6 Ways to Improve Your Marriage – Part 1 of 2

Two weeks (or three posts) ago, I mentioned that I would do a follow-up to the article, “3 Dangers to Marriage” with a new article today, “3 Aids to Struggling Marriages.” Well? I’d like to change it, but also double it to “6 Ways to Improve Your Marriage.”

Today, I would like to share just the first half, #s 1-3. Are some of you struggling in your marriage to the point of separation? Could you be separated or on the brink of divorce? Looking for help? Here is one credible tool that can assist:
1). Retrouvaille – The word, “retrouvaille” comes from a French word that means “rediscovery.” Couples who participate in a weekend experience, called Retrouvaille, are given time to rediscover the vows each spouse promised to the other. Retrouvaille focuses on communication and healing. Following the weekend experience is a series of 6-12 post-weekend sessions over three months. Couples who have gone through the weekend and follow-up sessions, have had success, and have eventually led some of the sessions, can be invited to speak at church at the end of Mass to give a testimony too. You can go to the following two websites for further info:
a). http://www.retrouvaille.info – Metro Detroit
b). http://www.retrouvaille.org – General Info
While we want to continue to grow in a deeper relationship with Jesus, it is Jesus who hopes we have the desire to grow in relationship him in our hearts, for it is Jesus who first chose us. “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you” (Jn. 15:16).
Jesus also hopes that spouses want to grow in greater relationship with each other. They can begin by making their marriage better through Christ. It takes three to get married: both spouses and God. The late, Venerable Fulton Sheen wrote a book called, Three to Get Married, which may be of reading interest to you. Below is another excellent tool for married couples.
2). Marriage Encounter – For those who want to take their good marriages and make them even better, couples can go on a weekend called Marriage Encounter. The purpose is for marriage enrichment through open and honest communication, face-to-face sharing, and heart to heart encounters in a comfortable, relaxed setting. “The mission of National Marriage Encounter is to celebrate, enrich, and support marriages and families through interfaith programs that enable married couples to discover a deeper understanding of their relationship.” Here are three websites that may be helpful:
a). http://wwme-detroit.org/ – Metro Detroit
b). http://www.marriage-encounter.org/ – General Marriage Encounter
c). http://www.wwme.org/new.html – General Marriage Encounter

Finally, are you and/or your spouse searching for ways to avoid contraception? Have you encountered awful side effects from contraception that you now discover are taking a toll on your body and on your marriage? Do you want to know what the Church teaches and recommends? The answer is Natural Family Planning (NFP), and it is NOT a form a “Catholic contraception.”
3). NFP – Have you ever heard of it? Why have only 10% of Catholics or less heard about NFP? It’s one word, “MONEY!” Because the large pharmaceutical companies can’t make any money off of it, it’s not promoted. Yet, NFP is a secret that needs to be made known not only to Catholics but to the whole world. (The same goes for Pope St. John Paul II”s teaching on the Theology of the Body in which he gave 129 talks at his Wednesday audiences between 1979-1984. But that’s a whole other story. But the word is slowly getting out on both, which is “Good News!”).

What is NFP? In a nutshell, it is knowing the fertile time of a woman’s cycle that may involve charting, taking a woman’s temperature, or other morally acceptable methods, followed by either doing one of the following two things: 1). Either avoiding sexual relations in marriage for serious or grave reasons (i.e. health) as a form of temporary abstinence, or 2). Having sexual relations within marriage to achieve pregnancy. NFP couples intend to abstain from fertile intercourse, whereas contracepting couples intend to sterilize fertile intercourse. NFP is 99% effective with almost a zero divorce rate (Source: West, Christopher. Good News About Sex and Marriage: Answers to Your Honest Questions about Catholic Teaching. Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2000, p. 111, 126).

Also, NFP fosters communication, mutual respect between the spouses, greater intimacy in marriage, and the acceptance of responsibility in their decision to achieve or postpone pregnancy (Source: http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/wils/wils_01naturalfamilyplanning1.html). While there aren’t any side effects in NFP unlike contraception, “today, less than one percent of all couples of child-bearing age in the U.S. use Natural Family Planning” (Source: http://cbcpforlife.com/?p=2083). While NFP isn’t a “magic bullet,” many people are happy despite how challenging it can be to practice within marriage. Here’s one testimony. “NFP does require communication and commitment, but isn’t that what marriage is all about? We have gained so much by using NFP and have lost nothing.”
(Source: Natural Family Planning Blessed Our Marriage, 18).

Here are four NFP resources that may be of further help to you:
a). http://www.nfponline.org – Archdiocese of Detroit
b). http://www.ccli.org – Couple to Couple League
c). http://www.popepaulvi.com – Pope Paul VI Institute
d). http://www.nfpoutreach.org – NFP Outreach

Next week, we will cover the other three ways, #s 4-6 to improve your marriage with the help of our Lord, Jesus. God bless you, and until next week…

Trusting in God’s Plan for Marriage,
Fr. Jeff

Author: Fr. Jeff Allan

Biography - Fr. Jeff Allan, was ordained a Catholic priest on June 7th, 2014 for the Archdiocese of Detroit (AOD). He graduated from Adrian College in 2001 with a degree in Business Administration and a minor in Criminal Justice. After working in the pharmaceutical sales industry for almost three years, he felt called to discern the priesthood. Before being ordained a priest, Fr. Jeff was blessed to receive three degrees from Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. They include a Bachelor of Philosophy, Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology (STB), and a Master of Divinity (Theology). His assignments in the U.S. have included serving at multiple parishes in the Archdiocese of Detroit as an associate pastor and currently as a weekend assistant. Fr. Jeff is certified as a hospital chaplain through ACPE (Association for Clinical Pastoral Education). He has had the opportunity of serving at three Metro-Detroit Area Hospitals since 2017 where he serves in full-time ministry as a Catholic Priest and Hospital Chaplain. View all posts by Fr. Jeff Allan