The Marriage Foundation has honed a proven system of methods, techniques, and a system that integrates science, spirituality, and practicality that not only fixes the problems but transforms marriages.
We do not use western psychological theory. We base our processes on universal principles, scientific realities, and core principles of love, happiness, and marital harmony. The continual improvements we have made over the years have come only from empirical experience.
Our methodical system is an elegantly designed process
The problems that led you to seek our help with your marriage (if you live together, we consider you as married) are the “symptoms” of disconnection between you and your soulmate.
Every individual is negatively affected when their marriage is filled with stress. Our time-tested successful approach uplifts you as an individual, as we uplift your marriage, step-by-step.
"Paul has said everyone has their breaking point and this week I met mine. I was almost catatonic at one point, so all things considered using the SEW this week has been a life saver. I even stopped taking the anxiety medication and have been listening to SEW lessons all day long for the past week."
Angel EEvery honest marriage counselor and marriage expert will readily agree that couples counseling is fraught with nearly unavoidable complications. Our founder, Paul Friedman, discovered in 2001 that working with only one of the couple was the fastest and most effective way to heal the entire marriage. He created a system where he met with the couples only one time and then worked with the individual who was most committed, for whatever reason, to healing their marriage. This system proved so effective that when Paul created the online marriage help courses, he created a separate wife’s and husband’s version. These different versions are very important. By differentiation a husband can learn more about his wife and a wife can learn more about her husband based on their gender differences. Regardless of society’s experimentation with trying to pretend men and women are the “same” it is common sense that the psychophysiological differences of each gender are significant and cannot be ignored. Instead, the differences can be utilized by each gender to make their marriage much happier through recognition and appropriate responsiveness.
For over 22 years, the vast majority of individuals never even tell their spouse that they are taking their course. Instead, they revitalize their marriage to the delight of their spouse right under their noses. From time to time the other partner will want to know why their marriage is improving so much and they will find out about their course, too. In those cases, some will ask to take the course and we offer them their course with a very generous discount.
"Hey there, Just wanted to give an update. As I’ve worked on myself I’ve become legitimately respectful, courteous, and kind, also helpful with the kids. I’ve seen progress every day. My wife is engaging me in conversation. Two days ago, she brought me lunch. Tonight, she told my son to bring her phone over to me so I could watch the video on it and laugh with them. These are all good things and I see more of them every day."
Claude A
Anger, emotions, habits, and reactiveness constantly interfere with our best intention to love and support our spouse. We get married to be the light in our spouse’s life, and vice versa. But we forget our promises. Paul admits his discovery of the SEW Technique™ was more by divine mercy than by deliberation or creation.
There are times we can’t stop ourselves, and then hurtful and destructive things slip out causing cycles of reciprocal negative behaviors to take over our marriage, until we can barely connect with each other.
The SEW Technique is the right tool for dealing with detrimental thoughts, speech, and actions. It works on all your entrenched habits, and biological drives; like a hot knife through butter.
The SEW Technique™ which is proprietary to The Marriage Foundation will with proper explanation, and guidance, give every individual the power to end these destructive attributes that are considered “normal”, but must be irradicated in order to progress in healing our marriages.
To help people stop reacting; both internally and externally, Paul developed The S.E.W. Technique™ . This technique is the backbone for any and all marriage improvements because its effectiveness in destroying bad habits and creating beneficial habits is critical. Without this technique changes never last; promises are empty.
You get this technique in the first section. That means even before you pay a dime you will gain an indispensable tool for the rest of your life. Saving marriages is not a “business”; it is our mission.
In the Anatomy Of A Fight™, which is the context within which Paul explains the SEW, you will clearly see, usually for the first time, where, how and why your words and actions come from. You will see how the wrong ones erode your connection, which destroys your marriage; shutting out the love and happiness we all got married to enjoy. Then you learn exactly what to do.
This is the kind of psychology we share with you. But it is not western psychotherapy. We do not believe psychotherapy has any role in marriage at all.
This is a simple and profound explanation of what makes your mind do what it does. Most importantly, at the crux of the matter, is that you can control your mind, and have use of your free will, ONLY when you learn how.
You will soon recognize how your mind is unknowingly driven by biological drives, and how to take back control.
You will see why the SEW technique is foundational to you having a happy marriage, and how simple it is. Only you can control you, and only you should control you.
Of the four distinct aspects of marriage, the “psychological” is personal and private. For the vast majority of people, our SEW technique is the only psychological tool they will ever need for their personal and marital “psychological” health.
