Marriage for beginners

It's so easy to get a driver's license in Utah that the state has come under fire nationally for its laissez-faire approach to issuing the cards. Yet it's easier to get a marriage license here than a driver's license, and few are protesting.

Maybe the old cliche "love is blind" prevails on more than just a romantic level.

Jeffry Larson firmly believes the current marriage-license requirements -- a driver's license and $50 -- are a recipe for disaster. A professor of marriage and family therapy at Brigham Young University, Larson believes "premarital counseling (or education) should be mandatory" for anyone to get a marriage license, not because his profession would necessarily benefit but because the social costs of failed marriages are exorbitant.

Cheri Reynolds, president-elect of the Utah Psychological Association and a therapist in private practice, not only agrees, she's frustrated at the prevailing cultural norms that focus everything on the wedding ceremony and celebration, rather than on the relationship itself. She sees myriad young couples who will spend "anywhere from six months to a year planning this one day that lasts 24 hours."

Yet "they say they just don't have the time or money to do" the kind of premarital education or counseling that will affect not only "the entire lifetime of their marriage" but the way that relationship affects the children that come as a result.

"It's more important to have the bridesmaids' dresses coordinate just right."

This in a state with the highest percentage of married-couple households (63 percent) and a religious majority that places a premium on marriage not only for time, but "for eternity."

Some Utah lawmakers are so concerned about the lack of adequate marriage preparation they're considering a bill this session that would cut $20 off the $50 marriage license fee for couples who complete at least eight hours of premarital education. The move comes on the heels of scholarly research showing unequivocally that couples who put some mental and emotional effort into the success of their marriages up front -- and determining whether they're actually compatible -- reduce the depth of future discord.

Personality assessment tools designed to help couples understand areas of potential conflict and compatibility have been widely used with reportedly high degrees of success. Pre-marriage inventory programs such as PREPARE (PREmarital Personal and Relationship Evaluation), developed by psychologist David H. Olson at the University of Minnesota, and FOCCUS (Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding and Study) developed by psychologist Barbara Markey, a Catholic nun and director of the Family Life Office of the Archdiocese of Omaha, Neb., have been used with hundreds of thousands of couples.

Both consist of more than 150 one-sentence statements that the man and woman independently respond to in writing, with FOCCUS incorporating questions about spiritual and covenant issues not included in PREPARE. Each partner answers independently whether they agree or disagree with statements such as: "I believe that most disagreements we currently have will decrease after marriage"; "We openly discuss problems and usually find good solutions"; and "I believe that God's power can bring life out of struggles and suffering in our marriage."

In use since the mid-1970s, nine of PREPARE's 11 scales reportedly predict with a 74 percent to 84 percent accuracy rate which couples will divorce.

Research on assessment tools and their effectiveness has come to the fore in recent years, with public policy makers taking notice. Former Gov. Mike Leavitt believed preserving marriages was in the best interest of the state, and in 1998 he initiated the nation's first Governor's Commission on Marriage, which hosts the annual Conference on Marriage -- this year's event was held Friday at the Salt Palace -- which celebrates longtime happy marriages and offers tips on strengthening the vows made during matrimony.

The commission issued a report on the state of marriages in Utah last fall in which an overwhelming majority of survey respondents said premarital counseling for engaged couples was "very or somewhat important" to future success.

While he supports such secular efforts, BYU's Larson believes churches are the best facilitators of pre-marriage education because upwards of 80 percent of couples are married by religious leaders. The Catholic Church offers the best example of a concerted effort in this arena, he said, noting a program called "Engagement Encounter" that requires a couple to complete 10 to 12 hours of premarital counseling before a priest will marry them.

Some Protestant faiths have a trained "family life" minister, complete with counseling credentials, whose sole responsibility is providing premarital education and follow-up for couples as they move toward having children.

The Rev. Dan Webster, a spokesman for the Episcopal Diocese of Utah, said premarital preparation for engaged couples "varies from church to church, but the national canons require some form of preparation" before a couple can be married by Episcopal clergy. Many have couples complete a "PREPARE Enrich" questionnaire that is used as a basis for discussion regarding compatibility.

