Commit to Love for Your New Year’s Resolution

This is the time of the year when so many of us make promises to ourselves and to others that we rarely ever keep!  These so-called “New Year’s Resolutions” sound good when we make them but, all too often, we ignore them by Valentine’s Day.

You know the familiar refrains – I will lose weight.  I will quit smoking.  I will call my Mom at least once a week.  And the list goes on.

How about you do something different this year.  How about making a New Year’s Resolution you plan to keep!  Why not commit to making love your New Year’s Resolution?  More importantly, why don’t you make a commitment to tell someone you deeply love that you really love them – and that you will say it several times every day in 2010!

Make this the year you promise to never commit the egregious sin of saying, “Oh, I don’t need to tell her (him) I love you.  They know I love them.”  Wrong!  If you love someone you must tell them everyday.  You must tell them how important they are in your life.  You cannot possibly love someone with all your heart and all your soul and not tell them everyday of your life.  It is simply not possible.

To find out why read the full article: Making Love Your New Year’s Resolution

America’s #1 Love and Marriage Experts
Dr. Charles D. Schmitz and Dr. Elizabeth A. Schmitz
For more marriage advice visit their website Simple Things Matter

How Important Is Sex To A Marriage?

For starters, we all know that good sex can be fun, romantic, exciting, and something that makes most consenting adults feel warm and fuzzy all over.  Over the years we have interviewed thousands of successfully married couples, and most report a reasonable degree of satisfaction with their sex life.  But here is our most important research finding concerning this issue – no marriage was ever saved or made successful because the couple had a great sex life!

And more importantly, when we ask successfully married couples how important sex is to the success of their marriage – to rank on a scale of 1-10 with 10 high – the average rank was only 6!   This finding has held true over the nearly 27 years of our research.  The results are hardly a resounding endorsement for the importance of sex in a successful marriage.

You see, marriage is a multi-faceted and highly complex relationship, and in the best marriages no one aspect stands out as the make or break part of it.  The truth is, and as we report in our new book Building a Love that Lasts:  The Seven Surprising Secrets of Successful Marriage (Jossey-Bass/Wiley, Ó2010), there are seven pervasive characteristics present in all successful marriages.  And guess what, sex is not one of them!  Sex is only part of one of the seven characteristics of a successful marriage.

As you know from our many published writings, we believe that the overemphasis on sex in books about love and marriage cause people to believe that if they don’t have stupendous sex everyday there is something wrong with their marriage.  Trust us on this – marriages that fail do so for a variety of reasons and not for a single reason.  Simply put, no marriage was ever saved or made successful because the couple had a great sex life!

**Building a Love that Lasts is now available wherever books are sold.

Read the entire article: How Important Is Sex To A Marriage?
By America’s #1 Love and Marriage Experts
Dr. Charles D. Schmitz and Dr. Elizabeth A. Schmitz
For more marriage advice visit their website Simple Things Matter

Marriage Is Alive and Well in the World Today

The fact of the matter is this — marriage is alive and well in the United States and around the world!  It is the single greatest contributor to social order on planet Earth.   And the fact of the matter is this — marriage is the most profound commitment to lasting love that exists.  Those who question its importance ignore the facts.

Statistically, there is substantial support for our point of view.  According to the best estimates we can find, there were some 43,500,000 marriages worldwide in 2007.  There were 8,750,000 divorces in the same year.  If you do the math you can see that worldwide, marriages outnumber divorces by a ratio of 5 to 1.  Stated clearly and succinctly, there were five marriages for every one divorce in the world last year.  Hardly sounds like the death of marriage to us.

When you discount for the number of divorcees in America who get divorced multiple times, the “divorce rate” and its impact is much less than that reported by the popular media.  The “real” divorce rate in the USA in terms of its true societal impact is far less than the 50% rate reported.  When discounted for those who have multiple divorces, the “true” impact divorce rate is closer to 35% or 40%.

In fact, the national per capita divorce rate has declined steadily since its peak in 1981 and is now at its lowest level since 1970.  The fact that the per capita divorce has declined should be cause for celebration.

By America’s #1 Love and Marriage Experts
Dr. Charles D. Schmitz and Dr. Elizabeth A. Schmitz
For more marriage advice visit their website Simple Things Matter

Up in the Air: The Five Steps in the Journey to Commitment

Falling in love with another human being is easy, but making a commitment to love him or her forever is “up in the air” for many people. The new movie starring George Clooney entitled, “Up in the Air” mirrors the struggles so many folks go through when it comes to making a commitment to love somebody for a lifetime.  It’s a great movie, with “Academy Award” written all over it and was filmed in St. Louis.

The successfully married couples we have interviewed have shared many stories with us about their commitment to each other. Here are the five steps they have described about how they formed a commitment to each other for a lifetime of love:

1. It is not enough to be deeply loved, you must reciprocate profound love as well, before a lifetime of commitment can be made.
2. The person you commit to must, first and foremost, be your best friend.  You cannot make a lifetime commitment to someone you only love.
3. If you think there will ever be a moment in a budding relationship when you will say, “I have no doubts about him/her so I am willing to make the lifetime commitment” – well, forget it!  It’s not going to happen.
4. Someone who wants a successful marriage cannot promise a lifetime of commitment to someone they purport to love while plotting an escape at the same time.  A true commitment is unalterable and not disposable.
5. And finally, remember this about commitment — it is NOT an on again, off again proposition.  Commitment to someone whom you love and consider your best friend must be an everyday thing.  Commitment is forever; it is not “up in the air.”

To read more about the Five Steps in the Journey to Commitment
By America’s #1 Love and Marriage Experts
Dr. Charles D. Schmitz and Dr. Elizabeth A. Schmitz
For more marriage advice visit their website Simple Things Matter

Tiger Woods – The Age of Infidelity

Don’t be fooled and don’t be foolish.  Relationships that are the victim of betrayal, infidelity, and disloyalty almost always end in failure.  Those who have been successfully married for years and years know this to be true.  Don’t be misled by those who suggest otherwise.

Let’s hope that this “age of infidelity” will soon pass and that couples who have made the vow to “love and honor in sickness and in health until death do us part” will hold true to the meaning of this constant refrain of the successful marriages we have studied around the world.  There is much to learn from a successful marriage!

Read more about The Age of Infidelity
By America’s #1 Love and Marriage Experts
Dr. Charles D. Schmitz and Dr. Elizabeth A. Schmitz
For more marriage advice visit their website Simple Things Matter

Positive Examples of Marriage Abound

Positive examples of marriage and long-term relationships abound — they are everywhere! Successful and long-term relationships are the single greatest contributors to social order in the world today. And it is our profound belief that a focus on marriage, morality and values is a good thing.

Our 26 years of research on six continents of the world with thousands of successfully married couples, demonstrates that the same definable characteristics for marital success hold true across religions, cultures and continents. Through our blog, we look forward to exchanging ideas with you about love, marriage, and relationships.

By America’s #1 Love and Marriage Experts
Dr. Charles D. Schmitz and Dr. Elizabeth A. Schmitz
For more marriage advice visit their website Simple Things Matter