When my wife, Harriet, and I first heard about something called "Marriage Encounter," it sounded rather mysterious. Acquaintances would say, "It's a great weekend. It would strengthen your marriage."
Somewhat offended, I'd reply, "I have a great marriage."
They would say, "Marriage Encounter is designed to make a good marriage better."
"But how much is it? I can't afford to take my wife away for a weekend."
They would reply, "Your way has already been paid! Go!" (Any couple can go free of charge because their way has been paid by those who have gone before.) So we went.
What is a Marriage Encounter weekend like?
After a lovely dinner, we and about 20 other couples listened to a series of presentations by three couples who were searingly honest about the intimate problems of their marriage and how they tackled them.
Their most important message was: "Emotions must be expressed—not repressed. One's feelings are neither right nor wrong, they simply are, but we can't expect our spouse to know those feelings, unless we express them." We were then given an assignment—the first of many over the weekend—to go back to our motel room for a "10 and 10"—10 minutes of writing a love letter to our spouse, and 10 minutes of talking about it privately. The first was easy—to describe what we liked most in our mate.
Suddenly, I was enormously grateful that I had come. Harriet and I needed to spend time together, away from our three young boys. My work in Stamford, Connecticut had dried up and for months I had been commuting to a temporary job. It was grueling. I stayed with Harriet's parents during the week, arriving home at 10 on Friday night. Saturday I fell in a heap, and the cycle began again on Sunday.
But in one of our "10 and 10s" we were asked to write about something "I have wanted to share with you that I either couldn't or didn't share." Harriet wrote that she felt "bruised" by my work in Washington. "You left me for a year-a-half…quite voluntarily…I felt deserted."
As I read that, I began to weep. I was so absorbed in the difficulty of my life I had not realized its impact on her. In our conversation she added, "This is no marriage. I never see you during the week. You moved me to Connecticut where I did not know anyone. All week long, I have only the children to talk to. You come home Friday night and I fix a nice dinner, but you fall asleep. Then you work all the time on the weekend and don't even have time for a swim with the boys. This is not what I married you for!"
She was right! I asked her forgiveness. We had been married 10 years, and I thought we communicated well. But at Marriage Encounter I learned she had been holding this burning feeling inside.
We learned that weekend the absolute importance of taking time every day for unstructured talk, Scripture reading, and prayer. We learned how to put Christ at the center of our relationship. For years now, we take our time in the morning, in bed over coffee—up to an hour a day. That keeps us open to one another, and to the Lord. We would never have known the importance of this step had we not gone on a Marriage Encounter.
Though we could not afford it, we paid for two other couples to enjoy the blessing that others had given us.
When The Going Gets Tough: Marriage Ministry
Dr. H. Norman Wright, author of 35 books on marriage, told me that when he counsels engaged couples, "I require them to visit a divorce recovery workshop. That opens some eyes! They go and hear the turmoil that others are going through. When they come back I say, 'None of those couples there ever believed when they got married that they would be facing divorce. What will you do to assure that this will not happen to you? You have to have a plan."'
How does your church minister to couples who reach the breaking point of their marriages?
Father Richard McGinnis, associate rector of St. David's Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, Florida, found himself overwhelmed by trying to counsel failing marriages. In an answer to prayer, God moved him to make a bold request on Sunday during the service: "I want to meet with those people whose marriages have been on the rocks, but have successfully come off of them—people who have been in extreme difficulty and have been threatened by divorce but who are in recovery."
To his astonishment, 10 couples met with him afterward. He confessed to them: "I have more work than I can handle in marriage counseling. There is no way to keep up with it. I prayed about it. What came to me was that I should not look at the problem, but the solution.
"I want to meet with you over a period of time to see if there is anything of a common nature you had to do for your marriage to be restored. You'll have to share openly and deeply. It may be embarrassing. But I want to see if God has a way of re-establishing marriages."
Seven couples agreed to meet weekly. Outwardly, they could not have been more different. Members of the group included a physician, a salesman, a drug counselor, those with drinking problems, a drug addict, and an adulteress. Two families had declared bankruptcy. Yet their marriages survived these ghastly problems.
Father Dick recorded the key principles of recovery in each pain-filled story. Within four months, he had a number of "Marriage Ministry" principles, which I'll call "M&Ms."
The group discovered that God does indeed have a plan. Their foundational principle was: "Through other Christians' testimony and personal example, we found hope for our marriage." One woman explained, "It is the sharing of what is going on in your life with people who have been there and can understand. It makes you feel less like a freak."
