousands of participants in all stages of relationship who attended PAIRS classes — contributed immeasurably to my life, helping me learn, grow, mature, and, hopefully, model for my children skills and attitudes that are the foundation of lasting relationships based on love and intimacy. The experiences also helped me develop greater empathy for generations of men in particular who have tried their best to navigate their roles as husbands and fathers with either no example to build upon or examples that for whatever reason do not apply.

Time and again I’ve seen marriages and families transformed as couples discover the practical skills offered in PAIRS for understanding emotions in themselves and others, confiding, listening with empathy, releasing negative emotions, dealing with differences in ways that strengthen relationships, and discovering how to be a pleasure to each other. Historically, a very high percentage of couples who enrolled in PAIRS arrived only as a last resort, hoping and praying their participation would help them restore and reconnect with each other after months or years of turmoil, frustration, anger, often betrayal, enormous pain, hurt, and sadness. The far majority succeeded in finding each other again and creating successful relationships. For those who did eventually part, they did so with deeper understanding of what went wrong, greater empathy for each other, and significantly enhanced opportunities to lovingly co-parent their children and never have to repeat the mistakes that led to the dissolution of their marriages.

Today, more and more couples and singles are recognizing the benefits of relationship skills training as important building blocks to lasting marriages that are an ongoing source of love, pleasure, happiness and fulfillment for both partners, participating in record numbers in brief educational programs prior to or in the early years of marriage. That’s good news, as the skills they learn provide a lifetime of benefits that enhance their lives at home, work and in their communities and make a profound contribution to the health and well-being of their children.

The next time you or someone you love says any of the statements we frequently hear from participants who arrive at their first PAIRS class on the brink of separation or divorce, please think about their children; ask about the wishes, hopes and dreams that originally brought them together; encourage them to participate in a PAIRS class before making decisions that will have a lifelong impact. Help them step back from the brink.

