Preparing Couples for Marriage

Item from the Smart Marriages Archive, reproduced in the Divorce Statistics Collectio n

Cleveland Plain Dealer, Saturday, October 17, 1998

Marriage tighteners
by REBECCA FRELIGH

Couples to counsel others in campaign to cut divorce rate

Carol and Jack Yauch of Mentor have helped more than 70 couples prepare
for marriage, but the Yauches are neither bridal shop owners, wedding
consultants nor vendors of fine china. They are lay ministers in the
Cleveland Catholic Diocese's Couple Ministry program, trained to assist
priests in counseling engaged couples.

Drawing on 37 years of married life, the Yauches meet several times with
each couple to talk honestly about the journey ahead.

The Yauches were nervous about meeting their first couple 13 years ago,
recalls Carol Yauch, 56, with a chuckle. They prayed that they would be
equal to the task, reviewed their notes and prayed some more. Today that
first couple, still married and the parents of two, send the Yauches a
Christmas card every year.

But Carol Yauch isn't at all nervous about explaining why she and her
husband, 57, continue in this ministry.

"No. 1, because our marriage is very important to us," she said. "And we
know that marriage isn't easy."

Couples like the Yauches are likely to play an essential role in the
newly launched Cleveland Divorce Prevention Strategy, an interfaith
campaign to strengthen marriages led by the Interchurch Council of
Greater Cleveland, which represents Protestant churches.

Representatives of other religious and community groups attended the
opening meeting here this week.

Despite a divorce rate at 50 percent and climbing, there is reason to
hope for the campaign's success, said Diane Sollee, founder and director
of the Coalition for Marriage, Family, and couples Education based in
Washington, D.C. Successful couples must know the skills involved in
coping with communication problems, conflict and change. But anyone can
learn these skills, Sollee told those at the meeting, even children of
divorce, who are most at risk for divorce themselves.

"It isn't a crapshoot, it isn't about luck in love," said Sollee. "It's
about skills."

Because churches still marry 74 percent of all Americans, churches need
to get more involved in preventing divorce, said Michael J. McManus,
author of "Marriage Savers," who brings an evangelistic fervor to the
issue.

Community Marriage Policy
McManus and his wife, Harriet, who also spoke at the meeting have worked
with interfaith groups in 91 U.S. cities to strengthen marriages by
formulating a community marriage policy. The policy, which clergy agree
to follow, typically provides for required pre-marital counseling,
mentoring by other couples, shoring up existing marriages, and creating a
stepfamily support group.

Next year, the Cleveland Divorce Prevention Strategy will hold a two-day
conference on creating healthy marriages and will try to develop a
community marriage policy, said Sandra G. Bender, a Cleveland Heights
psychologist coordinating the project.

In any effort to strengthen marriages, mentor couples are "gold in our
back yards, an untapped resource sitting in our pews," the McManuses
said.

Michael McManus said Catholic marriage preparation has long been better
than that of Protestants. One reason, he said, is the extensive use of
experienced couples to counsel new ones in such programs as Pre-Cana days
and weekends and Couple Ministry programs.

The Cleveland diocese has a roster of 110 couple ministers and is
training 22 more. They are considered a supplement to required
premarital counseling by a priest, not a substitute for it.

All couples being married in Catholic churches must complete the
Cleveland Diocesan Evaluation for Marriage, an inventory of 10 areas
relative to successful marriage. Their answers provide fuel for
discussion with the mentor couple.

The topics can be as large as finances and as apparently small as where
the couple will spend Christmas, said David Pecot, 58, of Brecksville,
who is in the new training class with his wife, Anne, 54.

"That's part of what this is about--having to face some of those issues
that you don't have to talk about in courtship," said Pecot.

It's not a teacher-student relationship but a sharing process, said
Gloria Woods, of Cleveland Heights. Woods, 47, mentors couples with her
husband Richard, 50.

Beyond the exchange of vows, the Catholic Church also seeks to support
marriages through the associated programs of Marriage Encounter, for
sound marriages, and Retrouvaille, for troubled ones.

Faith-based approaches
Other religious communities are trying faith-based approaches to keeping
marriages intact. The Jewish Family Services Association offers programs
for established couples who want to strengthen their marriage,
step-family sessions for blended families, and programs for engaged and
new couples. The latter class, done in conjunction with the Cleveland
Board of Rabbis, provides a Jewish perspective on home and family also
with discussion of typical premarital concerns like communication and
finances, said Phyllis Huleway, the association's director of counseling.

Due to the observance of the Simchat Torah holiday, no Jewish
representative attended the meeting this week. However, Bender is
scheduled to speak to the Board of Rabbis about the project, and Hulewat
said she will continue to follow it with interest.

"I'm always interested in doing anything that will help strengthen
marriages," she said.

The mentoring concept hailed by the McManuses resonated strongly with
Krsnanandini Dasi of Cleveland, a Hare Krishna minister married to Tariq
Ziyad, a Muslim. The interfaith couple provide premarital counseling,
workshops on family issues and counseling for troubled families.
Although they were not aware of the McManuses' work until they attended
the meeting, the couple said they use many of the same principles.

"My husband and I are a mentor couple, to coin their phrase," said Dasi.
"Example is probably the greatest teaching you will ever do."

Imam Fawaz Damra, spiritual leader of the Islamic Center of Cleveland,
takes what he calls the traditional approach to strengthening marriages:
ministerial counseling of engaged and troubled couples who seek his help.
Damra believes the divorce rate in the Islamic community is lower than
the national average, but said it is still cause for alarm.

"We should try our best to prevent divorce, because we believe God wants
the family to last forever," said Damra, who was invited to the kickoff
but did not attend. The center, he says, plans to participate in next
year's conference on developing a community marriage policy.

Dennis N. Paulson, the interchurch council's executive director, said
some Protestant clergy use objective surveys and questionnaires in
marital counseling. Hearing of these resources was welcome news for the
Rev. Robert J. Novak, associate pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church in
Berea, who said he attended the meeting out of concern about the high
divorce rate among clergy as well as laity. Novak said he planned to
start using written material in premarital counseling and would welcome
lay help in counseling couples.

Some at the meeting expressed concern about holding together marriages
where there is abuse of a spouse or child. But the speakers stood fast
on the value of learning new behaviors to improve these situations.

"Education can be miraculous," said Bender.

| Smart Marriages Archive | New Divorce Statistics and Studies Blog | Older Divorce Statistics Collection Archive |