FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Yes, however, we do not recommend people sign up their spouse without their knowledge or interest.
Our most successful, step-by-step program is specifically designed for you to use as an individual to begin the healing and refreshing process without requiring your partner to also do their program.
Over the past 15 years, about half of spouses also sign up, though not always right away.
Even though your intentions are probably wonderful, it is best to not sign up your spouse unless they have expressly asked. In a relatively short period, they will certainly notice big changes in you. Seeing you become a happier person is what will inspire them to want to participate in improving the marriage with you.
Your spouse can sign up for only $129.95 anytime, whether that is today, in a month, a year, or even 5 or 10 years from now.
To add your spouse, buy either individual course above. After signing up, you will have the option to add your spouse for the discounted rate. Both courses are covered under the 3-day free trial and 90-day guarantee. The option to upgrade will be available to you at any time on your member dashboard.
Over the years, we have seen some true miracles happen. Many of our clients had already sought advice from a long line of ineffective counselors. Others had been turned away by counselors because their problems seemed too difficult. Yet, in the end, they were able to save their marriage with our methods. We have helped couples in all of the following situations and more:
- Cheating and emotional affairs
- Lack of intimacy
- Fallen out of love
- Constant fighting, nagging, criticism
- Having lazy, depressed, or withdrawn spouses
- Being on the brink of a separation or divorce
- Anger
- Resenting your spouse
- Poor communication
- Verbal and emotional abuse
Usually we can help couples that other professionals can’t or won’t help. However there are some unfortunate circumstances in which even we cannot help:
1) If there is physical abuse.
If you or your children are in danger, we do not recommend you stay in the home. Get away from the abuser and into a safe environment. However, we have seen couples move back in together when it was safe to do so.
2) If you or your spouse is abusing drugs or alcohol.
Realize that chronic abuse of any substance is never good when you want to make positive changes. Dealing with the tensions in your marriage is already difficult enough without the added burdensome effects caused by drugs and alcohol. Even in this situation, our system will certainly be beneficial for your marriage, but please seek professional help to address the substance abuse.
3) If your wife has left the home and is involved with another man.
We have not been able to save marriages in this situation. It is different if the husband leaves due to a different motivation driving the separation. Even after they had been living with a younger woman for months, we’ve seen wives who were determined to save their marriage be able to reconcile with their husbands. However, when women leave, they usually leave “with their heart”. Men, if this is your situation, our system might help you interact more positively with her and your children, but sadly we cannot offer hope for a full recovery. Please read the Men’s FAQ for more information.
In all other circumstances, we can help.
To you, the problems you are facing may seem huge and pretty complex, but in our experience they are usually easily resolvable if you know what to fix and how to fix it. If you focus on the symptoms (i.e. the cheating or fighting), you will never resolve the underlying, real problems and will not be able to make progress in healing the marriage.
If you have any questions about your unique situation, feel free to contact our counselors.
Most people experience individual results in days. Certain marriage improvements might take from days to weeks, and difficult cases can take longer. Once you are out of the danger zone, your marriage will continue to improve from there. Many of our clients tell us that even years later their marriages are still getting better day after day.
Our courses are delivered over a period of two months. Every week you’ll receive new lessons for you to study and practice in your marriage. Just follow the course, apply the principles, and you’ll see for yourself within the first two months that our system is working, though usually you’ll notice a dramatic shift in the first week. Our 90 day guarantee covers you in case you are not satisfied.
The structure of our course was designed by our founder Paul Friedman, who personally trained hundreds of clients. He stresses the fact that there are some key lessons such as learning the S.E.W. technique and using it every day in your marriage in order to bring about a permanent recovery.
We constantly receive emails from students who really took the system seriously. After starting the course, they learned the S.E.W. technique and the new concepts and methods of thinking, then applied these to all aspects of their lives. Often they write to us asking questions like, ‘My husband says he likes the new me, and so do I. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, but how can I be sure it will last? How do I convince him I’ve changed?’
Opening your eyes is the first big step. Establishing new habits is next, and we assure you that if you stick with it, your marriage will permanently change. Your spouse will be convinced over time and, more often than not, will join you in making improvements.
Yes, absolutely. This is what makes our system so unique. Once you understand why marriages succeed or fail, and study the principles we teach, you’ll see for yourself that they make perfect sense.
Even if only one of you is willing to learn and apply these principles (regardless of who committed the errors), that partner will definitely still enjoy the benefits of an incredible marriage. Time and time again, we see that when one spouse starts taking the course, fighting stops, peace descends on the home, our student becomes happier than ever, and the spouse starts wondering what happened.
The improvement is so remarkable that the spouse often becomes interested in learning how he or she can participate in the process too.
We’ve had cases in which a husband left the home to move in with a younger woman. The wife, however, was not willing to give up, so she took the course, eliminated all fighting and negative interactions with her husband, forgave and loved him (a tough pill to swallow, for sure, but her goal was to have a happy marriage, not to blame her spouse) and after several months he moved back home. They rebuilt a wonderful marriage from that point on. We can’t promise results like this to everyone, but we have seen some amazing miracles.