1. I can never forgive you. By design, human beings are works in progress, growing and learning throughout the duration of our lives. While we make many great decisions, sometimes we make bad ones, especially when we’re in pain, not getting our needs met, or feeling hopelessness, fear, or despair. As we learn to accept our own humanity, we’re also more likely to have compassion and empathy for others that can lead to a significant shift in how we interpret their actions, behaviors and decisions. While each person has to make their own decisions about whether or not to forgive those we feel have wronged, hurt, disappointed, or betrayed us, the process of choosing to let go of grudges and the choice to forgive is a profoundly healing, empowering, adult experience.
2. I can’t talk to you. They say you can tell the married couples in a restaurant by looking for people who aren’t talking to each other. It didn’t start that way and doesn’t have to stay that way. Confiding is the lifeblood of intimacy. Couples at every stage of relationship can easily learn skills for creating an environment in which it’s safe to confide without fear of judgment, blame, or criticism. Sometimes that means first having the opportunity to release emotional intensity, often it requires fully recognizing the price we pay for losing the ability to talk and listen to each other – whether that’s with our children, spouse, or others we cherish. Many people bring behaviors that help them succeed (or survive) at work into their homes and families. Often what’s needed is the opposite. Very quickly in PAIRS classes, couples learn to talk and listen to others in ways that make it safe and natural to confide.
3. I just don’t love you anymore. Love has its own logic, which too few people understand. Feelings of love naturally wax and wane. Quite simply, the logic of love is the logic of pleasure and pain. We’re drawn to what we anticipate will be a source of pleasure and will find all kinds of creative ways to avoid what we anticipate will be painful. The work of the relationship is to create an environment in which we’re consistently a pleasure to the people we cherish. How we do that changes during different periods, chapters and circumstances. PAIRS teaches couples how to create a positive balance in their relationship “Love Banks” so feelings of love don’t just survive, they thrive!
4. I never really loved you. For generations, the basis for marriage was security, stability and raising children. That still remains true in many cultures across the globe. Yet in most western societies — increasingly after women entered the workforce in large numbers during and after World War II — the basis shifted to meeting each other’s needs for love and intimacy. The rate of marital and family breakdown increased dramatically as generations of men found themselves ill-prepared for the new rules of love relationships, often behaving as their fathers and their fathers before them only to discover their wives weren’t happy, satisfied, or committed to staying in relationships in which they didn’t feel loved, cherished and fulfilled. And in many cases, with the resources to leave, they did. Often, especially for couples who immigrated to the United States from other nations as well as seniors who have been married for decades, PAIRS offers a road map through the course of true love.
5. I’ll never be happy in this relationship. The people we’re closest to are often the mirrors through which we see and experience ourselves; the witnesses to our lives. It’s not unusual to go through periods of self-doubt, contemplation, confusion, even turmoil and frustration as we navigate the passages, chapters and transitions that are a natural part of our collective human experience. It may be easiest to blame those people who are most present in our lives for periods of unhappiness. An important part of PAIRS is the chance to better understand emotions in ourselves and others, including a deeper understanding of what may be at the root of feelings of unhappiness. Too often, well intentioned friends and counselors advise us to treat the symptoms of unhappiness instead of getting to the heart of the situation. Most often, unhappiness comes from not getting our needs met, including our need for bonding (emotional openness and physical closeness). Once couples learn to create an environment in which they can meet each others’ needs for bonding, including confiding, releasing negative emotions, dealing with past hurts and disappointments, negotiating differences, and creating a positive balance in their “Love Banks,” happiness and feelings of love generally grow and flourish.
6. I’m in love with someone else. The emotion of love develops as a response to the anticipation of pleasure. It’s normal to feel love for the people who are a pleasure in our lives and confuse fireworks we may feel as our body chemistry reacts to those experiences with “being in love.” Certainly, those feelings can eventually lead to true love, although so can creating an environment in which we have similar experiences within our existing relationships. It’s often easiest to be misled by the feelings we have connected to interactions with people who are only remotely and minimally connected to our lives versus those with whom we share nearly the entire field of our lives. Consider how easy it is to be a pleasure to someone when we have no expectations, obligations or responsibilities opposed to those with whom our lives are so intertwined that the slightest criticism or disappointment can leave us feeling intense sadness or anger. PAIRS is a chance to discover what’s possible when you create an environment that encourages connection, compassion, empathy, authenticity, and confiding within a committed relationship. Most often, couples discover feelings of love beyond what they may have ever imagined possible. For those who choose to end their relationship in pursuit of another, they’re generally able to do so with deeper understanding of what went wrong, empathy for all involved, and better opportunities to effectively co-parent and avoid finding themselves in a similar situation again with another partner.
7. I’m so angry at you. It’s perfectly normal to experience feelings of anger, fear, sadness and disappointment and no surprise that emotions are most intense in our closest relationships. Negative emotions are like the waves of the ocean that frequently lose their energy as they dissolve upon the shore. We can spend our entire lives trying to keep those waves from breaking – struggling to control, manage, or deny our feelings — depriving ourselves of countless experiences and opportunities to feel love, joy, tenderness, and relief. PAIRS classes help participants expand their emotional intelligence, including a safe process for confiding the full range of emotions and being comfortable with authentic emotional expression from others. For many participants, as they discover their ability to release pent-up feelings of anger, fear, disappointment, and sadness, they realize how much more room they have for positive feelings as well as greater empathy, compassion and closeness within their relationships.
8. It’s too late. It’s never too late. With good will and openness to learning, couples in any stage of life can learn skills to create and sustain happy, healthy, loving relationships. Whether or not to sustain a relationship is one of the most important decisions of a lifetime. When children are involved, the impact on them is both particularly significant and lasting. Often, especially for couples in crisis, both partners are not open to learning at the exact same moment. Regularly, one partner will attend PAIRS on their own, seeking to learn and discover what’s possible for themselves, even when the other is unable or unwilling to attend. Nearly a third of the people in a typical PAIRS class participate as individuals, either attending without their partner or because they’re not in a relationship. While our basic character and nature may be determined long before adulthood, behaviors are not. We learn to behave certain ways as a result of our life experiences; sometimes the very behaviors that enabled us to survive in one environment are sabotaging us in another. PAIRS is a safe opportunity to learn about the behaviors that help nurture and sustain loving relationships, to try them on, and discover what’s possible. Once you’ve had a chance to learn, practice, and integrate the skills into your life, you’ll have a much better idea of the real potential for experiencing love, happiness and fulfillment in your closest relationships.
9. There’s no chemistry. As couples learn to become more emotionally open, expressive, and comfortable asking for what they want, being a pleasure to each other, and dealing constructively with differences, physical intimacy also improves. Research has repeatedly validated significant improvements in sensual and sexual satisfaction as couples deepen empathy, compassion, expand their ability to confide in each other, and learn to resolve typical conflicts. While the impact of chemistry is experienced in different ways at different stages of life and relationship, the depth of connection and pleasure many couples are able to bring to their lives as a result of relationship skills training is often far beyond what is typically referred to as good chemistry.
10. You betrayed me. Like air, food, water, and shelter, bonding – the unique combination of emotional openness and physical closeness with another human being — is a biologically-based need for humans from our first breath to our last. Consistently meeting each others’ needs for bonding may be the most important work of a relationship; it is regularly the foundation of successful relationships. Relationships become extremely vulnerable when couples are not meeting each others’ needs for bonding. When a person is starving for connection – emotionally or physically – they can make decisions that contradict their most deeply-held values, similar to the impact of being deprived of other human needs such as air, food, water or shelter. As participants in PAIRS begin to understand the Relationship Road Map and symptoms of bonding deprivation, they often experience a paradigm shift in how they interpret decisions that may have led to behaviors that betrayed their values and vows. Many choose to forgive themselves and their partners for – more often than not – the incompetence that led them to lose each other along with a promise to invest time and energy daily to stay closely connected, open to listening, confiding, sharing, and bonding as the best protection for their marriage, vows, and most cherished wishes, hopes and dreams.
11. You’re not the person I married. People change. Our experiences — positive and negative — the stories we tell ourselves about those experiences, and the decisions we make show up in our behaviors, attitudes and beliefs. Life itself is a series of opportunities to define and know ourselves through our responses to the circumstances and situations we encounter and the choices we make. Human behavior is often deeply connected to how we interpret the motivations of others, how we feel about ourselves at a given moment in time, and the choices of which we’re aware. When people are scared, sad, angry, feeling guilty, insecure, or going through a period of low self-esteem, those feelings show up in how they behave, especially (perhaps ironically and tragically) towards those they love most. When couples and families learn to create an environment in which it’s safe to be vulnerable, learn to respond to each other with empathy, authenticity, and compassion, they have the best chance of bringing out the parts of each other they most enjoy. PAIRS offers a road map to creating an atmosphere that is safe for the best parts of people – our most precious human qualities — to shine.
12. You’ll never change.

