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Saving our Marriage Before it Starts
Ger and I spend Valentine’s Day weekend in the basement of our church. Sounds like fun right?! Well, it probably wasn’t the most fun thing we could have done with our rare weekend off, but it probably was the most worthwhile…
We attended a “marriage course” that was offered at our church called “Saving your Marriage Before it Starts,” which is based on a book by Dr.’s Les and Leslie Parrott. There were some things that Ger and I already knew or had figured out, but there were also some great gems that we’ve started to apply to our day-to-day lives. I thought I’d share some of them with you. I realize they don’t apply for every couple, but we find the following points useful and worth thinking about.
1) There of three essential components of a healthy relationship:
a. Passion is the biologic component of love
b. Intimacy is the emotional component of love
c. Commitment is the willful component of love
2) Miscommunication can occur because men and women have different “talk” methods. Men “report talk” and women “rapport talk.” Men tend to report the facts-straight to the point, devoid of details and emotion, while women tend to talk in order to build rapport-full of details, interpretations, and emotion.
3) Fighting is normal and even healthy for a relationship to grow; however, when the following tactics are used: criticism, contempt, stonewalling, and defensiveness, you’re no longer building, but instead breaking down your relationship.
4) We have different ways of creating intimacy. I feel intimate when Ger and I have a great talk, whereas Ger, as with many guys, feel intimacy in “shared activities.” So when Ger wants to go skating or climbing with me, it isn’t just to make me exercise, it’s his way of bonding-just like he does with his 
friends. I think this is why we feel the most “in-sync” when we’re travelling—a time when we can have great conversations and share great adventures. Here are some pictures from some these adventures.
We’re looking for more ways to be as prepared as we can be heading into our marriage. What are you doing to prepare for yours?
a) Talking through important issues on your own
b) Reading books (share with us!)
c) Marriage course
d) Marriage counseling with your Pastor/officiate
Tags: church, communications, marriage, valentine's day
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We started to watch this really funny marriage prep movie together. It’s like from the 80s and the hairstyles and clothes add an element of humour to the videos.
I’d also like to find a couple good books to read through together. I’ll check out the one you mentioned.
My fiance totally loves “shared activities” too. Now I know why my fiance always wants me to drag me to the gym.
Emily, I remember taking the Myers-Briggs in high school-I think I was in between for all the categories (4 in total?). I’ll be sure to check out that book you guys read.
Cathy, Thanks! I agree it should be mandatory!
Judith, what you said about girl time and boy time is so true! That’s actually something else we learned about:
There are 3 types of relationships:
“A”-too dependent on eachother
“H”-too apart from eachother
“M”-perfect unison-holding hands, get it?
Super cheezy and simple, but gets the point across hey? It’s sometimes hard to fit in those girl-friend dates, but it really is that important for a marriage/relationship.
Thanks for a great post Carrie! I agree with you and the other ladies that commented; it should be mandatory for everyone, church or not. I’m looking forward to ours in June as it’ll give us both a chance to learn more about each other.
Your tips have such practical use and are so true! I agree that I feel most “in-sync” when we’re on a road trip. The fact that we don’t live together may also play a part in it. I find Mark and I have meaningful conversations on the fly – they just kind of happen. Like when we’re in the car driving or on the couch watching TV or even sometimes on our blackberries :).
One thing that has helped our relationship a lot was having time apart from each other with our friends. I have my girl friends for when I need a woman’s view and he has his guy friends for guy bonding. TOTALLY makes a difference!
Anyway, love your post… it’s really inspiring!
YEAH for marriage prep! It should be mandatory for everyone-maybe there wouldn’t be so many divorces in this country. Thanks for posting this very thoughtful blog entry.
Great post, Carrie! We are attending a marriage prep course (it’s mandatory through our church) and it’s a 3-day course over a weekend in April. I’m interested to see what it’s going to be all about! We’ve done some stuff on our own – we read “The Five Love Languages” together, which was really helpful in seeing the different ways in which we express/need love to be expressed so we can be more conscious of it with each other, and also looking into personality tests like the Myers-Briggs (can you tell I was in psychology? :)) and reading about our different tendencies and the way we process things – it’s all stuff that’s really helpful and I believe has definitely made us stronger. So I’m really looking forward to our marriage prep course!