12 Hours

To A
Great
Marriage
A Step-by-Step Guide for Making Love Last

Howard J. Markman ● Scott M. Stanley

Susan L. Blumburg ● Natalie H. Jenkins
Carol Whiteley

Copyright © 2004 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights

reserved

Published by Jossey-Bass
 Introduction:
Stepping Up to the Plate
If someone asked you want you wanted most out of life, what would you say?
One of the deepest longings of people everywhere is to have a great relationship,
especially in the form of a great marriage. No matter what their background, age,
or circumstances, most adults on the planet yearn for the love, fun, acceptance,
and deep connection that can come from a happy, lifelong relationship.
Do you dream of having a great marriage? It’s a good dream to have. A
great, forever marriage is a wonderful thing to be part of, and can enrich your life.
The question is, though, how do you turn your dream into reality?
This book was written to help you bring your dream closer. In it we’ve
condensed everything we’ve learned from our 25 years of marital research and
experience into a 12-hour program that will help you develop and protect a loving
relationship. Whether you are happily married and want to stay that way, having
issues you’d like help with, or planning to marry and want to know how to
preserve all the great things about your relationship, the information in this book
can help you make it happen.
Just 12 hours to a great marriage? We understand if you’re a little
skeptical. We want to say right up front that it’s going to take more than 12 hours
to develop a happy, deeply satisfying, loving, lasting marriage. In fact, you and
your partner are going to have to commit to a lifetime of teamwork to have the
relationship you really want. But the approximately 12 hours it takes to read this
book and do the exercises can put you well on your way to making your dream
come true.
If you’re like most people, though, it might be hard for you to find even 12
hours to devote to this program. Life just keeps getting busier and busier. But if
you want to celebrate your 50th wedding anniversary some day, carving out 12
hours now to help you make sure those 50 years are good ones doesn’t seem
like too much to ask.
To help you out, we’ve set things up so you don’t have to find the 12 hours
all at once. We’ve organized this book so you can work on its easy-to-
understand, proven program just one hour at a time, one chapter at a time. We
think you’ll find each hour so full of real help and inspiration that you’ll make the
time to do all 12 hours soon. But you don’t have to stay up all night or go without
food to get under way.

THINKING IN NEW WAYS

Taking it an hour at a time is a wonderful way to start creating your dream
partnership. So is thinking about marriage in a way you’ve probably never
thought about it before—like (are you ready?) a great game of baseball!
Baseball? Baseball and marriage? Yes. Definitely. After working with
thousands of couples to improve their relationships and prevent divorce, we think
a good game of baseball has a whole lot in common with marriage. Here’s what
we’ve found they have in common:
• To succeed, you’ve got to work as a team.
• Each player must cover his or her own position.
• You’ve got to play by the rules.
• Good strategy can make the difference between winning and
losing.
• All players need to keep up their skills.
• It’s possible to strike out, but with hard work and determination you
can hit a home run.
• Unsportsmanlike behavior can get you benched or thrown out.
• Sometimes you have to sacrifice.
• You’re supposed to have a good time.
• There’s no spitting allowed. (OK, we wish there were no spitting
allowed.)

Do you see what we mean? Marriage and baseball really do have a lot in
common. So as you work with this program, we suggest you think of baseball as
a helpful comparison. By stepping up to the plate, digging in, and following the
proven strategies you’re going to learn here, your team can have a championship
season.

WHY CAN IT BE HARD TO MAKE LOVE LAST?

Experts often tell us that it’s easy to fall in love but hard to stay there. But why
should it be hard if lifelong love is what we desire?
 The answer is that, since World War II, the institution of marriage has
changed enormously. Before that time, the divorce rate was low: only adultery
and abandonment were reasons to end a marriage. Men and women also had
similar expectations about the roles they would play and the way they’d raise
their family.
Today, things are much different. Women’s roles have changed and
expanded. People are more mobile, and much less likely to live near family or
friends. And expectations for romance and passion have skyrocketed. For many
people, there’s a big gap between what they have and what they think they
should have.
It’s also gotten easier to end a marriage. That’s good when the marriage is
destructive. But it has also caused couples to believe that no marriage works well
for the long term, so their marriage must be hopeless too.
Considering all these changes, it’s not hard to see why many couples
don’t achieve the happy, committed marriage they long for.
What is the impact of not having these deep longings met in marriage?
For many couples, it means feeling stressed, overwhelmed, and unsure. It also
means that, to handle all the new choices and new issues marriage now
involves, partners have to negotiate with each other. And the way they handle
conflict and differences—part of all relationships—has a huge effect on the state
of their marriage and the survival of their happiness. In other words, because
conflict in any long-term relationship is inevitable, you have to figure out how to
manage disagreements and solve problems in a way that protects and preserves
your love.

