Factors that threaten marriages can be lessened

The higher divorce rate among the parents of many of today's engaged couples is but one of many factors confronting marriage preparation officials.

The face of couples participating in Pre-Cana workshops is also dramatically different today than it was 25 years ago, according to Mary Moriarty, associate director of the diocesan Family Life Office.

Add to those factors couples who are marrying for the second time and preparation gets even more complicated.

Older couples

"We are definitely seeing the age of engaged couples rising," she explains, "and the focus of our resource materials must change to reflect their broader life experience. The average age of participants 20 or 25 years ago was late teens to early 20s; today, we're seeing those not just in their late 20s, but also their late 30s and early 40s."

Many engaged couples "have established careers and financial portfolios, and many have been sexually active," she notes. "About 50 percent are living together. Part of our challenge in preparing such individuals for marriage is helping them realize that there's an enormous difference between sex and intimacy, and that living together before marriage in no way guarantees a happy, successful marriage."

In fact, statistics indicate the opposite is true.

Second time around

Preparing couples for marriage gets even more complicated when they've been the altar before, according to Sister Kay Ryan, director of the Family Life Office. Sixty percent of second marriages break up compared with less than half of all first marriages.

The divorce rate is even higher for marriages in which one of the partners has been widowed less than two years. A whopping 80 percent of such unions tend to collapse.

Factors that contribute to these alarmingly high "second-time-around" divorce figures include excess "emotional baggage" from the first marriage and step-parenting conflicts.

Faith's pluses

A statistic that works heavily in favor of building all marriages based upon sturdy faith foundations is that the rate of divorce declines dramatically when couples are married in a church, practice their religion and pray together at home on a regular basis.

One much-quoted study shows that:

* the number of divorces drops from the national average of one in two to one in 50 when a couple marries in church and practices their religion; and

* drops to one in 1,105 when daily prayer between spouses is added to the equation.

Help available

While successful marriages are not easy, they can result from preparation and follow-up.

One of the most stringent marriage preparation programs in the Albany Diocese is based at Christ Sun of Justice parish on the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy. One of the best follow-up programs is found at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Albany.

Rev. Edward Kacerguis, RPI chaplain, said those who attend the parish's annual Pre-Cana workshop spend a full 12 hours exploring marriage issues and realities.

Full course

The Saturday workshops include in-depth courses on marriage and communication, spirituality, health, finances and the law. Among the experts who have facilitated workshop sessions are a State Supreme Court judge, a professor of finances, a psychologist and a medical doctor. Following a break for Mass and a dinner, Father Kacerguis gets down to the nitty gritty of the importance of marriage as a sacrament.

Father Kacerguis has had three couples come to him with word that they had decided to call off their weddings. Participation in Pre-Cana had made them see through the cloud of romanticism about marriage.

"Their eyes," said Father Kacerguis, "were opened to the bigger issues of matrimony and family living."

After-care

Rev. Leo O'Brien, pastor of St. Vincent's, thinks there's another key ingredient in the recipe for a lasting union: good, old-fashioned peer support. To that end, he is in the process of organizing an informal support network to enhance married life for newlyweds in his parish.

His theory is that a healthy mix of moral, physical and spiritual support in the first weeks, months and years following the honeymoon can prevent small cracks in a marital foundation from developing into gaping crevices.

Newlywed couples joined together in this manner by Father O'Brien as long as 15 years ago have supported one another through many celebrations and sorrows, from childbirth and Baptisms to illnesses and deaths.

Follow-up, Father O'Brien believes, is every bit as important as marriage preparation. One might say the two go together "like a horse and carriage." (AH)

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