Just in time for Valentine’s Day and National Marriage Week, I’m excited to share a brand new resource with you that has been in the works for a couple of months. The free e-book, called Love Everyday: Thoughts on Loving Amidst the Chaos of Life, represents the collective efforts of 27 talented relationship writers. I was excited to be invited to be a featured author and editor of the project. You’ll find everything from humorous insights to practical relationship tips.

Please leave a comment below with your thoughts and share this e-book freely. I will leave a link to it in my sidebar as well, so you can send people here to Life Gems to find it if you prefer. If you are new to Life Gems4Marriage, welcome!  Please check out some of the more popular posts listed below.  I invite you to sign-up for free updates via RSS or email on the right column, and I’ll send you new posts whenever they’re posted for you to read at your convenience. You can also follow me on Twitter @LoriLowe.

What Should YOU Do?

Here’s what you need to do:  Read Love Everyday by clicking on this link.  Then share it liberally by email, Twitter, Facebook, blogging, word-of-mouth and any other way you can. You can download to your computer and read at your leisure. You can even print it if you prefer a hard copy. It’s totally free and we urge you to help us spread it around the world.

I hope it helps nurture your own Everyday Love. Following is an impressive list of authors who contributed to Love Everyday. Each is passionate about making marriage. 

1. Dr. Michelle Gannon – Marriage Prep 101
2. Paul Byerly – The Generous Husband
3. Lori Byerly — The Generous Wife
4. Denee King – She Just Got Married
5. Corey Allan – The Simple Marriage
6. Toni & Alisa DiLorenzo – One Extraordinary Marriage
7. Stu Gray – The Marry Blogger
8. Dustin Riechmann – Engaged Marriage
9. Lori Lowe – Life Gems
10. Chelle Stein – It Might Be Love
11. Sheri Kruger – Zen Family Habits Serene Journey
12. Mandi Ehman – Organizing Your Way
13. Maureen Shaw – Feeling Flirty
14. Trudy Sargent – Love Talk
15. Isabella Mori – Change Therapy
16. Cindy J. Taylor – Affair Care
17. Alisa Bowman – Project Happily Ever After
18. J. Money – Budgets Are Sexy
19. Dan Miller – 48 Days
20. Damien Riley – DamienRiley.com
21. Samantha Mellen – Mama Notes
22. Pat Flynn – Smart Passive Income Blog
23. Kathleen Quiring – Project M
24. Jeff Nickles – My Super-Charged Life
25. Brad Chaffee – Enemy of Debt Logos4You.net
26. Nate Desmond – Practical Manliness
27. Carrie Burgan – Make Mine Happen

 Thank you for your support of this project.

We continue our discussion with Susan Dutton Freund, Executive Director of thinkmarriage.org, on why marriage is relevant and important in 2010…Read Part I here.

“Marriage is worth fighting for as a society and personally,” says Susan, who draws parallels to other causes that were meant to help society—anti-smoking campaigns, drunk-driving campaigns, fighting for civil rights and for the environment. She says with all the well-documented evidence for marriage, we should all advocate for healthy marriages. “When it’s not working, people suffer, especially children who are helpless to keep their own homes together. Adults become helpless, too, when the court divides assets and children.”

“In this country, we think relationships and marriage are all about adults’ happiness.  This is very short-sighted and self-centered. It’s not that adults shouldn’t be happy, but we know they can learn skills to be quite successful in marriage. They need to have patience and perseverance to pursue that, and not throw it away,” says Susan. This leads to thinkmarriage.org’s new campaign:

Go green with your relationships. Don’t throw away your marriage; recycle it. Don’t’ pollute the human environment with unhealthy interactions and poor communication.

Susan suggests we can all become marriage advocates and champions by entering the public debate, by standing up for marriage, and by educating others about why it is important. The web site thinkmarriage.org offers a free Myth Busters Guide about marriage, which can be offered to others when you hear common myths, such as “children are resilient after a divorce,” Susan says. In reality, she says research shows divorce has lifelong effects on children, “so it’s worth trying really hard before you choose that option.”

