This is wonderful news! Read this article: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6968834/ns/us_news-education/t/colleges-offer-classes-relationships/#.VGBFTPnF-Sp.
Imagine these professors and students using the poster, The Path to Healthy Relationships, as a tool in their discussions and reflections. It is also exciting to learn there is an International Association for Relationship Research. To have the emotional intelligence required for a healthy relationship starts with the knowledge of what a healthy relationship is in the first place!
I wish I would have had a course in college when I went to school in the late sixties! I do remember taking a class called Marriage and Family in the Social Work Department, and what I got out of that was the statistical part: couples with lots in common have a better chance of staying married for life. I thought at the time I would be married to my first husband forever. We were both Norwegian in heritage, Lutheran by upbringing, both brought up on farms, both college educated, etc. The facts looked good. What else did we have in common? Good question.
Contrast that to my current husband. As he says, "At our age, the words 'til death do you part' are more attainable." What do we have in common? Not nationality. Not where we grew up. Not education levels. But we get feedback continually that we are the happiest and most compatible couple our friends know (and even people we just meet on cruises, for example, say this too)! We astrologically are compatible. Our personality types on the Myers-Briggs personality inventory are the same. We both have FUN as a high value. We both love to travel. We work together beautifully in the publishing business (I have a new career since I met him!) complementing each other with our individual skills. We both value family commitment and supporting each other in all family matters. The list could go on and on. We believe pretty much the same. We have freedom and intimacy at the same time. He goes out with the guys; I meet with women. We have traveled separately when it comes to family matters, yet we are there for the other, even in our separations. I traveled two thousand miles to spend the last nineteen days of my mother's life with her, and he came to my mother's house right before she died and was there for her at the end and for me throughout the process.
What words are on The Path to Healthy Relationships poster that stand out as I write this blog entry and think about my husband? Every single positive word and not one of the negatives. I often say he is my reward for all the work I have done emotionally/psychologically and spiritually. My gratitude overflows, and my wish for all couples is that they have a healthy relationship.
Quantity discounts are available for this poster. Just call my husband, Bob, at 541-347-9882.