Marriage Maintenance When Couples Drift Apart, Weekend Encounters Can Refresh The Relationship
When most couples marry and pledge their undying love to each other, they vow to themselves or to each other not to join the ranks of the divorced.
The giddy, gushing love of newlyweds doesn’t last forever, though. A good marriage is like a house or a car; it requires a lot of maintenance and occasional repairs.
Over the years, some churches have created programs to help couples make their marriages stronger. In the late ‘60s, Worldwide Marriage Encounter began offering weekends throughout the United States. The Marriage Encounter Weekends are sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church, and the Lutheran church holds occasional weekends as well, but the retreats are open to people of all faiths.
Joan, who didn’t want her real name used, says that for her, it was either attend the weekend or get a divorce. “It (the marriage) was almost gone,” she says. “If he took a jab at me, I could jab back twice as hard. I think deep down we still loved each other, we just had to get over the insult stuff.”
“I realized we needed something,” says Fred, her husband, who also didn’t want his real name used. “Most of it was my fault, to be honest with you.”
Joan, 47, and Fred, 37, have been married over five years. A year ago, Joan spotted a notice about an upcoming Marriage Encounter weekend in the newspaper and asked Fred to go. He didn’t want to, and didn’t go quietly. “He insulted me the whole way,” says Joan. “It’s very difficult to get men there, I think, because they’re macho, they ‘don’t need help.’ “
In a way, Fred agrees. “I didn’t want anybody to know my feelings or know that we didn’t have a good marriage,” he says. “I didn’t want to maybe even admit it to myself.”
The Catholic weekends are run by several lay couples and a priest. The lay couples make presentations, after which participating couples go to their rooms and “dialogue.” They write down answers to questions, exchange what they have written and discuss it. Spouses only share with each other, not other couples attending the weekend.
As the first evening wrapped up, Fred’s reluctance began to fade. “By the end of Friday night, I realized that something good was going to come out of this,” says Fred.
He decided that as long as he was there, he would make the best of it. By the next morning, he says, a calm had come over him. And as he listened to one of the presentations, he found himself looking in a mirror.
“He spoke of my life,” says Fred. “We lived some of the very same things. He spoke on masks and how we use them and how we wore them. That right there was probably the huge turning point in the weekend.”
His realization did not go unnoticed by his wife. “You could watch him just shed layers,” she says. “He just melted. It made him face himself and look at himself.”
“It just made a huge difference in my life,” says Fred. “I’ve told my wife more than once that if I could quit my job and make money selling this, I would.”
“We left the weekend and went home and everything was calm,” says Joan. “It was like a cleansing. We discuss more feelings now. I have a marriage now and it’s getting better every day.”
It may be hard to believe that one weekend can so change lives, but those who have attended a weekend say it’s true. “If you have any feelings at all for the spouse you go there with, I can’t imagine how that weekend would not change your life,” says Fred. “If you get involved in this and you at least try, this will just be an incredible step forward in your marriage.”
Ed Davis, 51, and his wife Cheryl, 47, will celebrate their 16th anniversary soon. They attended a weekend nearly two years ago and got so much out of it that they agreed to be a recruiting couple and encourage other couples to attend.
“It’s an opportunity for us to make a difference in the community,” says Davis.
What they learned during the weekend was a new form of communication and “the rules of the game,” says Davis. “They teach you how to communicate without fighting.”
In many marriages, couples try to ignore the little aggravations, and instead they build and build until they become big problems.
“They’ll be living in the house as roommates, but not as a couple in the truest sense of the word,” says Davis. “Once a couple is able to visualize these feelings and vocalize them and share them, there’s nothing left to aggravate the marriage.
“In the two days, you learn more about the person than you ever knew before in your whole life. It’s hard to believe that scarcely 48 hours can make such a difference, but it does.”
About 125 couples a year attend the program, says Davis, and the success rate is high. Davis says he has seen statistics reflecting that while typical couples have a 50 percent chance of getting a divorce, only two percent of couples who have attended a Marriage Encounter weekend get divorced.
Davis stresses that the weekend is really not about any particular religion, but about bringing couples closer together. “You hardly know you’re at a religious event,” says Davis. “To me, religion isn’t the important part, it’s the encounter.”
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: UPCOMING ENCOUNTERS The next Catholic Marriage Encounter weekend is scheduled for Nov. 14-16. A $30 registration fee is required, which helps cover room and board. While there is no charge for the retreat, a free-will offering will be taken at the close of the weekend. Another Catholic weekend is set for Feb. 13-15. Call 484-LOVE for reservations or information. The next Lutheran Marriage Encounter weekend will be March 13-15. Registration is $45. For more information, call John at 226-3823 or (800) 235-1010.