The four aspects of marriage do not need to be studied by any other than our counselors, but we share them because they were mentioned. They include
1. The soul-connection aspect, which is the most important.
2. Marital interactions, including verbal and nonverbal communication.
3. Intimacy, lifting it above the mundane
4. Personal self-control, which is the psychological component.
The SEW, when combined with our collection of calming techniques you learn in the course, gives you all the right tools, all you will ever need, to stop the toxic infusions into your marriage. You rapidly regain essential marriage-friendly self-control, which allows the natural joy of marriage to once again peculate into your lives.
The SEW technique has wonderful “side” affect
Using the SEW, and associated techniques, helps you regain inner the peace and happiness that may seem so far away right now; and that is its primary purpose, and benefit.
The “side” benefit is how your spouse will respond to the new you. The changes, and corresponding responses, happens so fast, in most cases, that some people “test” the technique by abandoning the SEW; but not for long! Those personal tests always prove the indispensability of SEW. You never stop using it.
In some cases, when the trust has disintegrated too much, the positive responses will take a little longer. But because the SEW is so effective the other spouse finally recognizes the permanence of the changes.
Our clients tell us these techniques have transformed not only their marriages, but their entire lives for the better; and not just by a little bit. The only people who don’t benefit are those who skim through the videos and think they “got it”. They then realize that mistake, and go back to what we know are the basics.
This SEW step is fundamental because its impossible to make progress on your marriage without getting a handle on anger, emotions and reactive behavior.
Ending anger, resentment, and arguments is not enough
Getting out of the cycle of pain is just as important as reworking your marriage. Rather than dwelling on past mistakes or placing blame, we focus on those things you have control over. We don’t want you wishing your spouse was “different” or that they had not done something. We start our process from where you are now.
Your happiness, as much of a stretch as that may sound, is important for your marriage to heal. This may not be immediately apparent to you because of your current situation. But we know that true transformation involves learning how to achieve inner calmness and happiness as well as gaining practical knowledge about what truly works and doesn’t work in marriages. Our approach is not about individualism or predefined roles but is based on the wisdom we have acquired from over more than 22 years of experience. Another way to say this is that you need to have a very accurate roadmap for the next few months and that is what we provide.
For instance, when it comes to knowing what to do or not do, we have learned that ANY checking in with your spouse or ANY discussing “issues” will actually harm your marriage by pushing them away. Instead of using damaging “everyone knows” ideas that actually destroys the chances for healing a troubled marriage we focus on teaching you how to control and eliminate anger, negative emotions, and habitual reactions. As we guide you through the fundamental principles of marriage, we also provide specific guidance that should have been learned earlier but are all but missing in society, like learning to love our spouse unconditionally.
Our process equips you with the tools and techniques that bring about real and permanent change. By combining our knowledge with your commitment and dedication, you WILL create a transformation that extends so far beyond surface-level improvements, that you will want to become a TMF marriage counselor yourself (All of our counselors began where you are now).
For over 22+ years, our clients have experienced the effectiveness of our approach in their daily married lives. Nearly all have recovered from problems like poor communication, falling out of love, neglect, infidelity, separation, and nearly anything else. You can read many reviews here. Our mission is for you to have the kind of marital happiness you can’t even imagine right now.
Our methodical process produces cause and effect results, period. Those results, just like the change you make, are permanent.
Our counselors are licensed psychologists or clergy, who have fully embraced our approach, They have been thoroughly trained to be a helpful adjunct to the course you sign up for. The ‘Tutorial With Counselor Back-Up’ approach we invented is the most effective and efficient way to improve your marriage. It works because we address the underlying dynamics of your marriage that are causing all the problems. Our process brings you and your spouse ever-increasing happiness and ever-expanding love lifting your marital connection to where it belongs, in joy.
Traditional marriage counseling dwells on symptoms, causes, and blame without healing the marriage or couple.
It is just an unfortunate fact that people who seek marriage help from a traditional marriage counselor will usually end their marriage. Their methods are based on psychotherapy; solving “mental” problems.
Still using the same basic approach for nearly 100 years, the divorce rate has increased 300% since the beginning of marriage counseling.
They try, from time to time, to reinvent their strategies, but psychotherapy is simply wrong for marriage. Psychological health is simply not a necessary consideration to get married, or none of us would be happily married.
Psychotherapy is often more harmful for married couples, because it focuses on problems and issues. When things are not good you need to be addressing the underlying dynamics. Unhealthy underlying dynamics are exactly what produce the unwelcome symptoms, called issues and problems.
