You Can Have Happily Ever After

16 Feb 2010

At this time of year it can seem like we’re surrounded by chocolate hearts and beautiful roses. Love is in the air.

We’ve all seen the movies where Prince and Princess Charming meet and fall in love. They have a few problems getting it together but over the course of the movie all obstacles are resolved.
A happy ending! Yet their relationship is really just beginning.

As the credits roll we assume couples will live happily ever after in wedded bliss. But unfortunately, long after the chocolate hearts are eaten and the roses sent to the compost bin, ‘happily every after’ for many real-life couples becomes a distant dream. Life’s pressures build and they drift apart.

Practical relationship tools

Peter and Lisa Holden, who attend The Salvation Army in Johnsonville, run ‘The Marriage Course’, an eight-week marriage enrichment course by Alpha International. They also advise other churches on how to run the course.

The Marriage Course is aimed at helping couples reach their happily ever after by building a healthy and lasting relationship. It gives them practical relationship tools and the time and space to discuss any difficult issues. The aim is to help couples break bad habits and create good ones that will sustain their marriage for a lifetime.

Peter and Lisa became involved in the course when they were living in England. ‘We had been married for about five years at the time and had a good marriage. Initially, I didn’t want to do it,’ says Lisa, ‘but a friend pressured us into it—and we really enjoyed it.

‘It seems small and quite obvious, but for me the most important and lasting thing that I learnt was that we needed to prioritise time for each other. So now we go on regular “date nights”; just the two of us. I’ve realised that this is how I feel loved within our marriage, and if I don’t get this time I can feel taken for granted and easily become moody and resentful.’

Lisa and Peter’s date night routine has become particularly important now that they have a two-year-old son. ‘We are both busy,’ Lisa continues. ‘There are always a million things to demand our time, but our most important commitment is to each other.’

Investing in marriage

When they joined The Salvation Army in Johnsonville the couple decided to run The Marriage Course themselves. They’ve had strong support from the church’s leadership, which sees the course as a great way to offer something helpful to the local congregation and an excellent way to meet a need in the surrounding community.

‘Along with an incredible team of helpers and volunteers, we’ve run two courses now and are starting our third this month,’ Peter says. ‘It has been so wonderful to see couples come from the church and community to invest in their marriages.’

Each evening of the course starts with a meal. Couples sit at candle-lit tables for two and enjoy a catered romantic dinner. The tables are placed far enough apart that privacy is maintained. Background music ensures that all conversations are just between partners.

The meal is followed by a talk (on DVD) by presenters Nicky and Sila Lee, who help couples discover how to understand each other’s needs, communicate more effectively, grow closer through resolving conflict and heal their relationship after having hurt each other. Couples also learn to recognise how their upbringing affects their relationship. They are encouraged to develop greater sexual intimacy and discover each other’s love language.

Throughout the course, couples have a chance to discuss the different ideas and issues that arise. Homework further extends the course’s impact.

All sorts of people come on The Marriage Course, says Lisa. ‘We know that there are couples who have great marriages; they are still in love and want to learn how to make their relationships even better. We also have couples whose relationships are in trouble; it’s great when they come up to us after the course and tell us that they have found real solutions to their difficulties and that they are committed to working on their marriage.

‘And there are couples on the course who have been married for a while and have stable marriages, but through the anonymous questionnaire at the end we learn that they had lost the spark or the intimacy in their marriage. Often we hear that through the routine of daily life, bad habits have developed. Perhaps conversation has become solely practical and about the children. Or the importance of tenderness has been forgotten.’

Because all the discussions couples have during the evening are private and because there is no group work, no one else has any idea which of the three categories, couples are in, she emphasises. ‘That makes coming to the course easy.’

It’s worked for us

It’s possible that Brian and Trudy Robb hold the record for the shortest time married before doing The Marriage Course.

Both had been married previously, with children from those marriages. When Salvation Army officer Captain Paul Gardner was discussing the couple’s marriage plans he was direct about the importance of doing The Marriage Course, telling them he’d already signed them up. ‘He told us, “You’ll be doing this course,” ’ Trudy recalls. ‘But we agreed. We wanted to start our marriage on a good footing.’

They were married on a Friday and were back for the first night of the course on the following Monday evening, just three days later.

Brian says attending the course so early in their married life has helped them set good patterns ‘right from the start’. Both of them knew the realities of marriage and found it helpful to talk about some of their past habits and how they could now avoid them.

‘The topics were relevant,’ Brian says, ‘and the way the tables were spaced and the background music meant everything felt really private.’ He found the teaching on love languages and the chance to discover what he and Trudy appreciated from each other very helpful.

Trudy says, ‘The Marriage Course made us take regular time out; it was the one night where we had to sit down opposite each other and talk. We knew each other but being on the course gave us the chance to talk openly and honestly—in neutral territory.’

Simon and Charmaine Roper attended The Marriage Course towards the end of 2009. They will soon celebrate four years of marriage and have a 15-month-old son. When the course was advertised Charmaine thought it sounded good and talked to Simon about going along. He didn’t take much convincing; his parents had done The Marriage Course at another church and thought it was great. Other friends had also enjoyed it.

A few months on, Simon says the practical advice on listening to his wife was the most useful thing he learned. ‘It made me realise that I could do better,’ he says. ‘Our talking, listening and communication is stronger now.’

Charmaine agrees. ‘I think [the course] lays a great foundation for understanding each other: how to talk to the other person so they understand where you’re coming from and how you feel.’

Running The Marriage Course always proves a great refresher for Lisa and Peter’s own marriage, they say. They’ve recommended it to all their friends.
 
‘We’ve had fun and it has been such a privilege to be able to serve others in this way,’ says Peter. ‘We’re not experts on marriage—and our marriage is by no means perfect—but we love helping others and love the fact that we can help make that fairy-tale ending a little more achievable’.

By Lisa Holden and Christina Tyson (from War Cry magazine)