Live the Life | Research-based programs reduce divorce, build healthy relationship skills

Apr 28

Did you know a divorce can cost more than $30,000? And that doesn’t even factor in the emotional cost to both the couple, their children and extended family. Preventing divorce and strengthening marriages impassions Richard Albertson, Founding President of Live the Life, a Florida faith-based non-profit. He started the organization along with his wife, Elizabeth, in 1998. After being married for 10 years, they realized their own marriage needed serious work to keep them from becoming another divorce statistic.

“I realized I was winning all of the arguments in my marriage but was losing the war,” Richard said. “I had a lot to learn. Going through that journey, I realized most divorces don’t need to happen. In my experience being married for more than 33 years, I have come to realize that most couples just don’t know HOW to build a healthy marriage. Nobody ever showed them how to do marriage the RIGHT way, because their parents had no idea how to do it right themselves. So many couples struggle because they never experienced a mom and dad with a healthy, strong marriage. They never learned the critical skills to stay bonded and connected. Nobody ever taught them how to prevent the little things from getting bigger and bigger to the point where they can destroy a marriage between two people who promised to love one another until death.”

Research indicates that the way couples handle communication and conflict resolution are the primary indicators of whether or not their marriage will go the distance. The Albertsons learned this the hard way, and now they want to help couples avoid the mistakes they made in their marriage. The fruit of this passion can be found in several curricula Richard has developed over the past 24 years. Adventures in Marriage (AIM) is one of Live the Life’s signature marriage education programs. AIM was co-authored by Dr. Lori H. Gordon and Richard and is emerging as one of the most high-impact marriage programs in America. Adventures in Marriage combines Christian principles with the latest research to provide specific, practical, attainable skills any couple can learn. This highly interactive marriage education program is one of the most effective, evidence-based marriage enrichment programs available today. AIM helps couples learn and practice specific skills to help them communicate and resolve conflicts in a healthy way.

Richard also wrote Start Smart, a comprehensive premarital program; Power of US for marriage enrichment and maintenance, and Family Frontiers to help parents kick up their game and develop the “four corners” of a healthy home.

All of these programs place a strong emphasis on teaching, demonstrating, and practicing core relationship skills including communication, conflict resolution, emotional regulation, problem-solving, listening, developing empathy for one another’s different perspectives, and understanding and meeting each other’s needs. As Richard said, “Knowledge isn’t enough. Couples need to discover how to drill down and find practical ways to operationalize what scripture says. ‘Love one another’ is easy to say and easy to memorize. But let’s show the couple HOW to love one another well and WHAT are some specific things a spouse can do to meet their spouses’ needs because love is experienced when needs are met. When couples learn how to do this, there is a huge shift.” He added “Every couple has problems and if we can catch them before the issues get out of hand, they can learn the skills to work through any difficulty and move from good to great. We provide hope to couples to let them know there IS a better way, and they can learn how to get there with a little help from marriage education,” he added.

After many years of steady growth and increased impact, Live the Life spread out to reach across Florida in 2011. Today Live the Life has regional offices in Ft. Lauderdale, Orlando, Jacksonville, Panama City, and Tallahassee. The organization’s flagship relationship and marriage education program, Adventures in Marriage, has spread to 32 states and 12 countries.

Live the Life’s Hope Weekends are considered one of the premier marriage intensive programs in America. Richard noted that Hope Weekends have saved more than 80% of troubled marriages for more than 19 years, including those who have already started divorce proceedings. Couples do a deep dive together to learn essential skills to rebuild intimacy and broken trust.

“Every couple has problems and if we can catch them before the issues get out of hand, they can learn the skills to work through any difficulty and move from good to great.”

Richard Albertson

When asked why the Hope Weekend is so successful, Richard said the difference is that the program is experience based. His team very intentionally operationalizes new skills to help couples learn, and then practice, change.

Despite the huge success of Hope Weekends, Richard noted how labor intensive these powerful weekends are. In 2004 he made the strategic decision to “move upstream” to reach couples before their marriages had reached “crisis” level. Start Smart emerged as a comprehensive premarital program that included trained mentor couples/coaches from area churches. This upstream approach eventually led to providing relationship and marriage education programs in more than 50 public and private middle schools and high schools across Florida.

“People learn more from ‘doing’ than they do from lectures and talking heads. Many of the marriage programs out there might have great videos, cool graphics, a moving story, etc. but if nothing changes in the relationship, we are not really helping couples. We don’t want them to get stuck,” Richard said. “We design our programs to have maximum impact through practical application, experiential learning, and a research-based approach.”

Since Live the Life launched in 1998, the divorce rate in Leon County where Live the Life began dropped 59%, more than double the reduction in the Florida divorce rate during the same time.

One tool Adventures in Marriage introduces is a wallet-sized card called the Daily Temperature Reading. The card outlines a discussion menu to jumpstart communication, inspire connection and combat drift.

“It is natural for couples to drift and start moving further and further apart in the course of a relationship – life happens and things get in the way.” Richard said. The Daily Temperature Reading is a basic skill that starts off with words of appreciation. “Maybe you never realized how important it is to tell your spouse what you appreciate about them,” he said. “We get so battered down by life, we need to hear the good things about ourselves.” New Information reminds you that your spouse shouldn’t be the last person on the list with whom you share news. Puzzles and questions are things you think about, ponder, or that concern you.