While 70% of divorces are from low-conflict marriages, Susan warns that not all marriages can or should survive. There are three cases in which a marriage needs professional intervention, such as medical/psychological help, or therapy, for a chance at survival:

1. Physical abuse—as well as serious verbal or emotional abuse
2. Mental health issues—true mental health issues make it very difficult to have a healthy relationship
3. An active, ongoing addiction—to a substance, pornography or sexual addiction, or gambling—addictive behaviors make an individual unable to sustain a healthy relationship

 However, she adds, “The vast majority of divorces are not as a result of these difficult circumstances, and 40 percent of children are now born outside of marriage, so we are out of balance.” Where’s the solution? “We all need to take part in a movement to restore marriage to the centerpiece of American life,” she says.

What do you think? Is advocating for marriage is difficult in today’s society? Do you feel like you’re forcing your viewpoints on others when you speak highly of marriage? Is it possible to support single parents and children/families who have experienced divorce, while also raising awareness about healthy marriages?

In honor of National Marriage Week, which is celebrated this year from Feb. 7^th to Valentine’s Day, I wanted to share a recent interview I had with Susan Dutton Freund, Executive Director of thinkmarriage.org. Her organization, based in Wisconsin, provides education, online tools and local programs to build healthier relationships. Susan is also part of a national movement to support healthy marriages.

Susan believes marriage education is “more important than ever.” She should know, after growing up in a high-conflict marriage, marrying and divorcing at a young age and raising two children on her own, and finally building a healthy and stable marriage in which to raise a family the second time around. She says our society isn’t preparing individuals for relationships as it did a century ago, when manners were taught in tight-knit communities by positive role models. “Today we live in a mobile society and are loosely networked,” Susan says. “There’s less emphasis on social mores, a do-your-own-thing mentality, separation from extended family, and an easy exit from marriage.”

Despite these challenges, a couple who works on their relationship can be successful, she says. “With a little time, thought, and effort, you can see really great things happen in your relationships.” Susan says a love letter is a tiny example of what should be in a good marriage—“pouring yourself and your affirmation, love and encouragement into another person.” She adds that a love letter not only makes your mate feel good, it also reminds you of your partner’s great attributes. That’s why her organization is offering interactive love letter kits for a nominal donation of $1.99. What a great idea for Valentine’s Day!

Susan says her organization teaches three positive messages, which she says have resonated within her community, and on a broader scale:

1. Marriage is a public good that is beneficial to both adults and children. Research has shown married adults have more wealth, greater happiness and psychological wellbeing, lower rates of chemical abuse/addictions, less physical violence, better sex life, longer life, and better health. Children within intact families have greater academic achievement, greater lifetime earnings, lower rates of drug use, lower rates of teen pregnancy, higher physical health, emotional health, and fewer problematic behaviors.
2. Divorce is preventable when you learn skills. Susan says two truly critical marriage skills are positive communication and conflict resolution. If a couple has these, they can manage other areas of conflict, such as finances, sex, housework and childcare. She adds that marriage retreats, seminars and courses are offered around the country to help couples improve these two skills.
3. Children need both of their parents in their home to do their best. “As long as humanity keeps producing children, marriage will always be relevant,” says Susan. “Family is the building block of society, and when the family fractures, society fractures.”

 Stay tuned for Part II of our discussion tomorrow.

 How do you plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day and National Marriage Week? 

Watch your words. The difference between “I” and “we” may be an important distinction in the quality of your relationship. A new study by UC Berkeley researchers suggests couples who refer to themselves as “we” have healthier relationships and are better able to resolve conflicts than are couples in which spouses use the pronoun “I” instead. Other positive pronouns were “our” and “us” rather than “me” and “you”. Results were published in Psychology and Aging.

Researchers studies 154 middle-aged and older couples discussing disagreements. Couples who used “I” pronouns that emphasized their separateness tended to be more unhappy and less able to manage conflict, while those who used “we” identifiers showed less stress and smoother interactions.

“Individuality is a deeply ingrained value in American society, but, at least in the realm of marriage, being part of a ‘we’ is well worth giving up a bit of ‘me,’” said study co-author and psychology professor Robert Levenson.