WE’RE GOING TO COACH YOU

In our clinical practices, we’ve seen many once-happy couples ruin their
marriage by fighting in destructive ways. We’ve also heard them say that they
wished they’d learned what we’re teaching in this program much earlier in their
lives.
Although nearly half of all marriages today end in divorce, yours doesn’t
have to be one of them. If you use the research-based, field-tested marriage
enhancement strategies in this book, you can prevent divorce. You can increase
your happiness.
 So think of this book, and us, as your coach. We’re going to help you
develop your relationship skills, deepen your motivation, and improve your
chances of having a happier and richer life with your partner, now and in the
future.

OUR WINNING PROGRAM

Just what is this book based on? It’s based on a program called PREP®, which
stands for the Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program. We
developed PREP after years of in-depth research to show engaged and married
couples how to build strong and happy marriages. We’ve used it to train, counsel,
and coach thousands of couples in workshops and seminars over the years,
most often through a 12-hour program like the one featured here. Our program
has helped couples learn the skills and attitudes that our research shows lead to
good relationships, and now we want to help you.
PREP’s track record is great: we’ve helped many couples build their
friendship, enhance their commitment, boost their fun, and reduce the negatives
that can damage closeness. Because they work so well, our materials are used
all around the world. Here in the United States, they’re used in community
settings, by government agencies, in religious institutions, and throughout the
branches of the U.S. military. We’re certain they’re so successful because they’re
based on sound research findings from many respected social scientists as well
as the continuing research we conduct at the Center for Marital and Family
Studies at the University of Denver. They offer simple, straightforward knowledge
that you can use to make a difference in your marriage.
Our approach isn’t magic. And it isn’t therapy or counseling. It’s a program
that tells you about, and has you practice, a number of simple, effective
strategies to develop and protect the love and happiness you want in your
relationship. It’s a program to help you better your marriage and prevent divorce.

FOUR HALLMARKS OF A GREAT MARRIAGE

Research has shown that the happiest, most deeply contented couples have four
things in common, though they may demonstrate them in different ways:
1. They share friendship and love in many ways.
2. They treat each other with kindness and respect.
 3. Both partners do their own part.
4. They’re committed to staying together, even when it’s no bed of
roses.
We’ll talk more about these ideas in Hours 1 through 12. But here, in a nutshell,
is a bit about each.

Your Field of Dreams

Remember the movie Field of Dreams? In it Kevin Costner plays a husband and
father who is moved by mysterious forces to build a baseball field in Iowa. Even if
you haven’t seen the movie, you may remember the line, “If you build it, they will
come.” One way we summarize the four hallmarks of a great marriage is by using
a baseball field. At first base, we have protecting and sharing friendship and love.
Second base is treating each other respectfully when dealing with conflict. Third
base is commitment to your marriage—keeping your relationship in first place. At
the pitcher’s mound is the centerpiece: doing your own part. If you build your field
of dreams, you will always be “safe at home.”

Sharing Friendship and Love

When we ask people what they want in a lifelong mate, they often say, “A best
friend.” Most of us long for a partner who will love us and accept us no matter
what.
Friendship is essential to a great marriage. In fact, friendship sustains
marriage as much as passion does—maybe more. Romantic passion is
wonderful, and later in the book we’ll give you lots of ways to keep it alive. But
there is probably no better way to keep love strong in your marriage than through
friendship.

