Flowers have been delivered. The color-coordinated cake is ready at the reception. Groomsmen and bridesmaids are in line. The bride is poised at one end of the aisle and the bridegroom at the other. Everything is in place for the start of a perfect marriage.
Strike that. Make it wedding, not necessarily marriage, say the experts who deal with wedded bliss and blight on a professional basis.
”The wedding lasts for one day,” said Father John Finnegan, pastor of St. Mary of Vernon Church in Indian Creek. ”The marriage lasts a lifetime. Let`s hope they`ve put some time into planning for that.”
Evidence that people are concerned about ironing out some of the wrinkles before they say ”I do” was exhibited at a recent PreCana Conference, a marriage preparation program for engaged couples offered by the Catholic Archiocese of Chicago, which includes Lake County. ”Both our parents (his and hers) ended in divorce after long marriages,” said Linda Vergin, 27, of Mundelein, who will be married in September to 27-year-old Scott Moote of Barrington Hills. ”We know how hard it is to control the future, but we want our marriage to last.”
Divorce statistics justify their concern. Based on data from the U.S. Census, there were 2.45 million marriages in the United States in 1990 and 1.17 million divorces. These figures translate into a breakup of 37 percent of first marriages and more than 50 percent of subsequent marriages annually.
But research over a 15-year period by Dr. Howard Markman of the Center for Marital and Family Studies at the University of Denver shows a significant decrease in the divorce rate among couples who have gone through premarital programs-as high as 50 percent for those taking his course, he claims.
PreCana conferences, one of a number of options for couples in Lake County who are about to marry, are a popular choice for Catholics, who are required to engage in some form of pre-nuptial preparation. Of some 13,000 marriages performed in the archdiocese each year, 11,000 couples choose PreCana. Though the sessions are run by a married couple, who serve as a model, most of the work is done by the engaged couples, said Frank Hannigan, archdiocesan director of family ministries. Using a workbook format, they look into the things and people in their past who shaped them; at who they are now as people; and what they consider the ingredients for a successful marriage.
They build skills for resolving conflict in a positive manner, learn to express their feelings and are encouraged to reflect on where they are in their spiritual lives. Many don`t think they`re very religious because they are not in a church building every Sunday, Hannigan said. ”We want them to see faith enters into their lives every day. We also encourage them to start participating and show them how to let God be a part of their lives.”
”We are in the process of buying a condo,” said Christy Kenney, 28, of Buffalo Grove, who will marry Steve Armstrong, 27 of Winthrop Harbor this summer, ”and we`ve been so caught up in that that we`ve neglected our relationship. Attending this conference made us realize we have other more important things to work on.”
”It`s like a refresher course,” Armstrong said. ”It forces you to sit down and discuss things.”
PreCana conferences started in Chicago in 1951 as an outgrowth of the post-war Cana Movement for the enrichment and support of married people. Through the years the realization grew that not everyone approaching marriage was the same, thus the refinement of the program into separate conferences for those who are older and/or marrying for the second time; those who are blending families; and Hispanics and African-Americans for whom cultural differences often affect attitudes toward marriage.
Financial considerations differ greatly, for example, in a group of 25-year-olds who are saving to buy a home and anticipating the expense of raising children and for a couple in their 40s who are financially stable. Causes of marital discord can be at opposite poles, also. With young married couples it might involve an interfering mother-in-law, while in a blended family it could well be the wife`s rebellious son.
Linnus Pecaut and his wife, Lynn Klein, psychologists who have a counseling service, the Marriage Clinic, with offices in Mettawa, Lombard and Crestwood, see about 70 marriage cases a week. Ten percent of those are pre-nuptial or concern problems that arise in the first 60 days of the
marriage. Tearful brides ask, ”How can it blow up so fast?”
”Dating is one thing,” Pecaut said, ”but a marriage commitment with all the obligatory aspects which impinge on a person`s life is another. The feeling of being trapped is often experienced an hour after vows are exchanged.” Family patterns, which were suspended while they were dating, begin to reappear Pecaut said, citing the example of differet ways to approach an argument: ”Talk about it and solve it now as opposed to shut up and wait three days and it`s over.” Calling it the ”dance of marriage,” Pecaut said, ”Typically, she panics when he withdraws, so he withdraws more. Counseling can teach them what to do in that case.”
Pre-nuptial counseling is helpful, Pecaut said, but he finds it difficult to get people entering a first marriage to come in unless they are already encountering problems in planning the wedding. People who have been married before are much more ready to sit down with a counselor and discuss the pitfalls, he added.
Rabbi Daniel Friedman of Congregation Beth Or in Deerfield agreed. He offers counseling on an individual basis to couples who request it, but he said that few first-timers do. ”They are getting married older and feel they don`t need that.”
Apart from that, however, he and his wife, Felice Friedman, who is a social worker, conduct a support group, Creative InterMarriage, for pre-marital couples who are of different religions. The trend toward
intermarriages in the Jewish community began to escalate about 20 years ago, the rabbi said, and national figures show it now to be above 50 percent.
Couples who seek out the support group are concerned about how to raise children and how to deal with mixed traditions within a family, he said.
Pecaut also stressed the importance of looking at the religious angle before the wedding and not after the child is born. ”I have seen many
(marital) wars fought over a child`s soul,” he said.
St. Mary of Vernon Parish, which has about 30 weddings per year, prefers to conduct its own marriage preparation classes, using trained parishioners, while still following the PreCana format. ”We can have smaller groups, which allows for more discussion,” Finnegan said.
Teresa Hogan and her husband, John, went through the marriage preparation two years ago at St. Mary and now are serving as a leader couple. Teresa Hogan said, ”We didn`t learn anything very earth-shattering about one another by going through the program, but it was helpful because it gave us an opportunity to sit down and talk about some basic issues. Discussions were soul-searching.”
Rev. Fredric Lippert, 30 years a minister and pastor of the First United Methodist Church of Waukegan for the last 10 years, counsels couples individually, having tried and rejected the group approach. ”Time-wise it is more practical to work around people`s schedules,” he said. ”Also, I try to be sensitive to an individual couple`s needs.
One of the ingredients for a good marriage is the need to rest before coming together, whether this means taking an hour off to go fishing or relaxing with a good book. ”Many arguments occur when you are stressed,”
Pecaut said. ”Nurture yourself and urge your spouse to do likewise.”
In the long run, any program, the experts agree, is only as good as the people who participate in it. The PreCana workbook states: ”Marriage preparation does not give answers to the engaged. Rather, it helps a couple find answers for themselves. Marriage is a primary relationship . . . that needs to be protected by those who created it.”
