We're starting something new and it begins with you.
Chances are high that you’re reading this because you already are a marital first responder. Friends, family, and coworkers open up to you about their marriage because you are trustworthy and safe.
Our research shows 73% of US adults have been confidants to someone's marriage or long term committed relationship.
Your empathy and perspective in these confiding conversations are good enough that friends, family, and coworkers keep telling you what they’re worried about.
But we all could do better for our friends AND for ourselves. We could learn how to be more effective and feel more confident, especially when someone opens up with tricky scenarios married people find get themselves in. Or when it’s your brother-in-law confiding about his marriage to your sister! Or when it’s your adult child who is thinking about getting a divorce.
You are a Marital First Responder if:
Some of us struggle with giving too much advice rather than empathizing and helping the person feel we get their pain. Some of us (40% based on research) actually feel stress from these conversations.
The idea behind Marital First Responders is to equip you with more confidence and effectiveness in dealing with the married people in your life when they tell you about their problems or complaints.
Like it or not, we all have the power to help or hurt our friends and the marriages they are struggling in. We can teach you how to be more intentional in conversations, how to be more useful to the person you’re talking with, how to keep your own sanity and boundaries so you don’t get exhausted or annoyed at a never-ending barrage of marital complaints, how to get out of the middle when both partners are telling you their one-side story, and how to steer someone to professional help when they are stuck or in crisis.
We invite EVERYONE, even marriage therapists and educators, to join in.
This is NOT about about professional, paid conversations but the every day, real conversations you are already having with your friends and family.