Treating Your Partner with Kindness and Respect

All of us want to be honored and treated well—especially by our partner. But in
reality most of us honor least the ones we love the most. When we get mad or
frustrated or disappointed, we often take it out on the person closest to us. (We
see you nodding!) And our research shows that couples who put each other
down and are hostile to each other are the most likely to develop serious
problems.
 Problems are going to come up in every marriage. That’s something you
can count on. But when conflicts come up between the two of you, you don’t
have to react to them with anger or disrespect. And they don’t have to put your
marriage at risk. The approaches we teach in this book will show you how to
prevent or stop destructive ways of handling conflict. They’ll also show you how
to solve problems with kindness, generosity, and good will—without your being
afraid to say what you really think or worry about what might happen.
In other words, our methods for handling conflict should make you feel
emotionally and physically safe—and that’s essential for having a deeply
connected, loving relationship.

Knowing and Doing Your Part

To give your marriage the best chance to succeed, each of you needs to work on
your part of the relationship. For example, if you think your spouse is being unfair
to you, instead of yelling or doing something unfair back, you should do the most
constructive thing you can think of. Your partner’s poor behavior mustn’t keep
you from doing your all for the team—unless you’re constantly being victimized.
Then you need to seek out other help. (See Getting More Help When There Are
Serious Problems at the end of the book).
Your partner’s bad behavior also shouldn’t justify bad behavior of your
own. Far too often people feel justified hurting their loved ones because they feel
hurt themselves.
Because your team is made up of two individuals, each of you will have
the most control over your relationship by controlling your own thoughts and
actions within it. But if you think you have to understand your behavior before you
can control it, don’t worry. Although it can be good to know why you do the things
you do, you don’t have to understand it completely right now.
Instead, you can start by being the best friend and partner you can be and
acting in a loving way. Then, as you learn more, you can show your love in even
more effective ways. Work to identify and decrease negative behaviors and
increase positive ones. And remember that one part of loving well is accepting
your partner for who he or she is.
 The quizzes and exercises in each hour will help you learn to do your part
as well as how to work together better as a team. We’ll also give you advice on
things that are best done together.

Three Important Ways to Do Your Part__________________________

1. Regularly do things that will please your partner. It can be as simple as
rubbing her back after a long day at her desk, if that’s something you know
she enjoys. Or it can be surprising him with tickets—for both of you—to
see his favorite team’s next home game.
2. Let negative or annoying comments roll off you. If something needs to be
dealt with, do it when both of you are calm and you can discuss it in a
constructive way.
3. Be the best person you can be. Take responsibility for your own issues,
personal growth, appearance, and health. Make the effort to take good
care of yourself and improve yourself, for your own sake and the sake of
your marriage.

Committing to Staying Together

When they marry, many couples think mainly about the here and now—the
wedding, the honeymoon, setting up house. But marriage can and should last a
lifetime. (Remember that line about “till death do us part”?) So PREP not only
shows you how to change things for the better now but also helps you build a
strong relationship for the long term. Our studies show that couples who do the
best over the long term think and act in terms of lifelong love.
That means they’re committed. And commitment makes some wonderful
things happen. When you commit yourself to your marriage, you let your partner
know that he or she can count on you—no matter what. That understanding
brings you both a great sense of safety. It also brings a sense of permanence.
That feeling of permanence—knowing that no matter what is said or done, it
won’t destroy the relationship—goes a long way to solving relationship problems.
As we take you through the program, we’ll give you lots of suggestions for
creating that sense of safety and permanence. We’ll also encourage you to
develop and take great care of the vision of your future together.
 THE BENEFITS OF A LASTING MARRIAGE
Although many of you may be reading this book to learn how to sustain an
already good marriage, some of you may be reading it because you’re
experiencing pain.
Some marriages are destructive or even dangerous. Many others are not
destructive, but one or both partners are in pain because they’ve drifted very far
apart. If your marriage is physically dangerous, we don’t have the advice that will
make it safe. For that, we urge you to seek out a person who specializes in
helping those in danger get to safety. But if you want to turn a drifting marriage
around, much of our advice will be crucial. If the seed of hope is still there, you
and your partner can use it to do amazing things together.
But why should you put in the effort? Because the benefits of a strong,
lasting marriage are great, and the effects of divorce can be devastating:

