Maven Says: eHarmony Marriage an interesting alternative

Gman and I met online playing backgammon on a local DC area BBS years before sites like eHarmony, Match.com or Plenty of Fish existed so it seemed fitting that we give Online Marriage Counseling Alternative by eHarmony a try. Gman and I have been married for seven years together for almost 10. Its his second marriage, my first. We have kids of the his and ours variety. We both brought our own baggage into the relationship and as many people know, having kids changes everything. I'd say having step-children and ex-spouses really changes things between partners eventhough it seems EVERYONE wants to tell you that you knew what you were getting into. Gman talked with someone during his divorce and we've visited him during different times of our marriage as well, just to check in and work through some rough spots before they turned into real problems. My first reaction when I got the Parent Bloggers e-mail about eHarmony was to laugh, then I realized it was for married couples and I was intrigued.

The first step in the online alternative to marriage counseling by eHarmony is to take the Marriage profile. The profile takes about 45-60 minutes to complete. Once each partner has filled out the profile separately eHarmony puts together you eHarmony Marriage Profile which they claim is "the most detailed and insightful feedback you'll every received about your marriage." The profile includes your own Individual Personality Profile, Marriage Index, and details on the 10 components of marital satisfaction.

I was surprised at how comprehensive the profile is, ours is 61 pages long. Each section has an introduction, an overview, an iconic (smiley, frowny face) representation of how satisfied each partner is in an area, and a graph to show the potential for improvement. Depending on how different the answers are between the two partners it gives feedback for each person separately as well as joint feedback. Just filling out the profile and getting back the results was a good conversation starter for us. We don't have any big problems, usually just ruts and lack of communication that put us both on edge. I thought one of the most helpful parts was thinking about our future together, after the kids are gone and the realization that we have a whole lot of other stuff to look forward to.

After reviewing the profile you can put together a marriage action plan to deal with the areas of opportunity in your marriage. The site lays out each of the areas, provides articles to read and exercises to complete together. I really don't like opening up to strangers, reading something to fix a problem has long been my way of dealing with things so this felt way more comfortable to me than sitting in a counselor's office. It also lets us take it at our speed which is a pro and a con. We started out gung ho but life with two small children has gotten in the way. While its good to be able to work on things whenever we want, that also means we have to make time for it. We will continue to review the profile and work through the exercises, it feels like preventative maintenance at this point in our marriage. Its good to make sure everything is in working order and made tune things up here and there to prevent a big breakdown later.

To see what others think about the Online Alternative to Marriage Counseling by eHarmony check out the Parent Bloggers Network they'll give you something to think about.