I always wondered why people complained about marriage preparation courses. It is as if they don't appreciate that preparing oneself for marriage can be a helpful experience. A marriage preparation course is supposed to help you prepare for your life together and endow you with some of the skills necessary for the life-long endeavour.
I can understand that at times courses like this are an anticlimax to the romanticism couples experience during courtship. No one really wants to think and explore failing possibilities of a disastrous outcome.
Not only is love blind but people seem not to want to open their eyes to the dark possibilities when the relationship is blooming with passion. Moreover, I wonder how possible it is for the partners to make certain realisations before they actually experience marriage.
Marriage preparation courses give partners the possibility to evaluate themselves as a couple and as individuals. It helps them to focus on what works in successful marriages thus cultivating a recipe that works for the partners. In some courses, couples get the chance to get some big issues out in the open and deal with them.
For some couples the marriage preparation course can be a way of reviewing their relationship and confirming their choice of partner. There can be situations where the partners decide not to pursue marriage and break up.
This is OK. Some couples don't break up because of the various pressures involved including parents, the house, the years they have been together. My experience tells me that it is better to break up before marriage than after marriage.
A marriage preparation course should not be just a course. What really work are skills-based courses that direct the couples towards practice. It makes a lot of sense. It is similar to learning to ride the bike.
One can read as many books, have as many lectures, and have as many discussions as one likes. Unless one rides the bike one never learns to ride it. This apparent contradiction is very real.
Gregory Bateson, a great anthropologist, said that the map is not the territory. This reflects how most of the learning in one's life is accomplished through life itself. Preparing for marriage therefore should be practice-based and founded on experiential learning.
This brings in a new idea to marriage preparation courses. That of the provision of life-long support to help couples in their exploring of the territory. In particular, support is needed in making the leap from singlehood to marriage as it is in this critical phase that marriage breakdown is most prominent. This support should continue into childbirth as that is another critical shift.
Marriage preparation courses come at the wrong time. They come at a point in which the couple is lost in its dreams of the perfect marriage. Many confuse marriage with the wedding and this is an added danger in the disregard towards marriage preparation. Couples often have a lot of time to spare on preparing the wedding but little time to think and discuss their marriage. Courtship, especially the later stages, is marked with the propensity to make the nest. Perhaps naturally, the house and the wedding consume all the couple's resources and leave not a single shred of time to think about the future.
But who wants to think about what might go wrong? Who wants to think about marriage as a tough route towards growing up and fulfilling one's potential?
Thus why are marriage preparation courses possibly perceived as spoiling the opacity of the dream that makes marriage attractive?
Preparing for one's marriage is essential in creating a mental and behavioural map of what will eventually come. Every couple dreams of the perfect marriage and the perfect family, and the marriage preparation course will help you understand what it takes to create one. You might realise that marriage is not for you or you might understand how important it is for you.
Nonetheless, marriage preparation gives the opportunity to understand your relationship better. It is an opportunity to work together as partners in constructing the marriage you want, identifying the pitfalls, your strengths and weaknesses as a couple. Destructive patterns of relating develop very early in the relationship and marriage preparation helps you identify these destructive patterns and changing them into healthy ones that work for your relationship.
Unfortunately those who don't marry in Church do not have the possibility to prepare for marriage unless they seek a private service. Although marriage preparation courses are normally organised in groups, this is done more for economical reasons, than for effectiveness. Couples can resort to marriage preparation conjointly.
Some see this as a better alterative that deals with deeper issues rather than being a participant in a large group. The aim should remain the same:That of helping partners understand their and their partner's personal profile to help identify the differences and similarities which the couple can capitalise upon to create a happy marriage.
The map is not the territory and a marriage preparation programme provides an opportunity to test the terrain from the safe position of courtship. If committed to, a marriage preparation course endows partners with the right seeds to sow for a healthy marriage.
Maybe you are not sure if you have the time to complete the course. You are busy preparing for your wedding. But remember that your wedding, although very important and special, is only one day, whereas your marriage, if you are prepared, could last a lifetime.
Invest the time now, invest in your future, invest in your happiness. Don't make the mistake of thinking that because you are in love everything will somehow turn out fine. Take the opportunity to really get to know each other and to learn what it takes to build a lasting relationship and develop and master important skills that will increase your satisfaction with your marriage.