The study results were not a surprise, as earlier studies have compared the “me-ness” and “we-ness” of younger couples’ relationships and found the “we” identity was strongly linked with happier younger couples, while “I” language tended to be polarizing. This study shows how the “we-ness” of a relationship may carry over a longer time period to more mature relationships. It also takes the earlier results further by linking emotions and physiological responses with the word choices.

The bottom line: couples with a team mentality may be able to better overcome obstacles both within and outside of the relationship. Using these team-like pronouns may be an indicator of the unity the couple feels and expresses. On the flip side, spouses who highly value individuality and personal opinion may focus more on themselves, at the detriment of their marriage union.

The next time you are addressing a conflict with your partner, or you are trying to nudge your marriage in a particular direction, try using more unifying language of “us” or “we.” It may help you each see your relationship in a different light–as a partnership.

A young, married blogger friend has written eloquently and honestly about her recent struggle to become pregnant, and her search for her current marriage identity as she awaits their desired child. It called to mind so many interviews with wise couples who have walked the unplanned path in marriage. Kathleen graciously offered me a guest post so I could share these thoughts with her readers. The wisdom I learned from these couples may be able to give insight to other struggles you may face.

During the last two years, I’ve interviewed many happily married couples who improved their marriage through adversity. If you ask around, you’ll find nearly every marriage eventually faces adversity. All are changed by it. Some marriages use it as a catalyst for unity or growth, and some are so devastated they do not survive. Their stories convey that life does not always (or even usually) go as planned. They all had a vision for how their life would go, and the vision was far easier than the reality.  Read the full article today at ProjectM.

I am excited to have a guest post today at a web site dedicated to newlyweds and couples in the midst of wedding planning. I’m excited that the blog offers not only great wedding information, but marriage advice as well. After all, it’s not about one day of happiness, right? I’d love to see a trend of couples spending as much time on developing their relationship as on planning the big day.

So check out my post: 10 Tips to Help You Build a Strong Marriage. You can find it below or scroll down at shejustgotmarried.com. Consider sending it to an engaged or newly married couple you know. The ideas offer life lessons that speak to the heart of marriage, commitment and love. The web site also offers some green solutions to buy/sell gently used wedding merchandise, because how many times do you plan to use that crystal tiara anyway? Leave a comment, share your best advice to these newlyweds and wish them a lifetime of happiness! Here’s the post:

10 Tips for Strong Marriages

The dreams or memories of your big wedding day are new and bright. When you close your eyes, you can smell the roses, feel the silk and taffeta, and see the flash of the camera. But all the work of planning and investing in a successful wedding day is far less important than planning your lifelong marriage.

I’ve spent the last two years studying research about marriage and interviewing couples who have experienced some incredible highs and some devastating lows in marriage—and came out on top. I’ll share with you 10 tips to help you protect and build a strong marriage.

1. In today’s fast-paced, two-career families, traditional roles may not apply in your home. However, it’s important to continue to value your masculinity and femininity. He needs to be respected and treated as your hero; she needs to be romanced and to feel loved. Understanding the Five Love Languages can help you convey love in a way your partner can truly appreciate.

2. Spend less money than you earn. Save for emergencies. Debt will eat away at your marriage. Enough said.

3. Believe in each other. Lift each other up. Be on your spouse’s side. Encourage their dreams. Be the one your spouse can’t wait to come home to. Create a vision for your relationship for five, ten, fifteen years down the road.

4. Give your spouse five positive comments for every one negative. This 5:1 ratio has been proven in successful relationships. Frequent nagging or bickering will tear down your relationship and will probably cause him to withdraw. If you can’t find something nice to say about your spouse, he or she will probably start listening to others who offer praise or attention.

5. In our culture, individualism and freedom are paramount, but when you chose marriage you chose a different route—a route of companionship and caring, of sacrifice and loving. There will be days when you feel you are giving more than you are getting. That’s OK. On that same day, your spouse may feel like he is giving more than he is getting. Keep giving. Keep loving. That’s agape love. By focusing on your own happiness, you miss out on the chance for deeper love and deeper joy.

