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Monday, October 20, 1997
Love, honor and Prepare
Linda Barnard
Toronto Sun
 For the
sake of their marriage, there are 165 questions couples should
answer before they come to the one that ends with "I do."
In fact, before men even pop the question, they'd be better
off asking their potential mates to sit down and take a kind of
quiz called a relationship "inventory." It tests the mettle of
relationships with such success that in 66 U.S. cities and one B.C.
community, the majority of clergymen won't marry a couple unless
they take part.
Called Prepare (Premarital Personal Relationship
Evaluation), the inventory was created 20 years ago by University
of Minnesota family psychology professor David Olson. It has grown
from a handful of questions to a full inventory of 165 queries on
11 crucial areas of a relationship, ranging from financial
management to sex. Other inventories, such as Enrich, are geared to
middle-aged and older couples, to those remarrying with children
and to marrieds who want to get their relationship back on
track.
There are no right or wrong answers, and nobody passes or
fails. And this is no magazine pop quiz, but rather a complex
psychological profile which gives a true assessment of your
feelings about life, your marriage and each other. Even the honesty
of the responses is assured, because certain test questions earmark
those who are faking their answers.
The questions ask you to rate your feelings about a
statement like: "I do not seem to have fun unless I am with my
partner," choosing options from strongly agree, through neutral, to
strongly disagree. When your replies are put next to your mate's, a
pattern about your relationship emerges.
Hot spots
Follow-up counselling sessions with clergy or a therapist
guides couples through the maze, dealing with the hot spots and
potential trouble areas identified by the inventory. When they
finish, experts say, not only are they stronger as a couple, but
their risk of divorce has been lessened by as much as 50%. In
10-15% of cases, they may even decide that this marriage would be a
mistake, and call the wedding off.
"Prepare can predict with 80% accuracy who will divorce and,
with the same accuracy, who will have a good marriage," says Mike
McManus, a 57-year-old religion and ethics writer from Bethesda,
Md. Through his company, Marriage Savers, McManus works to
encourage members of the clergy in cities across America to take
Prepare/Enrich training and make inventories and counselling a
prerequisite for a church wedding.
"Too many churches are wedding factories or blessing
machines," says McManus, adding about 75% of first-time marrieds
choose a house of worship for their ceremony. Since that is the
case, the clergy have to do more than simply be concerned about
skyrocketing divorce rates. They have to actively do something
about it.
""If you want to be married in a church, it ought to mean
more," says McManus.
Similarly, U.S. judges and civic officials are making the
same requirements.
Cost saving
For Judge James Sheridan, a Lenawee County court judge in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, it's not paternalism. Rather, he's being
responsible to local taxpayers, preventing some of the costs the
social service system can face when couples with children break up.
"As an elected public official, should I be taking action that in
the end will end up increasing the costs to the public?" asks
Sheridan. "This becomes a question of professional
responsibility."
So far, 60 Ann Arbor-area ministers and two judges have
agreed to require Prepare inventories and counselling prior to
marriages.
The program benefits couples in any stage of their
relationship, supporters say. Even couples in crisis can find out
there are areas of great strength in their marriages, that all is
not lost, while targeting areas that need the most work to renew
their relationship.
But it's the engaged couples that are being targeted most
vigorously, as experts in both religious and lay counselling agree
that Prepare is just about the cheapest form of marriage insurance
around.
Scarboro registered marriage and family therapist Ed Bader
says marriage preparation, once looked on as "Mickey Mouse," is now
gaining acceptance as one of the best ways to head off problems in
relationships early on.
"Even if you love each other, you don't always agree on
approaches to married life," says Bader, adding Prepare also gives
the counsellor important insight into the bride and groom's family
backgrounds and prior relationship attitudes.
"I'm not sure it makes a marriage succeed. What its purpose
is is to give an awareness of the areas of strength and possible
difficulty. It's like giving them anticipatory guidance. It's a
good way to take the rose-colored glasses off."
In the end, says Bader, it is the couple who determines if
the marriage will succeed or fail.
Prepare also gets couples talking about issues they may not
have discussed. "We've already run into stories where people have
not discussed basic issues like, 'Do you want to have children?'"
says Sheridan. "With the inventory, there are no right answers.
There are no moral issues involved. If you want three kids and he
wants none, how do you do that?"
The number-one issue couples seem to let fall by the wayside
is money, says Olson. Often, they have given that potential
marriage flashpoint little or no thought.
'They don't know if they'll have a joint account, or
separate accounts, or how much each other makes," says Olson.
"That's the area that's most taboo."
St. Albert, Alberta, psychologist Jerry Cossitt is the
Canadian co-ordinator of Enrich Canada Inc. He became involved in
1980. Today, about 4,500 clergy and counsellors across Canada have
been trained to do Prepare/Enrich inventories and follow-up work
with couples.
In response to concerns that the inventory wasn't keeping up
with the times, and was too heavily weighted with Christian and
religious questions, Cossitt is now offering the newest, more
secular version, called Prepare/Enrich 2000.
Cossitt says the inventory is the best way to strip away the
layers of idealism so many young couples in love cloak themselves
in. Prepare gets them talking about issues they may have been aware
of, yet afraid to bring up, and it gives counsellors a natural path
to follow when helping couples.
Does it work? Some 30,000 counsellors and clergy have given
inventories to an estimated one million couples in the past 20
years, and in communities where Prepare is a prerequisite for
marriage at most churches, divorces are down. In Peoria, Ill., the
divorce rate has dropped 20%. In Modesto, Calif., it has dropped
51% in the 10 years since 95 religious leaders started following
the community marriage policy.
In the Vancouver suburb of Cloverdale, 12 of 14 churches
have signed a community marriage policy, pledging that inventories,
counselling and marriage mentoring must all take place or be agreed
to before a couple can be married in their houses of worship.
Mismatched
Pastor Greg Schroeder's 700-member Pacific Community Church
began using Prepare a year ago. Already, there have been cases of
couples realizing they were about to make a mistake, and deciding
to call off the wedding.
"We think people need to be honest with themselves," says
Schroeder. 'It's not like me as a pastor saying you're not going to
have a good marriage."
If you're wondering how Prepare/Enrich may work for a married
couple, check out how Sun
columnist Valerie Gibson fared after putting her relationship
under the microscope. The five-times-married Gibson said she had
fun, and the inventory confirmed what she already knew: that
although her marriage is perhaps unconventional, it is a happy and
secure one for her and her spouse.
Toronto counsellor Beverley Hurlburt, who has been doing
Prepare/Enrich inventories and counselling for about 10 years, says
while she doesn't use it with every couple she sees, it is an
excellent way to get couples talking and building the strengths in
their relationship.
"It's an insurance plan. It teaches a habit," Hurlburt says.
Once couples get into a routine of talking to each other, working
on their relationship and seeking counselling when they feel they
need help, it keeps a marriage "tuned up and healthy," says
Hurlburt.
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