1. Children, on average, do best when they’re raised by two loving parents.

But divorce can have lasting negative effects on children. Children of divorce—
especially from families in which the parents fell out of love and the children
didn’t see the split coming—are more likely to find it hard to have close
relationships as adults. They’re also at greater risk for dropping out of high
school, becoming pregnant in their teens, having mental health problems, and
living in poverty.
But all children of divorce aren’t doomed. Many do quite well. However,
the odds that children will experience negative outcomes sometime in their lives
go up with divorce.
It’s unclear what effects divorce has on children whose parents have
chronic, high levels of conflict, because conflict, in itself, is so damaging to
children. Although children from divorced families are at increased risk compared
to children raised by parents who get along well, children could be even worse off
in life if instead of divorce they have to endure years of nasty conflicts between
their parents. If you have children, the best thing you can do for them is also the
best thing you can do for yourself and your partner: work to make your marriage
strong and happy.
2. People who remain happily married tend to be happier in life and be
healthier and live longer than other people. Ongoing marital strife can literally
make you sick, making you more likely to suffer from a variety of physical and
mental health problems over time.
3. Long-term married couples are the most likely to be financially secure. In
contrast, divorce can cause financial distress and, sometimes, disaster. Many
divorced couples who lived comfortably when they were married can find
themselves living at a much lower income level, perhaps even ending up in or
near poverty.
If your marriage has become painful and difficult, we can’t promise that
you can turn it around. But we can tell you that many couples have. In fact, a
recent survey showed that 34 percent of married people had been so unhappy at
one point in their marriage that they’d thought about divorce. But 92 percent of
those people said they were glad they had stayed and worked things out. You
can turn things around, and our strategies have helped many couples do just
that.

IT’S YOUR TURN AT BAT

Even without our telling you, you probably know that marital unhappiness and
divorce can cause great pain and damage. If you’ve been reading this
introduction, you also know that we think it’s possible to prevent divorce and be
part of a happy and deeply committed relationship.
Should you work on the program on your own, or is it better to do it with
your partner? The answer is, both ways work well. If you’re reading this book by
yourself, you’ll find powerful ideas for helping your marriage individually. If you’re
working with your partner as a couple, you’ll also find great suggestions for ways
that both of you can take responsibility. If you are working as a couple, you and
your partner may want to begin by agreeing to the following:
• You will work on your relationship as a team.
• You will not fight destructively during the course of the program.
• You will follow the program because you both want the relationship
to work.
• You will keep fun and friendship in your partnership.
• You will do your part.
• You will try hard to make your partner feel safe.
• You will not say things that threaten the security of your marriage.
 • You will focus on what you put into your relationship rather than
what you get out of it.

Whether you’re looking to strengthen your marriage on your own or with your
partner, we’re certain that the strategies we’re about to teach you will help you
think and act in ways that can turn your “I do’s” into “We can.”
Are you ready to get started? Let’s go!

HEADING FOR HOME

To help you create a lasting love, we’ve divided this book into 12 chapters based
on the 12-hour program we provide to many couples in our workshops. Those
chapters are grouped into four parts. Each part focuses on one of the PREP keys
to success: handling conflict, making positive connections, forgiving, and making
a long-term commitment.

Part One: Getting to First

Part One focuses on managing conflict—essential for a smooth playing field.
Here you’ll learn that although many couples think it’s their differences and
disagreements that cause the big problems in their relationship, it’s really how
they handle those differences that’s important.
Part One teaches you a simple way to handle relationship problems. It
also alerts you to the major risks to your relationship and the danger signs to
watch out for. Part One also covers the different (sometimes amazingly different!)
ways that men and women handle conflict. And we provide specific techniques
you can use right away to stop negative behavior patterns and talk without
fighting. In addition we’ll show you how everyday problems often cover deeper
issues—and how to deal with both. We end the section by giving you a set of
steps to use to solve problems, plus six simple ground rules that will let you solve
problems without damaging your relationship.

