I read and hear a lot of drivel about marriage, and the drivel is nothing new. Too bad, because we need non-drivel, and non-drivel in abundance. I don't know if the need is greater now than before. I hear that, but I don't think I believe it. It's popular and easy to find something to be alarmed about, and divorce statistics come in handy for being alarmed about the state of marriage.
Personally, I'm not at all sure divorce statistics are a reliable indicator that marriage is in trouble. Not so long ago people found it very difficult to end an unsatisfying marriage. That didn't make marriage better then than now, just harder to leave. We really don't know what the statistics mean. And, since we don't know, I'd rather just let them be and focus on what we can know something about, and on informing people fully about marriage. And, more than that, about how to create a marriage/relationship that satisfies and pleases them. Cut to the chase rather than getting lost going in a possibly totally useless direction.
Why did I start this site? Because I looked around and searched on Google to see what was available, which sites could actually be useful to real people who were either married, or thinking about it, or not wanting to be married but interested in what could be helpful to them in their own relationships. I didn't find much. Oh, I found a lot of sites trying to sell ideas and programs and books and panaceas. (I also found some porno sites that I didn't expect to land on.)
So, I decided to create a site I intend to be helpful, easy to use, and have a wide range of easily identifiable and accessible material on the subject of marriage and relationships--which is what I think marriage is. In its simplest form, it's a relationship. And, if we keep it at that level, at the level of relationship, we can much more easily solve problems encountered in marriage.
Another why for creating the site is that I wrote a book about marriage. Ah, yes. No, I'm not going to try to sell you one. But, you will find that in the sidebar there are links to Amazon.com for two of my books relevant to the subject matter of this site. So, if you ever have the urge to investigate, they are handily just a click away.
I wrote Heirs Together because I'd been out speaking on an issue I'd written a previous book about, the issue of equality for women in the church, and usually I'd be asked something like the following: "You say the Bible supports women's equal participation in the church, how does this affect marriage?"
For those of you who don't know, many Christians (and others too) have been taught by their religious teachers that women are to be "submissive" to their husbands. Some even think that women should be submissive to male leaders in every environment. I had introduced a new way of looking at religious participation, and my listeners wondered, did that mean, by any chance, that I also believed women could/should be equal partners in marriage!?
Actually, yes. I'd discovered a lot of evidence to support that egalitarian position while researching the first book. So, I wrote another one, Heirs Together, to share the research and info on equality in marriage.
But, I'm interested in supplying information relating to marriage and other relationships for more than Christian edification. I think most people are uninformed about the history of marriage, and how that history profoundly affects the laws that have to do with their own marriage or prospective marriage. I want to help remedy that.
I also want to share information and techniques about creating change that I've discovered and developed over several years of studying the process of change, good tools that are practical and easy to use.
Am I simply altruistic, just a good guy with a heart of gold who wants to help the world? Maybe a little bit, but I also want to create a web log/site that is popular enough, useful enough, that it will provide income for me via advertising and affiliate links. I want this site to be so good and satisfying a read that it will be a web traffic magnet. I think quality and quantity of material will help.
If you like what you get here, then, you'll probably be coming back. Often, I hope. I also hope you will share information you know about that belongs here, ask questions, and leave useful and thoughtful comments, because a good site has all of those elements.
Thanks for reading, thanks for visiting. Please help me make this a good place to visit.
Pat
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