At any moment in our lives, we can change our behaviors. That doesn’t mean it’s easy or instant. Changing behaviors begins with recognizing what you want to change (including seeing and embracing the benefits), changing it, and then sustaining the change under stress and over time. Participants in extended PAIRS classes — including partners, fellow classmates, and instructors — help provide the supportive environment necessary for the best opportunity to make and sustain the changes we choose. Key concepts taught at the beginning of PAIRS contribute much to this process. First is an understanding of the “Levels of Learning,” beginning with recognition that in many important areas of our lives, we don’t even know what we don’t know (unconscious incompetence). Fairly quickly, participants reach the second level, conscious incompetence, where it’s safe to see the impact our lack of knowledge and skills (as opposed to bad intentions) has had on important relationships. As participants practice the skills and exercises offered, they recognize their ability to become consciously competent, meaning the new behaviors are not yet habits – support and reminders are vital – yet they experience the difference that’s possible. Long after the end of PAIRS, when participants have consistently decided and practiced the skills to create new habits and sustained those behaviors under stress, they reach the level of unconscious competence where the changes are part of their regular interactions with loved ones. PAIRS helps couples focus on the behaviors they want to change as opposed to trying to change a person’s character, values, or nature. While it takes patience, persistence, and determination, at any time in their lives, people can change their behaviors when they truly recognize the price they’re paying for their actions, clearly see what they want instead, and have the chance to grow within an environment that supports creating new habits.

For more information on PAIRS classes, visit www.pairs.com, e-mail info@pairs.com, or call (877) PAIRS-4U (724 7748). For information on other marriage education programs, visit www.letsstrengthenmarriage.org or Diane Sollee’s SmartMarriages.com website.

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Seth Eisenberg is President & CEO of PAIRS Foundation, one of the nation’s oldest and leading relationship skills training organizations.

January’s Announcements Reveal December’s Reflections

Resignations, retirements, chapters closing, new beginnings. January’s announcements reveal December’s reflections.

After three decades in the U.S. Senate, Chris Dodd announces he won't seek re-election.

