Marriage Rules

When driving, I enjoy listening to what use to be books on tape and now is books on CD’s.  I actually listened to all of Moby Dick but usually listen to fiction and mysteries in particular.  I read nonfiction. It was not unheard for me to sit in a parked car so I could hear the end of a book! Occasionally, I listen to something else.  In particular, I like to listen to books which will make me a better mediator. Recently, I listened to “Marriage Rules: A Manual for the Married and the Coupled Up” by Harriet Lerner, Ph.D.   She is a scholar on the psychology of women and family relationships.  In Marriage Rules gives us just over 100 rules that cover all the hot spots in long-term relationships. Marriage Rules offers new solutions to age-old problems ("He won't talk"/"She doesn't want sex") as well as modern ones (your partner's relationship to technology.) She also suggests how to:

• Calm things down and warm them up• Talk straight and fight fair• Listen well as a spiritual practice• Connect with a distant partner• Survive the unique challenges of children, stepchildren and difficult- laws• Follow a 12-step program to overcome defensiveness• Know how and when to draw the line• Take back your marriage when things fall apart

Marriage Rules suggested many ideas which will help me when mediating and in particular help resolve impasses.

As always, you can post any comment about this blog or Divorce Mediation, or just Mediation by following the directions at the right in the green column or at the bottom of this website. Learn more about mediation at http://www.center-divorce-mediation.com/ CDM (264) 12/28/12

 

 

Seder Preidah: Ritural of Release

 

I recently spoke with my good friend, Rabbi Sandy Seltzer. Rabbi Seltzer has mediated divorces with his wife, Rita Pollak, family law attorney, trainer, teacher and mediator and  Past-President of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals.   We were discussing Jewish divorce and he told me about the “Seder Preidah: Ritual of Release.”  I had never heard of it.  When I asked him for more information, he told me he would lend me a book he wrote entitled, “When There Is No Alternative – A Spiritual Guide for Jewish Couples Contemplating Divorce.”  It is the best book I have read about Jewish Divorce. The book discusses much more than Seder Preidah and I highly recommend it.

Seder Preidah is Reform Judaism answer for dealing with some of the problems of divorce.   As Rabbi Seltzer says in part, “In a radical departure from classical Reform’s attitude toward divorce as a purely civil matter, the CCAR in 1988 introduced a “Ritual of Release or Seder Preidah for Divorcing Couples.  Its intent has been to foster a spiritual setting for the termination of a marriage, thereby hopefully lessening it adversarial potential as well as providing a religious context for the expression of grief and loss.  It is not meant to be a Reform version of the get.”

As I get older, I understand even more the need for ritual.  I often told my clients that as painful as going to court when the divorce is granted, it is important because even that legal ritual provides them with more closure and helps them move on.

As always, you can post any comment about this blog or Divorce Mediation, or just Mediation by following the directions at the right in the green column or at the bottom of this website. Learn more about mediation at http://www.center-divorce-mediation.com/ CDM (263) 12/21/12

 



Have Gun – Will Mediate

 

One of my all-time favorite TV shows was Have Gun - Will Travel.  I have purchased and watched the CD’s of the show and am now listening to the radio show version on my iPhone.  What I have come to realize is that Paladin was often a mediator.  Perhaps this was part of the shows attraction to me.  He did not call himself a mediator but in episode 23, in the first season one  entitled ” Bitter Wine”, Paladin is hired to mediate a dispute between an Italian vintner and an Irish oilman. I like the way he was a problem solver.  There was always the threat and sometime the use of the gun but he always tried to resolve problems without the use of force.

As always, you can post any comment about this blog or Divorce Mediation, or just Mediation by following the directions at the right in the green column or at the bottom of this website. Learn more about mediation at http://www.center-divorce-mediation.com/ CDM (262) 12/14/12