In his book, Take Back Your Marriage, William J. Doherty, PhD, one of the nation’s most prominent pro-marriage counselors, describes today’s “consumer marriage” in which spouses are constantly focused on “what’s in it for me” as the root cause of most marital failures. He explains how this mentality can eventually cause you to work yourselves into a divorce, even when the issue isn’t a deal-breaker.

6. Learn to better listen to one another.

7. Don’t let your arguments get out of hand. Create boundaries for fighting fair.

8. Make time for sex. I know that seems odd to say to newlyweds who are madly in love, but there will be times when passion does not rule the day. Pregnancies, careers, exhaustion, illness, job loss, hormonal issues, children—these can stand in the way of lovemaking. Sharing the intimacy of sex protects the marriage in many ways and communicates love. Happier couples have more sex.

9. Be careful with social media to ensure temptation doesn’t divide your relationship.

10. Remember your promise. Life will not be perfect with your spouse. Every relationship has strengths and weaknesses, and some problems will never be fully resolved. Focus on the positive and not the negative. Have fun. Laugh. Celebrate even small successes. Surround yourself with great influences and good role models.

Sign up at www.LifeGems4Marriage.com to receive biweekly tips to enhance your relationship. Lori Lowe has been happily married to her real-life hero for 14 years. They live in Indianapolis with their two children, a crazy cat and two aquatic frogs.

Today I just want to post a though-provoking quote about marriage as a promise:

“I didn’t marry you because you were perfect. I didn’t even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them – it was that promise.”

Thornton Wilder, The Skin of Our Teeth, a play that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1942

I was very fortunate to get to know a military couple from Zionsville, Indiana, named Timothy and Tiffany Stoner, who will be profiled in my upcoming book. Tiffany managed well during her husband’s deployment to Iraq. Meanwhile, Army National Guardsman Maj. Timonthy Stoner served valliantly as a commander and helicopter pilot of Indiana’s first Black Hawk unit, which rescued both injured soldiers and insurgents, at times coming under fire. (His unit saved 1,500 people during 1,000 combat missions and suffered no casualties.)

On the home front, despite having four young children to care for, including two infant twins, Tiffany focused on what she was grateful for during Tim’s absence and developed some very useful strategies for maintaining a positive attitude. She also benefited from a large support network of friends, family and neighbors who continually helped her and her family. When Tim and his unit returned home after nearly a year (see family picture by Nathan Rowe), they had a renewed sense of appreciation for one another and for their family.

Unfortunately, this family’s success isn’t always the case. A new study from Washington says women whose husbands were deployed have higher rates of mental illness than other military wives. “There’s a very clear relationship between the deployment and these mental health diagnoses in these women,” said the study’s lead author, Alyssa Mansfield.

For women whose husbands were deployed 11 months or longer, their wives had a 24 percent higher rate of depression. This isn’t very surprising when you place yourselves in the position of a woman, likely with children, who is concerned every day of every month for the safety of her beloved spouse and the father of her children. In addition, she essentially becomes a single parent with all the stress that entails. It’s amazing that some women don’t get depressed, actually.

It really puts in perspective the small things we complain about in our home lives when we consider the challenges these military families face daily. The soldier isn’t the only one deployed on an unknown mission; the spouse and children face intense pressures and fears. My family sends our thoughts and prayers for the soldiers and families regularly. Also, remember that some of the spouses left behind are men; they need your support as well.

If you know a military family, offer your support in concrete ways, such as mowing the yard in the summer or shoveling snow in the winter, or offer to babysit or run errands so the spouse can get a break. Invite him or her over for a cup of coffee, and listen to what they are going through.

The Stoners maintained a blog during the deployment and have recently compiled posts and reflections, along with photos by Nathan Rowe, into a book called “FamilyPrint: A Family’s Unique Reflections During War.” For details, go to FamilyPrint.org.

Do you have any military friends or family you want to encourage? Feel free to praise them here on this blog, or send them a personal note of thanks. We owe them a debt of gratitude.

Tim Stoner with his son, Briggs, then 7. Photos by Nathaniel Edmunds Photography.