America awoke this week to news that one of the most influential members of the United States Senate, Democrat Chris Dodd of Connecticut, a former Presidential candidate, was joining North Dakota’s Byron Dorgan and Colorado Governor Bill Ritter in announcing he will not seek re-election.

Politicians are not the only ones calling it quits this month. In divorce filings nationwide, an estimated 100,000 American couples will throw in the towel on their marriages in January. While those decisions will not receive the attention of this week’s political announcements, for their children especially, the lifelong impact will be far more significant.

The tragedy for the far majority of these couples is that not only can their marriages be saved, they can become the foundation for lives overflowing with love, pleasure, happiness and fulfillment.

Nearly eighty percent of couples on the verge of divorce transformed their relationships by participating in PAIRS marriage education classes.

More often than not, what’s missing isn’t the right partner, but knowledge and skills that decades of research has proven transform even the most challenged relationships when two people have good will and are open to learning. With so much at stake for children who count on their parents to have the maturity, wisdom, love and determination to provide security and stability to their own lives, it’s tragic that couples more quickly call a lawyer than a qualified marriage educator when love hits the rocks.

Two recent studies published by the nonprofit PAIRS Foundation offer vital information for couples considering joining the legions of men and women beating a path to divorce lawyers or websites promoting quick dissolutions.

The first study looked specifically at couples who enrolled in PAIRS brief (9 – 12 hours) marriage education classes at the lowest levels of marital cohesion, meaning, for most, they were on the verge of separation or divorce. Six months after participating in three to four three-hour classes, nearly eighty percent of these couples had transformed their relationships.

Another study looked at the specific areas of lasting improvement in a highly diverse pool of nearly 1,000 participants in PAIRS relationship skills training. Again, the far majority had significant improvements in their ability to confide, share appreciations, physical intimacy, and other areas that are key to creating and sustaining thriving love relationships.

“…Finally, preliminary research shows that marriage education workshops can make a real difference in helping married couples stay together and in encouraging unmarried couples who are living together to form a more lasting bond. Expanding access to such services to low income couples, perhaps in concert with job training and placement, medical coverage, and other services already available, should be something everybody can agree on…”

Barack Obama
The Audacity of Hope

This research doesn’t mean every marriage can or should be saved, but it should provide ample reason for couples to pause before filing for divorce and consider if evidence-based relationship skills training could be the difference between a child growing up with the security, stability, safety and example of seeing parents work through the natural challenges of life and love or paying the lifelong price that comes with marital and family breakdown.

The equivalent of less than a day in a proven marriage education class should be the first suggestion any attorney, friend or family member offers a distressed husband or wife seeking to dissolve a marriage, especially when children are involved.

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PAIRS Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is one of the nation’s oldest and leading providers of relationship skills training and marriage education classes for couples and singles in all stages of relationship. Learn more at www.pairs.com, e-mail info@pairs.com, or call 877-PAIRS-4U (724 7748).

“How are you? I’m fine.”

Mother Teresa: "Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start."

It’s a script repeated daily by millions.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine. You?”

“Fine, thank you.”

For many, the words, “I’m fine,” are just as often a sign of surrender, resignation, and withdrawal than an authentic reflection of what someone is truly feeling.

Why?

Perhaps we’ve surrendered our wishes, hopes, dreams and passions. Perhaps we’ve become resigned to the pain and sadness in our gut that once cried out for connection and possibilities. Perhaps we no longer have energy for uninvited advice and “guess what happened to so-and-so” stories repeated with the best of intentions by friends and family alike. Perhaps we’ve just given up.

In homes, neighborhoods, schools, offices, grocery stores, gas stations, shopping malls, highways, even in churches and synagogues, we see daily reminders that many of those closest to us are not fine; not because anything is broken or defective, but because they’re not getting needs met that are too often forgotten.

Sometimes we see the truth through the sadness in their eyes or a slump in their shoulders; often through reactions to others or the world at large. Some leak tears, confusion, and sadness; others may flood angry outbursts, sarcasm, and tantrums.

Whether the expressions are active or passive, they signal something fundamental may be missing. In western society, for those who have food, shelter, health and sustenance, most often it’s a cry for bonding.

“In the West, there is loneliness, which I call the leprosy of the West. In many ways it is worse than our poor in Calcutta. The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted. It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.”

