Marriage preparation ISABEL DE BERTODANO


Readiness for a happier ever after


High-profile engagements, including those of Prince William and Kate Middleton and now the Queen’s eldest granddaughter, Zara Phillips, and Mike Tindall, have brought romance to the winter air. But if marriages are to work in the long term, preparation is a key factor


a priest “to explain to the two persons who desire to be married the Church’s doctrine of marriage ... and the need of God’s grace in order that they may discharge aright their obligations as married persons” (Canon B30 of Holy Matrimony, paragraph 3). The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, will meet the couple at least once before he marries them in Westminster Abbey. The Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, is Prince William’s godfather and will also be on hand to offer advice, as will the clergy who serve as chaplains to his grandmother, the Queen.


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All this may seem a far cry from the formal marriage-preparation courses that most cou- ples who marry in the Church of England and the Catholic Church take. But whatever faith couples are, they would be wise to consider with help from a third party their thoughts about having and bringing up children, their finances and how to deal with disagreements. My husband and I were married in 2009. Although we were not getting married in the Church and so were not obliged to do a marriage-preparation course, we felt it was important to be as well prepared as possible. So before we married, we signed up for a marriage-preparation course. We were both in our thirties and were realistic about mar- riage, knowing that no matter how we felt about each other now, we may need all the help we could get to bolster our relationship against future hurdles.


Some courses are open to those of other faiths or no faith, but few outside the Churches take them up or even know they exist. No information on courses is distributed at town halls, where all couples go to register their intent to marry. The Conservative think tank the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) points out that according to YouGov polls conducted in 2008 and 2009, only 8 per cent of couples took marriage-preparation classes before they


10 | THE TABLET | 1 January 2011


t is fair to assume that Prince William and Kate Middleton will go through some sort of marriage preparation. The Church of England’s canon law requires


took the plunge. It wants the Government to encourage the setting up of accredited marriage-preparation, citing evidence that such courses can improve marriage, help develop parenting skills and can reduce the chances of divorce in the first five years of marriage by 30 per cent. My husband and I chose to do our course


at Marriage Care, a Catholic organisation that offers courses to any couple planning to marry. We were surprised to find that we enjoyed it and also found it very useful. The course we chose was Foccus


(Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding and Study), which was set up by American researchers and is now widely used internationally. In advance of the session, each partner sep-


arately fills in an online questionnaire containing 156 statements designed to identify underlying problems. Statements such as, “I can only be happy if I am married”, or “My partner and I have agreed we will not have children”, were answered “agree”, “disagree” or “uncertain”. Certain themes arose repeatedly but from


different angles, for example – “We are in agreement about how we will support our household financially” and “I am concerned that my partner sometimes spends money foolishly”. A profile of the relationship is then auto- matically generated which a “facilitator” has access to. The report flags up areas for dis- cussion by comparing the answers that the couple have given. A few days later, the facil- itator discusses it during a two-hour session with the couple.


Our facilitator was Bridie Collins, an experi - enced counsellor who regards marriage as “a journey not a destination” and says that mar- riage preparation provides couples with a map and rations for the trip. She says that Foccus has a 15 per cent “success rate” – by which she is referring to the percentage of couples who decide not to go ahead with the wedding after doing the course. “We never judge whether a couple is fit to


get married, but with Foccus you can often see it,” she says. Two years ago, a study by Marriage Care showed that two-thirds of couples failed to discuss whether they wanted children and many also made no agreement about how to handle financial matters when they married. “It’s surprising the things that people haven’t


discussed, either because they haven’t thought of it or because they don’t want to raise any- thing awkward,” says Collins. “An impartial outsider is able to point things out and perhaps prevent any nasty surprises later.” Collins did not force us to discuss anything, but she raised a few issues that she had noticed in our report and we talked them over with her and with each other. For Catholics, she also oversees a group


programme which couples around the country attend on a Saturday in their diocese. These are run by volunteers who help couples to look at six elements: commitment, conflict management, communication, spirituality, sexuality and self-esteem. In addition, the organisation asks couples to meet with a priest, who performs an important role in explaining the sacraments. “Ideally, we’d like couples to do Foccus and


a day course and see a priest,” says Collins. “But most don’t have time for so much.” She herself got married in rural Ireland at a time when preparation was not a canon- law requirement, as it is now. “Looking back, if we’d had marriage prepar - ation, I’m sure we’d have avoided some of the arguments,” she says. “I think the Church has become so much better in this and it’s really leading the way in marriage preparation.” Another programme used in the Diocese


of Westminster and elsewhere is Engage, which comes from Australia and takes a dif- ferent approach from that used by Marriage Care. Engage is run in parishes by married


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