For some reason I checked my email first, and there was an email from the Us Factor, and I said we're putting this off for awhile. I'm getting this and we're going to try it. I don't want to call it quits on our marriage — I love you with everything I have. He said Fine, if you think it will help us we'll try it, but if it doesn't, we will get a divorce lawyer and it's over. I said, well, at least you are willing to try this and we got the program, and first thing when we got it we put in the first DVD and we started. With that first DVD, and the first section of the workbook, and the first activities, we were able to recognize immediately where our problems were starting. We definitely understand the other person's point of view a lot more.

 

I understand, like with the finance problem. I understand that he felt that I was settling, because I was able to deal with not having any money and, I now see his points. I see how he feels about it and vice versa. He sees how I feel about...I'm just trying to help him have a good life, no matter what we have. And, you know, with the kids I see how he feels that he needs to make them strong and he's also seeing how I feel that they need a little more attention.

Now, after just being able to sit and communicate effectively with the skills that we've learned from the Us Factor, we've been able to understand those two points. And we've been able to work together and try to balance it out to where I give less attention and he gives a little more.

I like that you have a way for everybody to learn. Because where Buck and I are so different, if it had just been a video, I may have learned more than he did. Or if it had just been a book, he may have learned more than I did. But it had video, audio, it had books so he could read it, and it had the activities for us to practice on something that wasn't going to start a fight. And we were able to practice those things before we actually got into a place where it was a crunch that we needed it. I think that was very important, that it had all the different aspects of the different types of learning so that everybody can learn the skills—not just certain types of people.

This program can help anybody. It made us feel like we weren't the only ones. Because for a while we felt like we were alone. You know, we shouldn't have gotten married, because we had all these problems that we couldn't figure out, so maybe we shouldn't have been together in the first place. And then you see these other couples on the program going through the same things that we were going through, and you realize, "Hey, it's not just us, and if these people are going to be okay we can be okay too." It's okay to have the differences we have; we can learn how to go about our life with, with them. Because they're what we fell in love with anyway.

The Us Factor, I always tell Buck, is our miracle because it saved us. It meant everything. It meant everything to our marriage; it meant everything to our life. Because, before I met my husband I was really messed up. And he was really messed up. We were the missing piece for each other. And without each other I don't believe we could ever have been as great as we are now, and the thought that we almost just threw it away, when all it needed was a little bit of learning, of these skills that we didn't have, that breaks my heart.

I can't thank you guys enough. This has been a lifesaver. Literally. For me."

 

 

I think the reason for it was, at least for me, as my "analysis" of it is that it allows you to see yourself in a safe kind of context rather than being accused or feeling accused or feeling victimized, you can see what's going on for another couple, it makes it easy to see yourself in them. So, that the learning comes out in a way that's not loaded with accusations and blame that invites defensiveness. It just goes, "Ah, I see." I see them and I see me in them, and it's just more about I see. And that witnessing part of it is really key for maybe or it seems for us as a couple taking a look at this.

I think that if people really don't want to lose their relationship and particularly if they've tried other things and it hasn't worked for them, even if they haven't for that matter, this offers a vehicle that I think can work as a way of educating folks. You know, kind of level one education to at least become, you begin to become aware of issues like toxic patterns and habits and facing one another when you talk and waiting for answers and ask questions and not asking lawyers, rhetorical questions, I see that as educational. And the second piece is of course you have to take the initiative to put it into practice and to work with it. And I think people that are invested and committed in their relationship will take the time to be that because they don't want it to slip any further away than perhaps it already has. "

 

 

I think we realized after we got into the program what a poor job we were really doing of communicating. We realized that it came from having four kids close in age. My oldest is 12 ½ and my youngest just turned 6 and there are two in the middle. So we just realized that in the busyness of becoming parents and dealing with them, and how often your conversations get interrupted, that we just fell into bad habits. The program helped us realize how often we weren't connecting.

 

We're so busy; maybe we let things build up and then we have big blowup moments and we both say things we regret and then we come back and have to say, 'Oh, I'm so sorry. How did that happen?' We're realizing from The US Factor®that it's busyness—we're busy, we're trying to cram, you have a little tiny moment of time between when the kids need you and those were the times we fell into bad communication patterns.

 

Before The US Factor®I probably just would have gone on and on wondering why our conversation was a circle again, and then suddenly I had a tool to go, 'Ohhhhh, stop and approach this a different way.'

I think The US Factor®has opened my eyes and reminded me that I'm dealing with somebody I love very much. We're very committed to our relationship together and I care about what he has to say, and I know he loves me and so we need to take the time and I need to take the time for our relationship to be a priority. The US Factor®has helped me to just stop and go, 'Wow, I need to listen to this person, I want to communicate better with him.'

The US Factor®I think, is helping us to really realize that when we're communicating well, in a small amount of time we can accomplish more or reconnect as a couple better than if we're using all our time ineffectively communicating.

I just love Dr. Melnick; he's so calm and he takes what couples are going through, and he brings it right down to that little pinnacle, and he offers these little words of wisdom that are so profound. He talks about how nobody teaches us how to have this—we fall in love and we have kids and we love each other, but nobody teaches us how to have the skills of maintaining a relationship through all the things that happen in life, and he's wonderful at doing that.

There were times before we started this program that we wouldn't be communicating and I would have that little thought go through my head of, 'Oh my gosh.' Terry and I started our family when we were older; we're both in our mid plus 40's and we do have friends who are heading into that empty nest thing. I do have to admit that there were times I would think, especially if life had been really chaotic with the kids, we've been really busy and you think, 'Oh my gosh, what happens if the kids all grow up and go away and we don't have anything in common anymore?.'

Since doing The US Factor®, that fear, even that occasional little niggle of that is gone because I just know that we do love each other and that when you can communicate all through life, that being able to communicate will take us through everything. It's going to take us through the kids growing up, it's going to take us through the kids leaving, it's going to help keep us connected or help us even reconnect in the all the things that we enjoy that brought us together before the kids.

I would recommend The US Factor®even to people who feel like it's hopeless because you don't know how much communicating with each other can break down barriers or open things back up again. The more you communicate, I think it is cleaning out or lifting a burden. If you love someone, you're willing to go that extra mile and you should be willing to try something like The US Factor®. You bring it into your home; it's a very safe thing. If you feel everything's hopeless, you've nothing to lose at that point by trying something like this.

I think anyone can benefit from this program. Anyone who has kids and has to live their marriage in the real world, not a bubble, can benefit from this program.

There are things we needed to work on and we didn't even realize it and we're healthier for having done it. We've just been amazed. "

 

 

I think for me the most helpful thing is the way Dr. Melnick talks about it as learning skills. Because when you are fighting a lot you tend to think it's a problem in somebody's character. When you look at it as skills you need to learn, it takes a lot of that judgment out of it, and enables you to focus on what you need to do. It has techniques you can actually use. And it applies to the type of problems couples have.

Thank you. Thank you. You are very good at what you do and it does help people's lives. You can be at the end of your rope and just not know where to turn and there's something you can actually do that helps."