Part Two: Reaching Second

In Part Two you’ll learn how important fun and sex are to the health and
happiness of your marriage. If you’ve lost that loving feeling, or want to make it
even stronger, the chapters in this section will give you ways to rediscover and
deepen it. We’ll help you find the time to have fun together and keep conflict from
ruining your party, and we’ll even suggest activities if you’re at a loss for
enjoyable things to do. We’ll also tell you how you can keep anxiety and conflict
out of your physical relationship and how to talk about sex without fear.
Our research has shown that the positive connections you make through
fun and sex will do much to strengthen your marriage. We’ve also found that
talking about and building your core beliefs can also improve your connection, so
we’ve included that information as well. Core beliefs can and do involve religious
beliefs. But they also include the life-shaping ethics and ideals that people hold—
such as the principles that guide the right way to behave.
In Part Two we’ll give you specific ideas for enhancing your connections
through community involvement. If you and your partner don’t share the same
religion or worldview, we’ll show you how you can keep your differences from
damaging your relationship.

Part Three: Rounding Third

In Parts One and Two we talk about what you can do right now to get your
marriage on the move. In Part Three we give you ideas that can help it go the
distance.
Part Three discusses two issues that are key to a long-term happy
marriage: expectations and forgiveness. Expectations—what we believe is going
to happen—affect everything, from who’s going to take out the garbage to what
makes an enjoyable day. Our expectations come from our background and our
experiences. Some are explicit and talked about publicly, some are assumed and
never communicated out loud.
But what if you and your partner have hugely different expectations? We’ll
show you how to be aware of expectations, be reasonable and clear about what
you expect, and meet your partner’s expectations even if they’re not your own.
Being in a relationship means you can get hurt from time to time. And
when you get hurt, you may feel like striking back—or withdrawing, or denying
there’s a problem, or holding it against your partner. None of that helps. In fact,
they can all make things worse. What does help, as we’ve seen time after time, is
forgiving. Couples who forgive each other not only get over both minor and major
hurts but also move forward—happily and together. We’ll give you a step-by-step
method for working toward forgiveness and making it a rewarding part of your
life.

Part Four: Safe at Home

In the last part we focus on two things that will keep your marriage strong and
secure for the long term: friendship and commitment. Although sex and passion
are definitely important, we’ve learned that deep friendship between partners will
help them go the distance. But being a friend can sometimes be hard, when
you’re also a lover, mother or father, PTA president, office manager, and dinner
maker. So we give you powerful techniques for renewing, deepening, and
protecting friendship in your marriage.
Commitment is one of the most important parts of this program. That’s
because couples need to believe that their relationship will last forever if they are
going to take risks, open up to their partner, and put in the effort that will get them
around the bases. We’ll tell you what other couples do to develop a sense of
“us.” We’ll also give you ways to dedicate yourselves to your shared future.

THE BEST WAY TO USE THIS BOOK

Each chapter in this book should take about an hour to read, take the quiz, and
do the exercises. If you’re reading this book as a couple, either out loud or taking
turns, we encourage you both to read each chapter before doing the exercises. A
key part of the program is learning and working as a team. Moving through it
together will give you lots of chances to talk about the information as well as put
it into practice.
But what if you’re all set to read the book and start using the techniques,
and your partner doesn’t want to? We encourage you to talk with your fiancé or
spouse about how marriage is a partnership—there are two of you in it—and that
successful partnerships need both partners to participate. It’s much more likely
that your marriage will be sweet if both of you work to make it that way. You
should also point out that our program is based on research and the experiences
of successful couples, and ask your partner to read the section “Our Winning
Program,” above.
If your partner isn’t interested in reading and using the book, take heart.
You can still do the program on your own and see great results. Each chapter
includes a quiz to do on your own, a chance to write about your reaction to the
information, and exercises that are relevant to your situation. What you learn and
put into practice will have a positive effect on your relationship, because when
one partner makes a change, the partnership changes. What you do on your own
can bring about a happier marriage for both of you.
Once you’re ready to start, we encourage you to suit up with confidence. If
you’re sure you’re headed for divorce court and that nothing can help, you may
very well end up there. Or if you think you’ve already achieved a good marriage
but that a great one is out of reach, you may stay right where you are.
The good news is that many couples who follow this program have found
lasting love and happiness in a deeply committed relationship. If you think you
can, you can do it too. Although we make no promises, we believe that by using
the skills you’ll learn here, you will greatly increase your chances of not only
staying together but staying joyously together.
We’re rooting for the home team.