~ Mother Teresa

From the moment of his first breath just five weeks ago, our newborn son knew he had a need for bonding. Practically every awake moment since has included either an urging for nourishment or a plea for comforting human connection. As parents, my wife and I have become 24/7 detectives, studying the nuances of each sound, movement, and expression to interpret our baby’s communications and doing our best to meet his needs.

Our newborn son naturally reaches out for bonding.

The needs he’s so comfortable expressing as a newborn will continue throughout his life, yet the reactions he experiences from others – especially his parents — during his earliest months and years will powerfully influence how he seeks to get those needs met and impact the very fabric of his life.

Consider for a moment:

What messages did you get from your earliest cries for connection? How did you interpret (and eventually internalize) the reactions of others about your own feelings and needs? What did your interpretations lead you to decide about yourself that may have had little, if anything, to do with you? What did you decide about getting your needs for bonding met?

Bonding is the unique combination of emotional openness and physical closeness with another person.

Understanding the importance of bonding particularly — defined as the unique combination of emotional openness and physical closeness with another human being — has led to a paradigm shift that has powerfully influenced our understanding of human development and behavior. The results have included significant changes in birthing practices, physical and mental health treatments, recovery and wellness programs, care for seniors, parenting, fatherhood and marriage education, immigrant absorption, and even rehabilitation and re-entry of convicts. In fact, the more we understand about the human need for bonding and the symptoms of deprivation, the more we’re discovering about its connection to many of society’s most urgent challenges.

Too often, we become distracted by the symptoms of bonding deprivation that we miss the most important signs. Many interventions – from pharmaceuticals to counseling, therapy, psychology and psychiatry – have become multi-billion dollar industries with treatments that do little more than mask the symptoms of deprivation, leading countless millions to survive in lives of quiet desperation, knowing deep inside that something profound is missing, yet resigned to the habits, behaviors, and rituals we’ve mastered to disguise our ultimate surrender.

Thousands of times over, I’ve had a front row seat to the miracles and possibilities that unfold in relationships between couples, parents and their children, and entire families as participants in PAIRS classes realize the price they’ve paid in their lives for not getting their needs for bonding met and not meeting the bonding needs of those to whom they’re closest. For young couples beginning their lives together, understanding the centrality of bonding provides layers of protection, security and resiliency to their most treasured dreams and potential — far beyond the most well-intentioned advice, counsel, or treatment.

Many of the symptoms of unhappiness that result from not getting our needs for bonding met are prevalent in homes, neighborhoods, schools, offices, houses of worship, shopping malls, and elsewhere. (PAIRS Foundation, Dr. Daniel Casriel)

From the depth of that understanding emerges a road map to relationships that don’t merely survive, but lasting opportunities to thrive through the natural chapters, challenges, transitions, and obstacles masterfully built into every human experience.

As we pause to enter the second decade of a new millennium, contemplate what it would mean for your life – and for those most closely connected to your life – to know daily that your actions create an environment in which you and your loved ones can be emotionally open and physically close to one another. In the quiet of your mind, imagine how it looks and feels to be someone in whom others can confide, be vulnerable, and reveal the wonder and uniqueness of their individuality without judgment, criticism, or ears that listen, but a heart and mind that doesn’t hear. What does it look and feel like for you to have the strength and courage to confide in others, to be fully human, including embracing the parts of yourself that are learning, growing, works in progress? And what does it look like to be someone with whom those closest to you can be physically close — affectionate – where it’s safe and natural to embrace one another in love and comfort? What does it look and feel like for you to be someone who can reach out for the affection you need to thrive within your most cherished relationships?

Stephanie and Seth Eisenberg reflect silently in a moment of prayer.

It’s the answers to those questions that participants discover during their training in PAIRS classes — practical, usable skills for deepening communication; expanding empathy and compassion; understanding emotions in ourselves and others; reexamining decisions made as a result of past experiences, hurts and disappointments; and processes for addressing differences. Those tools, such as Daily Temperature Readings, Talking Tips, Caring Behaviors, Emptying the Emotional Jug, Fair Fight for Change, Powergram, Untangling Love Knots, and Transforming Emotional Allergies become their tools – often called a “treasure chest” — for nurturing, sustaining, and vitalizing love.

As the clock approaches midnight this Thursday, many will resolve to be better fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters in the new year. Again in the words of Mother Teresa, “Prayer without action is no prayer at all.”