Dr. Scott Stanley

Liz and Dr. Scott Stanley

Liz and I met with Dr. Scott Stanley this morning at a Starbuck’s near the University of Denver campus where Dr. Stanley is Director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies and a research professor of psychology at the University of Denver. Additionally he is one of the leaders of PREP (http://www.prepinc.com/main/prep_team.asp). Liz was interviewing Scott as part of her job as Project Director of the Tango Family Initiative (www.tangofamilyinitiative.com). She has been tasked with conducting 600 interviews with “family champions”—those who teach the newly-marrieds at church, host marriage conferences, lead local men’s ministry initiatives, etc. Dr. Stanley was Liz’s 448th interview since she began in July.

The three hours we had together was loaded with gems—to many to recount here. But here are a few salient thoughts that are worthy of repeating.

Scott bases much of his thinking and teaching on two words that characterize how people get to where they are: Sliding and Deciding. From Scott’s blog (http://slidingvsdeciding.blogspot.com) “I believe this idea of ‘sliding vs. deciding’ captures something important about how romantic relationships develop in this day and age. The core idea is that people often slide through important transitions in relationships, such as starting to live together, rather than deciding what they are doing and what it means…. when something important in life is at stake, I believe that deciding will trump sliding in how things turn out.” Scott talked about four life-changing events—each of which leads to fewer options on the other side of the event:
1. Having sex
2. Pregnancy
3. Co-habiting
4. Getting married

With each event there are more constraints and without ever deciding, couples give up options without ever making a decision. The sequencing of the above events is everything. The “success sequence” is 4,3,1,2. But to have that sequence one has to decide not slide. To watch Scott in action talking about sliding and deciding go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJrUH7eFxbo

Scott believes there is a crisis of commitment in terms of relationships. Things are so much less defined today. In the old days there were emblems of commitment that defined where the relationship. Wearing a class ring, going steady, getting pinned helped give social cues as to the level of relationship. The first thing to replace these today is something like Facebook, where people can say whether they are in a committed relationship. If a guy is not willing to say he is in a relationship, preferring ambiguity, that should be a social cue to the young girl. The feeling is by not defining a relationship you will be avoiding pain.

Scott observes that 70% of young people will co-habit before marriage. Marriages today have a 45% chance of making it so “Quote of the day”—given by one of Scott’s colleagues: “Thank God for the gays. They are the only ones fighting for marriage today.”