“Let your spouse inside your head sometimes! If you don’t share some of the things spinning inside your head with your spouse, you are robbing them of key insights into who you are,” Richard said. “There’s no connection and bonding if you hold everything inside.” Another point reminds people to couch complaints as a request for change. “Instead of launching a monologue about what you DON’T like about your spouse, say what you DO want instead. When you do this, you help keep the small things small,” he added. Other discussion items include apologies, prayer requests, and wishes, hopes, and dreams, which help couples visualize their future together.

Each skill is introduced, modeled, then practiced, so couples can learn for themselves and begin to create new habits and patterns.

Live the Life continued to notice the effectiveness of moving upstream to learn healthy relationship skills during the dating and mating process. They created Start Smart to train churches and mentor couples/marriage coaches how to work with premarital couples to provide a strong foundation for a lifelong marriage. “If we can reach couples and teach them core relationship skills before they get married, they will have tools to get over the speed bumps sure to come in the future, and they will have someone to turn to when life gets hard because they have developed a trusted relationship with their marriage coaches,” Richard said.

The longer Live the Life pressed into the relationship field, the more obvious it became that they needed to move even further upstream to reach young people BEFORE they start dating, seriously considering marriage, or have multiple sex partners. “Far too many young people start off in toxic, unhealthy relationships, and they learn all the bad habits that destroy relationships, said Richard. “The more sex partners they have before marriage, the higher the divorce rate,” he said. The True North project offers the REAL Essentials curriculum ( myrelationshipcenter.org ) more than 50 middle schools and high schools across Florida.

One True North lesson addresses “relationship red flags.” Students are given a checklist through which to evaluate their relationships. Things like: “I have become isolated from my friends and family.” “Sometimes I feel stupid around this person.” “This person yells at me and puts me down.” Participants total their number of red flags and are encouraged to tell a friend, trusted adult, or maybe, even break up with a bad influence. “Students often tell us ‘Nobody has ever suggested these behaviors are unhealthy. We thought they were NORMAL,’ " Richard said. “This is all new information for many students that they have never heard before. Young people desire strong, healthy relationships too.”

The True North program is tremendously popular with students and school administrators alike – even in tough neighborhoods and inner city public schools. Richard described one high school in Ft. Lauderdale with high dropout rates and a high percentage of discipline issues. The True North semester-long class is the number one requested elective at this school, with more than 1,000 kids on the waiting list and very high attendance. “We hear stories all the time about at-risk students with school discipline and attendance issues, but when it is time for their True North class, they leave parking lots, dumpster smoking areas, etc. to get back on campus so they won’t miss a True North class,” said Richard.

Getting into schools can be a challenge. No two schools are alike, but Live the Life works hard to develop strong relationships with teachers, students, school board members, and school administrators. Very often they will offer the True North program as a test pilot for free for a small group of students in order to establish a small foothold.

“Once adults and students start to see the power of this program, the impact it has on students, and how much the students love True North, it is not long before we are asked to come back to provide a 2nd, 3rd and 4th class. Before you know it, other schools hear about True North, and invite us to launch a pilot on their campus,” Richard said.

The team at Live the Life dreams big. “One of our ‘big, hairy, audacious goals’ is to bring the True North program to every middle school student and high school student in Florida,” said Albertson with a smile. Live the Life has three core strategic goals: 1) Reduce the Florida divorce rate 50% by 2029; 2) Increase the marriage rate; and 3) Reduce teen pregnancy and out-of-wedlock births.

“Yes, these are all God-sized goals,” Richard said. “They may take a few years to achieve, but we serve a mighty God, and nothing is impossible for Him. We are passionate about seeing more kids growing up in happy, healthy homes.”

“We believe we can achieve a 50% reduction in the divorce rate in any county in America within five to seven years if we can achieve a level of funding at $1 per person per year,” Richard said. Funding is important, he admitted. Funds raised are used for both the “air war” and the “ground war” necessary for boots-on-the-ground efforts, digital media and to scale relationship and marriage education programs at local churches and organizations.

While they want to reduce divorces, Live the Life also wants to increase the marriage rate. “Fewer people are getting married. Millennials were traumatized by mom and dad getting divorced and don’t want anything to do with what they saw firsthand growing up,” Richard said. “We need to normalize marriage education so it becomes the expected norm across all ages and stages of relationships,” Richard noted. “Getting married? Everyone around here does premarital education…Marriage in need of a tune up? Of course you should go to a marriage education class… Struggling in your marriage? The first thing that comes to mind should be – we need to get to a marriage education program before things get much worse! When marriage education becomes routine, that is a day we will celebrate!”

Another core strategy is to increase church attendance. “The health of the church is linked to the health of marriage,” Richard said. “There’s never been a time in history where the Christian church was thriving, and marriage was declining. Whenever one is thriving, the other is, too. If you care about one, you care about the other. They are two sides of the same coin. It is in the church’s best interest to care about marriage.”