Other M&Ms include:
The Seven Reach Out to Other Couples In Trouble
Father McGinnis then shifted the group's attention to the many couples in need of counseling. He paired some up on a couple-to-couple basis. Others met with several couples. In each case, one of the original seven couples began by telling their story and illustrating each of the steps toward recovery, making the M&Ms come alive.
What was their impact on the second generation of couples? That's best told by example. One couple who got help were Susan and Harry.
"When we got married I had an illusion about marriage that was quite different from reality," said Susan, 24. "I thought marriage would sweep away all of my problems. When it did not measure up to expectations Harry and I did not communicate. I kept wondering, 'Should I have married Harry?'"
Harry remembers things quite differently. "We bought a house with payments beyond our range. [So had Harriet and I!] Susan had to quit her job, adding to our financial problems. We were using our credit cards like candy, and had ourselves in deep financial trouble, maxed out within the second year of our marriage."
Though they had met at church, they stopped going because Susan was ashamed that their marriage was not working. In desperation she called Phyllis, the wife of Father McGinnis who had married them, and said, "We don't want to stay together. We are just miserable."
Phyllis replied, "We are starting a 'Marriage Ministry'—group counseling for couples in trouble. Would you be interested?"
On their way to the church for the first meeting, Susan and Harry had a big fight and did not want to go in. "We hated each other's guts and did not want to pretend we were Mr. and Mrs. Happy Couple," Susan recalls.
Inside they were stunned to hear their M&M leaders, Tom and Jennifer, confess that they had argued all the way over to the church, and did not want to come in either! Tom said, "We were going at each other so much. How can we help?"
Susan laughed, "Have you been reading our mail? That sounds like us!" Or, as Harry put it, "We found that we were not alone. There is no substitute for knowing that the person helping you has been through it."
Actually, Tom and Jennifer had overcome far more profound problems than bankruptcy. Jennifer had been in a mental hospital four times, and Tom had contracted the AIDS virus after having homosexual relations during their marriage. Amazingly, Jennifer's reaction was, "This too, we will overcome with the Lord's help."
The seven original couples at St. David's have since helped 24 couples who had deeply troubled marriages.
The result? There has not been a divorce at St. David's during the past four years!
I have never seen a better way to save marriages than Marriage Ministry. Its 17 M&Ms are analogous to the "12 Steps" of Alcoholics Anonymous. But Marriage Ministry is profoundly more than AA. Only about a tenth of Americans are alcoholics. But according to the University of Wisconsin's "National Survey of Families and Households," 60 percent of new marriages will end in divorce or permanent separation.
My newspaper columns dealing with Marriage Ministry have sparked a flood of mail to St. David's—2,100 letters to date. Unfortunately, my spot checks have yet to reveal a single church which has created a "Marriage Ministry," patterned on Father McGinnis' brilliant innovation. "We are studying it," pastors tell me.
Uh huh. That convinces me that this innovation will not be transplanted unless lay people with sound marriages want to help others. Responsive couples could either develop their own "Marriage Ministry" or use the St. David's model.
The church must recapture a vision to bond couples together better. As Jesus said, "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder" (Matthew 19:6, KJV).
In any case, I urge you to act. Don't file this story for future reference. Write for more information now and send $3.00 to cover printing and mailing costs to: Father Richard McGinnis, St. David's Episcopal Church, 12355 Fort Caroline Road, Jacksonville, Florida 32225
(If you are able to start a Marriage Ministry in your church or have begun sending couple's to Engagement Encounter, please call me at 301/469-5870.)
Do you have a friend or a relative whose marriage is in trouble? Have you felt paralyzed in knowing what to suggest? Do you have a child who is moving toward marriage; or worse, who is living with someone, and wonder what you can do to help them create a marriage that will last? I am no expert—only a columnist whose own marriage was once in trouble, but was restored because members of my church urged my wife and me to go to Marriage Encounter.
I have seen extraordinary pioneering in the saving of marriages by scattered local churches. My dream is to spread these innovations. Marriage Ministry has virtually wiped out divorce at St. David's. Why not make sure that this innovation gets planted in your church?
The marriage you save may be your own!
Michael McManus writes a syndicated column on religious issues that appears in 130 newspapers. He and his wife, Harriet, have been married 26 years. Mike is currently writing a book on the Community Marriage Proposal.
This article was published in Good News magazine (November/December 1991).