The Marriage Course
DavidKetelby
Shipmate Posts: 6
in Purgatory
Have just begun co-leading 'The Marriage Course' at a church in the South of England, having been a customer on said course about eighteen years ago now.
I'm interested in others' thoughts about what they've found helpful and unhelpful about this course - from all points of view: customer, co-leader, interested bystander, whatever.
(I may have some perspectives to share, I thought I'd throw the discussion open first).
I'm interested in others' thoughts about what they've found helpful and unhelpful about this course - from all points of view: customer, co-leader, interested bystander, whatever.
(I may have some perspectives to share, I thought I'd throw the discussion open first).
Comments
Is this the HTB-produced one?
Thank you. And, yes - that's the one I mean.
It is of course a product of its environment, and therefore the videos might feel a bit alien to some.
Provided you ensure that people feel comfortable taking the mickey out of the videos and disagreeing with anything in them if they wish, it’s fine. And yes, it’s not a group discussion, so while you can all be in a group to eat and watch the video, you need to ensure couples can talk unheard afterwards.
People with children found the opportunity for a free meal with their other half was a huge benefit. (The churches arranged babysitters)
From what I recall, most of the advice would apply to any long term romantic relationship, not just married people (and not just opposite-sex couples either).
So the thrust of it was very much "We're not here to tell you not to get divorced, or to give divorcees a hard time, or to push any kind of idealised picture of marriage - we're here to help you invest in your relationships and make the best of them, whatever your starting point is." Which worked very well for us.
I would suggest it's only as successful as the conversations the couples have.
I would think it would be wise to have the option of helpful people to refer couples who are struggling to.
We've done it twice the more recent videos are better than the old ones certainly in terms of production values.
For instance a weekly "date night" is a great idea if you can afford it plus a baby sitter etc
On the training course, a clergyman from Bristol working on a relatively impoverished council housing estate made a very helpful observation. The videos by Nicky and Sila Lee clearly come from a middle class background and would not work in his council housing environment. What he was going to do was use the framework but not the videos. He would extract the roots from the teaching material but present them in a way more understandable to his audience.
I think that’s good advice. I thought the book was pretty good. And I did like Nicky and Sila Lee, who struck me as pastorally motivated.
I agree with @Barnabas62 regarding the Lees
Carelessness (you'd think they could've and would've afforded fact-checkers) or a sense that what's objectively true doesn't matter that much (which would be a worse witness) ..?
Moreover - and though this is perhaps unrelated, the two are crystallising together in my mind - there's no sense from watching any of the video content that anyone other than cisgender heterosexual people live in this world. This feels like a distorted picture of reality in another sense.
I'm conscious that - according to the utilitarian calculus of marriages saved, human happiness added to - this may all sound rather churlish.
'And yet...?'
I’ve been asked that question.
I think most of the course would work pretty well for any folks working through the challenges of living in a committed long term relationship.
But I don’t think it works for folks in an open relationship. The underlying assumption is that the relationship is intended to be exclusive.
Thank you - that's a helpful perspective for me to be hearing about this.