• Dr Azzopardi is a systemic family psychotherapist.
I can understand that at times courses like this are an anticlimax to the romanticism couples experience during courtship. No one really wants to think and explore failing possibilities of a disastrous outcome.
Not only is love blind but people seem not to want to open their eyes to the dark possibilities when the relationship is blooming with passion. Moreover, I wonder how possible it is for the partners to make certain realisations before they actually experience marriage.
Marriage preparation courses give partners the possibility to evaluate themselves as a couple and as individuals. It helps them to focus on what works in successful marriages thus cultivating a recipe that works for the partners. In some courses, couples get the chance to get some big issues out in the open and deal with them.
For some couples the marriage preparation course can be a way of reviewing their relationship and confirming their choice of partner. There can be situations where the partners decide not to pursue marriage and break up.
This is OK. Some couples don't break up because of the various pressures involved including parents, the house, the years they have been together. My experience tells me that it is better to break up before marriage than after marriage.
A marriage preparation course should not be just a course. What really work are skills-based courses that direct the couples towards practice. It makes a lot of sense. It is similar to learning to ride the bike.
One can read as many books, have as many lectures, and have as many discussions as one likes. Unless one rides the bike one never learns to ride it. This apparent contradiction is very real.
Gregory Bateson, a great anthropologist, said that the map is not the territory. This reflects how most of the learning in one's life is accomplished through life itself. Preparing for marriage therefore should be practice-based and founded on experiential learning.
This brings in a new idea to marriage preparation courses. That of the provision of life-long support to help couples in their exploring of the territory. In particular, support is needed in making the leap from singlehood to marriage as it is in this critical phase that marriage breakdown is most prominent. This support should continue into childbirth as that is another critical shift.
Marriage preparation courses come at the wrong time. They come at a point in which the couple is lost in its dreams of the perfect marriage. Many confuse marriage with the wedding and this is an added danger in the disregard towards marriage preparation. Couples often have a lot of time to spare on preparing the wedding but little time to think and discuss their marriage. Courtship, especially the later stages, is marked with the propensity to make the nest. Perhaps naturally, the house and the wedding consume all the couple's resources and leave not a single shred of time to think about the future.
But who wants to think about what might go wrong? Who wants to think about marriage as a tough route towards growing up and fulfilling one's potential?
Thus why are marriage preparation courses possibly perceived as spoiling the opacity of the dream that makes marriage attractive?
Preparing for one's marriage is essential in creating a mental and behavioural map of what will eventually come. Every couple dreams of the perfect marriage and the perfect family, and the marriage preparation course will help you understand what it takes to create one. You might realise that marriage is not for you or you might understand how important it is for you.
Nonetheless, marriage preparation gives the opportunity to understand your relationship better. It is an opportunity to work together as partners in constructing the marriage you want, identifying the pitfalls, your strengths and weaknesses as a couple. Destructive patterns of relating develop very early in the relationship and marriage preparation helps you identify these destructive patterns and changing them into healthy ones that work for your relationship.
Unfortunately those who don't marry in Church do not have the possibility to prepare for marriage unless they seek a private service. Although marriage preparation courses are normally organised in groups, this is done more for economical reasons, than for effectiveness. Couples can resort to marriage preparation conjointly.
Some see this as a better alterative that deals with deeper issues rather than being a participant in a large group. The aim should remain the same:That of helping partners understand their and their partner's personal profile to help identify the differences and similarities which the couple can capitalise upon to create a happy marriage.
The map is not the territory and a marriage preparation programme provides an opportunity to test the terrain from the safe position of courtship. If committed to, a marriage preparation course endows partners with the right seeds to sow for a healthy marriage.
Maybe you are not sure if you have the time to complete the course. You are busy preparing for your wedding. But remember that your wedding, although very important and special, is only one day, whereas your marriage, if you are prepared, could last a lifetime.
Invest the time now, invest in your future, invest in your happiness. Don't make the mistake of thinking that because you are in love everything will somehow turn out fine. Take the opportunity to really get to know each other and to learn what it takes to build a lasting relationship and develop and master important skills that will increase your satisfaction with your marriage.
• Dr Azzopardi is a systemic family psychotherapist.