"The whole idea is to walk into this with your eyes wide open so that when you make promises to each other, you're doing it with as much honesty as you can," the Rev. Webster said. The church "is very fastidious when it comes to taking seriously the premarital work. The important part is to help people become aware that this is a 24-hour- a-day sacrament, and that the ministers of the sacrament are the couple entering into this marriage relationship."

Pastor Thomas Corkish of Anchor Baptist Church in Holladay said he meets with couples at least three times for two hours at a stretch. They discuss personal traits and compatibility, but more important they talk about "where are you with the Lord." If they don't agree on their relationship with God, he suggests that they reconsider the marriage.

If their faith doesn't mean anything to them, he said, he probably wouldn't marry them. "If they don't have a relationship with God, why would they seek a Christian wedding?

"We want to see if their bond is more than ushy-gushy stuff. If God is in it and they have a conviction that the Lord has bonded them together, they'll do OK," he believes, because they'll surrender their will to God and "God will never lead two people apart."

In a perfect world, "everyone would have access to counseling on conflict resolution and communication skills," psychologist Reynolds said. She emphasized that whether the preparation comes through one's clergy or a marriage-preparation class, it's vital to "get someone who has been trained, preferably a licensed practitioner" who can teach the necessary skills. While the church usually infuses its teaching with religious values, secular programs "don't teach values; they help you develop communication and conflict resolution skills."

"I don't know of any instance where it would be in conflict with one's personal, spiritual values."

Larson said The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does offer its young people a marriage-preparation course at most LDS Institutes of Religion, and there is literature that accompanies the course. But attendance is not required to be married by LDS leaders, and "most LDS kids don't attend Institute."

Because the church functions with lay leadership, most leaders are not trained to do counseling or assessment, and even if they were "they don't have time," Larson said. "I've been pleading with LDS leaders to do this kind of thing (formalized premarital counseling) forever and haven't gotten anywhere with it. I think they rely on the close relationship the bishop has with each person in the ward to know whether there is violence going on."

While that's "a good idea, there are still no well-advertised statements out there that say because this is so important we will require you to get some counseling or education before you get married."

"It becomes an informal process and people slip through the cracks."

Still, Larson is encouraged by new research on formal "couple mentoring" programs that match engaged couples with a happily married couple who have been together for several years. They couples meet from once a month to once a quarter for the first five years of the new couple's marriage to provide support and advice.

Larson said the most successful premarital program that implements this method is called Marriage Savers, developed by renowned marriage guru Mike McManus. The organization's Web site, www.marriagesavers.org, lists findings of a 1997 poll by Wirthlin World Wide which showed that "73 percent of married couples said they had no premarital counseling and 12 percent said they met with a pastor once or twice. Even in the late 1990s only 25 percent to 35 percent of marrying couples attended relationship education."

McManus then offers statistics showing that in cities where a formal Community Marriage Policy requiring premarital education with a "mentoring couple" was implemented, divorce rates over a five-year period showed a marked decline. Larson said McManus came to Utah and made a Marriage Savers presentation "to the LDS Church about a month ago." Though he doesn't know what the reaction was, the church does have an established program in LDS Family Services that could serve as a vehicle for facilitating a premarital education program, he said.

As editor of a scholarly journal, Family Relations, Larson said a special issue is planned for October on studies that deal with premarital counseling and education. The first formal study that he knows of on marriage mentoring is scheduled for publication in that issue. "Clinically speaking and theoretically speaking it's a great idea." From a strictly scientific standpoint, "the answer is yes, they do make a positive impact."

Ideally, newly engaged couples would be able to find "mentor couples" in their own parents, according to psychologist Gary Lundberg, who leads annual marriage-enrichment seminars, like the one he's holding today at the Airport Hilton.

"Whether we like it or not, that is where most of the premarital education comes -- the example of parents. It carries an impact that parents aren't totally aware of, or do they realize how deep that impact is?"

As he watches couples in therapy struggling with how to be husband and wife, he asks about family background that often includes selfishness, anger, dysfunction and divorce. "They basically say, 'We have no example of what a functional marriage is.' And the impact of that is really horrendous. . . . Young people are starving for a good example."

Contributing: Elaine Jarvik.

E-mail: carrie@desnews.com

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