In 2015 Live the Life launched its Marriage and Family Resiliency Program for the U.S. Military. Since 911, sustained military deployments have placed added stress and strain on military members and their families. Research clearly indicates military couples and families are under more stress than ever because of deployment separations, intense mission tempo, and record suicide rates. Live the Life provides targeted resiliency events in order to help preserve the health and well-being of our military warriors and their families. The goal of the program is to preserve military families, help reduce the stress of separation, help enhance communication between spouses, develop healthy relationship skills among all family members, and foster teamwork. Live the Life evaluates every program it offers and shares the evaluation results with the U.S. military. With data from Resiliency programs offered to more than 3,000 military participants to date, the stunning results have resulted in rapid expansion of this program.

Because Live the Life is highly results driven, they’ve invited independent researchers to study their impact and effectiveness. “If a relationship education program does not work, then let’s find one that does work,” Richard said. Florida State University’s Family Institute conducted a study on Adventures in Marriage from 2006-2011 in which they measured eight of the key indicators of marital satisfaction. The group noted a statistically significant shift in every single indicator among program graduates.

FSU’s Center for Prevention Research conducted an independent analysis of Live the Life’s marriage resiliency program in 2021. They found some of the largest effect sizes ever recorded for marriage education programs at 6 and 12 months after the program had been completed, especially in the areas of communication, conflict resolution, and intention to divorce.

When asked why Adventures in Marriage seems to “stick” with couples long term, Richard said “If couples will practice the skills on a regular basis, they will become habits. People like practicing the skills because they are easy to learn and they work. Couples gain confidence that they can communicate better and work through conflicts without getting into a nasty fight.”

Duval County, Florida (Jacksonville) had been known as one of the “Top 10 Divorce Capitals in America.” One article noted it was one of the places “where marriages go to die.” For more than 50 years, it had the highest divorce rate among large cities in Florida (cities with populations of 500,000 or more). Richard and Live the Life’s team “ran to Nineveh” and opened a tiny Live the Life regional office in 2012 with one staff person.

In 2015 Philanthropy Roundtable decided to get behind a major effort to partner with Live the Life to drive down the mile-high divorce rate in Duval County. After only three years of Live the Life leading a concentrated effort and mobilizing hundreds of community partners, the Duval County divorce rate dropped 24%. Duval County is no longer on the Divorce Capital list, and it now boasts the LOWEST divorce rate among large cities in Florida for the first time in 5 decades!

After Live the Life led this massive three-year Community Marriage campaign (aka the COFI Project) in Jacksonville, two independent research studies, one from Florida State University and another from the University of Virginia, documented the 24% reduction in the divorce rate in Duval County. Dr. Brad Wilcox, lead researcher for one of these studies, stated,

“As family scholars, we have rarely seen changes of this size in family trends over such a short period of time. Although it is possible that some other factor besides COFI’s intervention also helped, we think this is unlikely.”

“Family Life was a partner. Alpha was a partner. Gary Chapman’s Love Languages seminar was a partner. We plugged in hundreds of churches at different levels of engagement,” Richard said. “In addition to a massive social media campaign that received millions of hits, we had people on the ground building relationships with churches, training them to do programs and to come alongside marriages and families in need.”

“We can’t just do the ‘air war’ - TV, radio and ads, etc. To be successful you must also launch a ground war. We need to be out in the community talking to churches, non-profits, businesses, and other community partners. We need to be visible at Bridal Shows, county fairs, in front of civic groups,” Richard said.

Since 2016, Live the Life has recorded more than 91,000 program graduates in multiple Relationship and Marriage Education programs. The Albertsons and their team can’t be everywhere at once, and they realize Live the Life can’t do the job of changing hearts and minds alone. To scale the programs across Florida and beyond, they train others to lead and do this work. Church partnerships work well, as churches have personal relationships with their members and can provide not just an audience, but personnel to follow up and continue to nurture participants.

“One of the most powerful aspects of the work we are doing is our partnership with local churches. Live the Life’s efforts are designed to come alongside churches that want to increase their relationship and marriage education footprint in the community and provide them with consulting, training, marketing support and resources that fit their mission and goals,” Richard said. “We cannot do this alone. The more church partners who will stand in the gap with us for stronger marriages and families, the more impact we will see. The Church benefits, the community wins, the couples stay together, and most important of all, more kids will grow up in healthier homes.”

Relationship and Marriage Education programs offered by Live the Life

Train the Trainer” Certification training is available. Connect with Live the Life at Livethelife.org or call (850) 668-3700 to access their resources or schedule a consultation to see how the programs can benefit your marriage ministry.

More about Richard Albertson

Florida Governor Rick Scott appointed Richard to the Florida Faith-Based and Community-Based Advisory Council in 2013, and fellow Council members elected him Chairman in 2017. He previously served as Chairman of the Florida Commission on Responsible Fatherhood, Chairman of the Florida Commission on Marriage and Family Support, and Board member of the National Abstinence Education Association. Richard is a co-Founder and Vice Chair for the National Alliance for Relationship and Marriage Education (NARME), and he authored NARME’s charter in 2010, which has been signed by community leaders and practitioners from 28 states to date.