I hope you had a chance to try the three love-building techniques  from the last post, used to help increase emotional intimacy with your partner. Here are some other suggestions by Robert Epstein, PhD, psychologist and researcher. For more information on Epstein’s upcoming book, visit Making Love Book.

4. “Fall” in love or the trust exercise. Let yourself fall into the arms of your partner. Trade places. Repeat a few times. This activity helps increase feelings of vulnerability, even in strangers.

5. Share Secrets. You and your partner write down a deep secret then swap and discuss. Repeat if you like. Sharing secrets also increases vulnerable feelings and leads to a heightened sense of intimacy.

6. Mind-Reading Game. Think about a thought you want to convey, and write it down. Then, try to convey it silently while he or she guesses. If she can’t guess, reveal the answer, then switch.

7. Let Me In. This is an exercise of invading the other’s personal space, starting about four feet away, and moving closer every 10 seconds or so for a few minutes. Get as close as you can without touching. (I say, at the end of the exercise, if you feel like touching, go for it.)

8. Love Aura. Place your palms close together—but not touching—for several minutes. Feel the heat and energy.

As you can tell, all these exercises make a couple feel physically or emotionally closer (or both). I would add that any discussion that shares your deepest dreams or fears would also fall into this category. I think the reason these are successful is that we spend so much of our day simply accomplishing tasks and perhaps sharing an activity, such as watching a TV show. How often do we truly interact in a new and different way?

Plan an adventure, even if it’s just a treasure hunt in your own house with clues at each step. Learn a skill together. I think it would be fun to learn a language together then visit the country that speaks that language. You could even get kids involved in this activity. If you can’t afford to travel, plan an “Italian Night” or “Parisian Night” at home with decorations and food, and speak only that language.

One of the couples I interviewed shared when their kids are at summer camp, they like to go on long bike rides where they purposely get lost together. They also enjoy board games in the back yard. This has helped keep their relationship fresh after overcoming a life-threatening cancer (her) and an early drug addiction (him). Some couples may prefer reading a book together or taking a cooking class together.

What was your favorite technique, or were you too uncomfortable to try them? What activity are you planning to increase that loving feeling?

Is it possible to increase your closeness or feelings of love by using scientifically tested techniques? Robert Epstein, PhD, thinks so. “There is a definite fix for our poor performance in romantic relationships,” he says. The psychologist and longtime researcher is writing a book on how people can learn to love. He recently shared some proven techniques for deliberately building emotional intimacy in a January/February 2010 magazine article for Scientific American.

Epstein says so many marriages fail in large part because we have poor skills for maintaining relationships and “highly unrealistic expectations.” He warns that physical attraction is sometimes confused with love, creating unsuitable unions. So, be careful with whom you share these techniques!

Epstein studied other researchers’ results on love builders and carried out some of his own. He plans to teach others how to use what is known about how people learn to love one another. The key to many of his recommended strategies is that they increase feelings of vulnerability, and that increases intimacy levels. Other intimacy builders include sharing adventures, secrets, personal space and jokes.

Here are the first three techniques. I’ll try them if you will. Maybe plan one of these activities on a date night, and let me know how it works for you. Keep an open mind. I’ll provide some of his other suggestions in a future post.

1. Two as One. Embrace each other gently. Begin to sense your partner’s breathing and gradually try to synchronize your breathing with his or hers. Epstein says after a few minutes, you may start to feel as if you have merged.

2. Soul Gazing. He reports excellent results with this technique, even with perfect strangers. One caveat is it must be mutual gazing; staring at someone doesn’t count! Stand or sit about two feet apart. Look deeply into each other’s eyes, trying to look at the very core of your beings. Do this for about two minutes, and discuss what you saw.

3. Monkey Love. Sit or stand fairly close to one another, then start moving your hands, arms, and legs any way you like—but in a fashion that perfectly imitates your partner. Epstein calls this fun and challenging.

See Part II with more techniques.

Share your experience if you are brave enough to try these. What do you think about using psychological techniques to increase your love and intimacy? Do you believe they work? Have you tried them?