Many of our clients come to us with this question. But you already know from your own experience that you can’t change others and people only truly change when they make the effort themselves.
The only way to improve your spouse’s behavior that we have seen consistently work is the following:
Very often when a spouse makes a mistake, your impulse to react negatively is strong. Your reaction is nearly as destructive for your marriage as the initial mistake, because it perpetuates a cycle of negative reactions (fighting, giving cold shoulders, yelling, etc). Surely you’ve already seen this happen, over and over again in your marriage.
We have found a way to break this cycle and we teach how to do that in our system. Learning this is essential for a happy marriage.
You must learn to stop the impulse that drives your negative reactions. Once you have mastered this, then you will be able to respond with love and wisdom whenever your spouse makes a mistake. We do not teach you to become a doormat. Instead, we teach you how to respond from an empowered place where you can choose the action that is best for your marriage, rather than responding from a place of feeling hurt, upset, or feeling like a victim.
When you have changed your own attitudes and behaviors, you will then see a marked improvement in how your spouse reacts to you. When you respond only with love, it’s very hard for him or her to put up a fight or to intentionally continue making mistakes.
The Marriage Foundation is not affiliated with any other organization, religious or otherwise. We have clients in over 45 different countries who are followers of all faiths or atheists. We have clients referred to us by pastors, rabbis, and other religious leaders who have reviewed our material. Our principles, books and courses are practical, not religious and work in all religious, spiritual, and atheist marriages.
Here is a summary of the “spiritual” tenets discussed in our system:
No one can deny that we have a consciousness. Religious circles call this a soul, but it’s the same thing.
Marriage counseling, based in western psychology, begins with the premise that we are an organism: a body and brain that has developed consciousness as a result of its chemical processes.
Our courses are based in eastern psychology, which begins with the premise that we are a consciousness that possesses a body and mind. Evolution isn’t denied, but our starting point is that our essence is consciousness inhabiting biology, not just a product of physical, biological processes.
How we got here is for religions to decide. It’s not important to us unless it is useful for your marriage. However, the fundamental difference in marriage-help solutions derives from the question of what we are, which is critically important for your marriage.
If you are a body, then that implies that your consciousness is a perpetual victim of the emotions and habits that drive 90% or more of your actions. This basically means that you have no control over your life and that love is just a chemical that comes and goes solely as a response to outward stimuli or inward chemical reactions.
However if you are a consciousness then although most of our actions are still driven by emotions and habits, we can separate ourselves from them because we are not ‘them’. We own them as possessions. You can compare habits and emotions to wild horses driving our chariot. If in our whole life, we’ve never taken control of the reins, the horses will fight and pull in different directions. However, with the right process and patience, we can learn to rein them in.
By regarding humans as a consciousness or a soul, marriage becomes a union between souls seeking to exchange Love, rather than a union between organisms seeking to experience chemical highs.
In our system the words ‘consciousness’ and ‘soul’, and ‘God’ and ‘Love’ are interchange. However, we don’t preach any dogma. Everything we teach can be proven through your own experience, in your own life.
We maintain that trying to fix your marriage without exercising any control over your emotions, mind, and expressions is futile. So believing that you are just an organism permanently and hopelessly subject to chemistry and outward stimuli will never allow you or your spouse to make changes and improve your marriage.
However, approaching your marriage as a ‘spiritual union’ between two ‘consciousnesses’ has proven to be far more effective than traditional marriage counseling. It provides a useful conceptual model even atheists can accept. This means we are beings who love naturally but its expression is blocked by bad mental habits like yelling, criticizing, and other negative emotional reactions. Once we learn to control those reactions, our natural love can flow freely. Even love itself becomes an energetic force, rather than just the chemicals in the body.
Which conceptual model resonates most profoundly with you? Are you the result of a chemical reaction; an organism entirely subject to your own biology and not responsible for your own behavior? Or are you a consciousness with free will that has the ability and responsibility to manage your own emotions and mind so you can freely love your spouse? If you are at least comfortable working within this latter conceptual model, then you’ll have no problem using our system.
If you want a happy marriage, give our approach a shot. We can show you how to have an incredibly happy marriage, regardless of your religious beliefs.
Feel free to contact one of our counselors if you would like to discuss this topic further.
The Marriage Foundation was established in California in 2009 as a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization. We are registered as Global Foundation For Marriage, dba The Marriage Foundation.
From 2003 onward, prior to founding the organization, Paul Friedman had already been developing and testing his marriage-saving material in his private practice. He felt it necessary to establish the foundation so that it would be possible to bring people from all over the world into contact with this much needed methodology.
If you would like to participate in growing our cause and helping marriages worldwide, the best way is to purchase our books or courses and improve your own marriage. By living an ideal example for your kids and others to see, you will leave a lasting impact on society. Other ways to support the foundation are by sharing our social media posts, recommending us to your friends, or by providing a tax-deductible donation, all of which help tremendously.
