By Jason Collum, AFAJ staff writer

June 2003 – Traditionally, June is the month for weddings. Unfortunately, the failure of marriages in this country has also become a tradition.

The legacy of divorce doesn’t have to become a long-standing tradition in the United States, though, according to an organization that has worked for years to promote the saving of marriages. 

Maryland-based Marriage Savers is in the business of preparing, strengthening and restoring marriages. Through empowering churches and couples in churches to be leaders in the area of pre- and post-marital counseling, Marriage Savers has been able to cut the divorce rate tremendously in many churches.

According to Mike McManus, president of Marriage Savers, with mentoring from older couples, by learning to spot pitfalls prior to marriage, and with the commitment from the church and community to save marriage, the divorce rate can be cut.

Knowing to recognize marriage red flags is a key to stemming the tide of divorce. Knowing how to prevent divorce is also key.

Age as a factor
A recent review by the Mobile (Alabama) Register of 15 marriages in Baldwin County in 1992 in which the bride was either 14 or 15 revealed a very saddening fact of life: The younger a couple is when they get married, the more likely that marriage is to fail. Of the 15 marriages the Register followed up on, 10 had failed. The shortest failed in less than four months, the longest, after eight years. The average marriage of these couples lasted 3.8 years.

“Those who marry as teenagers have a divorce rate about double those who marry in their 20s,” McManus said. “There is a curve of success. Just picking age as a factor, those who marry in the mid- to late twenties or early thirties seem to have the most enduring marriages.”

Maturity is also an important factor.

“It’s important for a man to have himself established in his career,” McManus said. ±“A man really doesn’t know who he is, fully, until he is working in a job that really is satisfying. And when he’s at that point in his life, he’s able to court the quality of woman he would like to court.”

In recent years, the age of men and women entering their first marriage has increased. In 1980, the median age at first marriage for men was 24.7; for women, it was 22.0. In 2000, the age had increased to 26.8 for men, 25.1 for women. While on the face of it that increase in age might signal a potential rise in the level of maturity and therefore a potential increase in the prospects for the success of marriage, the statistics belie a not-so-pretty fact.

“More people are getting married at an older age, but the real problem is that more and more couples are cohabiting before they marry,” McManus said. “They’ve lived with this person or that person, and these relationships often don’t work out. Half of those who cohabit break up¥ short of marriage. Of those who do marry, their divorce rate is 50% higher than those who did not live together. 

“In other words, there’s a 75% chance of failure,” McManus said. “Those are pretty grim odds.”

According to the 2000 Census, some 11 million Americans live with an unmarried partner. Of these, 9.7 million are in heterosexual relationships. 

McManus said while the culture ignores the gravity of the situation, the church is to blame when it comes to the failure of marriage in society.

“Have you ever heard a sermon on cohabitation?” McManus asked. “How many sermons have you heard on Abraham? The church tends to avoid the issues that are central to how to make a marriage work.

“The norm is, most churches are wedding factories,” he said. “There’s nothing in the average church to help couples enrich their marriage or to help them save the troubled ones, except they send them to counselors who often advise divorce. There is nothing to help those who remarry and have children from a previous marriage, and those are very tough marriages to make work. There is nothing to help the person whose husband has run off with another woman. We have answers at each of these different stages. We can create in any church a safety net of mentoring couples whose passion is to help other marriages make it. When this is done, we can virtually eliminate divorce in the local church.

“We have helped 175 cities adopt community marriage policies to strengthen existing marriage, save troubled ones, or help new ones get started in the right way,” McManus said. “And, we’ve been able to bring down the divorce rate by about 50% in eight cities.”

The statistics are telling. In some of the cities where Community Marriage Policies have been adopted, divorce rates have dropped dramatically. The Institute for Research and Evaluation, an independent agency, has ≈reviewed the effectiveness of Marriage Savers’ work. The study shows that in some counties where the Community Marriage Policy has been put into effect, divorces have dropped between 48% and 79%, McManus said.

“These are in very different places, like Kansas City, Kansas; Austin, Texas; Modesto, California; Salem, Oregon,” McManus said.

Having couples who have been through trying times and come out better and stronger serve as mentors for other couples is one of the ways Marriage Savers works. Couples who have survived adultery or other calamities have more credibility and are better able to share their experiences with others who may very well be suffering through the same situation and help them restore their broken marriages.

Resolving conflict
If there is one question McManus said young couples should ask older couples regarding marriage, it is how they resolve conflict.

“We tend to think of communication as talking, but it’s mostly listening,” McManus said. 

Being able to resolve conflict is extremely important in a marriage. The key is not to react when one’s spouse is venting frustration. Couples need to learn to listen to each other’s concerns instead of immediately going on the defensive, an action which often can lead to a heated argument.

McManus and his wife, Harriet, pioneered the use of what is called a premarital inventory, or a very detailed questionnaire that other couples in the church are trained to ask of those who are engaged or plan to be married. The questions focus on how they resolve conflict.

“It’s a series of questions you either agree or disagree with,” McManus said. “For example, ‘Sometimes my future spouse gives me the silent treatment when we get into arguments; I don’t like the w‚ay my future spouse spends money; I find it difficult to say I’m sorry when I’m wrong.’”

The couples are separated for the questioning. Their responses are then compiled in a computer-generated report that highlights both bright spots and areas of trouble. “We try to help them face the issues in their relationship that might not be visible to the couple themselves,” McManus said.  “It’s important to bring these issues to the surface so the couple hopefully can resolve these conflicts before they go into a marriage, or they will decide they shouldn’t marry.”

Being equally yoked is also a key to being happily married. 

“Every area of major difference creates a problem,” McManus said. “The more differences there are, the more difficult it is to make the relationship work.” Couples who come from different financial or religious backgrounds, or couples who do not share the same religious beliefs may find it difficult to resolve some conflicts.

“We have found in giving these inventories that the scores can predict with about 80% accuracy who will divorce,” McManus said. “That’s predicted, but not determined. What matters is not what they score, but the couple’s reaction to the scores.”

Taking a premarital inventory can save a couple untold amounts of grief, even if they discover they are so far apart on key issues that it’s best they not marry.

“There is a sadness [when an engagement ends],” McManus said, “but it’s not a broken marriage and all the consequences of that.”  

Resources
• There are a vast number of books available at Christian bookstores to help couples who are considering marriage, and for couples wanting to build and strengthen their marriage. Mike McManus highly recommends The Mystery of Marriage, by Mike Mason. “It’s absolutely beautiful; it’s the kind of book you like to read aloud to your spouse.”
• For more information on Marriage Savers and the Community Marriage Policy, visit www.marriagesavers.org on the Internet, or call 30‘1-469-5873.