They reinvent their strategies sometimes, but psychotherapy is simply wrong for marriage. Psychological health is simply not a necessity for a happy marriage. Who among us is psychologically perfect??
Love is the rightful foundation for marriage and all of us have the innate capacity for love. When things are not good you need to be addressing the underlying dynamics of misguided thinking and faulty expectations. Those need to be replaced, methodically and transparently. It is unhealthy underlying dynamics that produce unwelcome symptoms, issues, and problems.
Think of the underlying dynamics of your marriage as the soil in which a plant grows. When soil is healthy, a plant thrives. But if the soil contains toxic elements, or does not have enough proper nutrition, the plant becomes diseased, and dies.
Proper underlying dynamics of marriage include learning to love unconditionally and nurturing other essential loving ambitions.
Toxins that overwhelm marriages, and marital friendship. Are well known. They include disrespectfulness, anger, mean communication etc. If those underlying dynamics are not changed any fix of any problem will be temporary, at best. We begin the process anyone can follow in a way that gets rid of the worst, first.
Our Programs evolved over the years to be more pointed and clearer. The most recent iteration created in 2016 is highly efficient, and effective. But, to make your experience more complete you will be supported by our highly trained and experienced counselors when you need them.
Our systems are solid, effective, and supported. You will be encouraged and supported; never reprimanded or made to feel foolish.
We honor you and admire your desire to heal and improve your marriage. We are here for you.
Everyone gets sidetracked – Anger, emotions, habits, and reactiveness constantly interfere with our best intention to love and support our spouse. We get married to be the light in our spouse’s life, and vice versa. But we forget our promises, and more accurately, we never learned marriage 101. For a zillion reasons we are easily sidetracked from the promises of marriage.
There are times we can’t seem to help or stop ourselves, and hurtful and destructive things slip out. Cycles of reciprocal negative behaviors take over our marriage, until we can barely connect with each other.
Step one is to break the cycles of negativity; not just for a day or week; but forever
Those “slips” have to go! But intentions alone never do the trick. Maybe for a little while, but soon our intentions to behave well fall by the wayside. We cannot tell you how many people finally come to us declaring “I did my best”.
To help people stop reacting; both internally and externally, Paul developed The S.E.W. Technique™ . This technique is the backbone for any and all marriage improvements because its effectiveness in destroying bad habits and creating beneficial habits is critical. Without this technique changes never last; promises are empty.
You get this technique in the first section. That means even before you pay a dime you will gain an indispensable tool for the rest of your life. Saving marriages is not a “business”; it is our mission.
In the Anatomy Of A Fight™, which is the context within which Paul explains the SEW, you will clearly see, usually for the first time, where, how and why your words and actions come from. You will see how the wrong ones erode your connection, which destroys your marriage; shutting out the love and happiness we all got married to enjoy. Then you learn exactly what to do.
This is the kind of psychology we share with you. But it is not western psychotherapy. We do not believe psychotherapy has any role in marriage at all.
This is a simple and profound explanation of what makes your mind do what it does. Most importantly, at the crux of the matter, is that you can control your mind, and have use of your free will, ONLY when you learn how.
You will soon recognize how your mind is unknowingly driven by biological drives, and how to take back control.
You will see why the SEW technique is foundational to you having a happy marriage, and how simple it is. Only you can control you, and only you should control you.
Of the four distinct aspects of marriage, the “psychological” is personal and private. For the vast majority of people, our SEW technique is the only psychological tool they will ever need for their personal and marital “psychological” health.
The four aspects of marriage do not need to be studied by any other than our counselors, but we share them because they were mentioned. They include
The soul-connection aspect, which is the most important.
Marital interactionsz, including verbal and nonverbal communication.
Intimacy, lifting it above the mundane
Personal self-control, which is the psychological component.
The SEW, when combined with our collection of calming techniques you learn in the course, gives you all the right tools, all you will ever need, to stop the toxic infusions into your marriage. You rapidly regain essential marriage-friendly self-control, which allows the natural joy of marriage to once again peculate into your lives.
The SEW technique has wonderful “side” affect
Using the SEW, and associated techniques, helps you regain inner the peace and happiness that may seem so far away right now; and that is its primary purpose, and benefit.
The “side” benefit is how your spouse will respond to the new you. The changes, and corresponding responses, happens so fast, in most cases, that some people “test” the technique by abandoning the SEW; but not for long! Those personal tests always prove the indispensability of SEW. You never stop using it.
In some cases, when the trust has disintegrated too much, the positive responses will take a little longer. But because the SEW is so effective the other spouse finally recognizes the permanence of the changes.
Our clients tell us these techniques have transformed not only their marriages, but their entire lives for the better; and not just by a little bit. The only people who don’t benefit are those who skim through the videos and think they “got it”. They then realize that mistake, and go back to what we know are the basics.
This SEW step is fundamental because its impossible to make progress on your marriage without getting a handle on anger, emotions and reactive behavior.
People get to the point where they think they are stuck, so they just want to “get by”. They think they would be happy with a 10% improvement but that is not good enough! You can’t partially fix your car’s brakes or your marriage and be happy.
We don’t believe in settling. Marriage is amazing; it is designed to be amazing. It is designed to bring you all incredible happiness, that gets better every day. So our focus is showing you exactly how to do that.
You do not have to settle
The Three Killers Of Marriage™ are not what you’d typically think. Things like infidelity, loss of loving feeling, disconnectedness etc. are all symptoms. The killers are outlined, discussed, and illustrated.
The most prevalent of these killers, present in every marriage that is off-track, is called “over-familiarity”. It is in yours, too. The other two are “poor communication”, which covers an awful lot of ground, and “business mentality”, which is all too typical.
However, it doesn’t matter how well you recognize destructive behaviors if you cannot
Stay determined to improve it. And your habits will continually force you back into the negative rut.
Build the soul connection that is supposed to be core of your marriage. It is what we all want.
So, although the good news is that once you begin to establish good, positive habits; even if you slip a little, your new intentionally positive habits will get you back on track.
The S.E.W. technique is a Godsend for slicing through detrimental habits, to reconfigure triggers that cause negative reactions with loving behavior; replacing hurtful communication with positive communication. (don’t worry. Its less complicated when Paul presents it in the video).
But remember, just removing the toxins and getting past the current hurts is not enough. The deficiencies will arise again and again unless you change the very dynamics of your marriage. And that is exactly what you, as an individual, learn. If your spouse is also attracted to our approach, great, but not necessary.
Your marriage will pick up a lot of positive momentum just by working on the SEW, and then learning about the marriage killers. It is amazing how much toxicity you will see you have been dumping into the most sacred of all spaces in your life.
But getting rid of the toxins isn’t enough. Right from the start you will begin replacing the negative detrimental behaviors with marriage building thoughts and behaviors. You will soon see the flowers of love blooming, again; like the day of your wedding; but much better.
If you’re the one taking the course, your spouse will definitely notice the changes in you, even if they haven’t said anything yet. They may be waiting to see if it will last. But you know it will be permanent because you now understand what it takes to make an amazing marriage. You will be using the S.E.W. technique daily, strengthening positive the habits that creates ongoing successful happiness.
With your developing habits and deep understanding of marriage, you start to automatically maintain your marriage as a Sacred Space™. This makes it easy to continue nurturing your connection, commitment, kindness, respect, intimacy, support, and love. Ultimately you will find your marriage will continue to improve day by day, every day.
Don’t forget the kids
We show you how your children fit within the structure of your “new” marriage. Saving children from the trauma of divorce was Paul’s real motivation for establishing TMF. He passionately believes that the number one thing children need is the love and support of happily married parents. That when your marriage is filled with love, raising good children will almost take care of itself.
By the time you complete our marriage course, you will know everything you need to navigate your marriage towards happily ever after. You’ll see pitfalls in the distance and easily avoid them. You’ll know more than most marriage “experts”. You’ll have become truly empowered in your marriage.
It doesn’t end there. You will begin to see your marriage as it should be seen; the happiest part of your life.
Marriage is a path that two individuals take, together. Our marriage system is designed for individuals. It works because marriage like a bridge between souls, does not require both to improve at the same time to get fantastic results. If only one is building the bridge it still connects you both.
Our greatest successes are when either the wife, or husband, take the course themselves. And because men and women make different kinds of mistakes in marriage, due to biological influences on their mind our online programs are gender based being necessarily different for each.
Men and women are not the same. Emotions, reason, sexual desire etc.; all of these influence our reactions and daily decisions. Through the online tutorials you see these influencers unmasked. Because your course is tailored for you, you will learn critical information about yourself, and your spouse. This knowledge, alone, will improve the underlying dynamics of your marriage.
As you incorporate what you learn, your marriage will improve.
As you utilize the methods and techniques. your understanding will enlarge.
As you become happier, your spouse’s heart will come more to the fore.
