Many married couples in Kenya are miserable, lonely and sexually starved

If you spoke to the average couple on camera about their marriage, they will smile and tell you how happily married they are and how much they love their families. However, deep down, most marriages are flat at best if not in a crisis altogether. Most married people live in the same house, sleep in the same bed, have occasional sex, have children but they are certainly not a couple. Husbands spend their weekdays at work and the weekends with the boys. Wives spend weekdays at work and the weekends in chamas, salon and/or with the girls. Indeed, many married men and women go about their lives as if they were single.

This is certainly not the way marriage was envisaged as a lifetime institution conceived of, comprised of, and created together by two people who wish to derive individual and joint benefits that are only possible from the properly functioning marriage they themselves create. Do you feel like your marriage may be at a crisis stage? Do you feel like emergency tactics may be needed to save it? Are you flooded with thoughts like, "What can I do to stop our relationship from going in a downward spiral like it is?" "Is there anything that can be done?" You might even be wondering if your marriage relationship is even at the crisis stage.

Marriage counseling is a social movement on the rise

When a marriage is in crisis, emergency tactics are needed to save it. It's not a time to look the other way, thinking that things will get better on their own. Many marriages die that could have been saved if only heroic actions would have been implemented. As a result of this, there is a proliferation of marriage therapy and specific marriage counseling approaches. Judging by the number of "self-help" books in bookstores, articles in popular journals, and advertisements in the daily press, it would seem that marriage counseling is a social movement on the rise. Unfortunately, however, there seem to be wide discrepancies in the value of the various techniques, and often little information available to the ordinary couple who might be seeking to strengthen their relationship.

Marriage Encounter is the largest pro-marriage movement in the world and promotes a weekend experience for couples who want to make their good marriage even better. It is a weekend residential programme for couples to renew their commitment; intimacy and passion in an environment that will help focus on each other and deepen communication. It is an ecumenical programme for both Catholic and Non-Catholic couples and religious (priests, brothers and nuns).

It's not a retreat or marriage clinic, or group therapy. It's a unique approach aimed at revitalising marriage. This is a time for you and your spouse to be alone together, to rediscover each other and together focus on your relationship for an entire weekend. Every marriage deserves that kind of attention!

Picture of mutual trust and conjugal unity

Marriage Encounter began in 1952 in Barcelona Spain, Fr Gabriel Calvo was struck with two moving experiences that sparked the Marriage Encounter programme. On one hand, Fr Calvo had couples coming to him with their problems, conflicts, and tensions with each other and their families. On the other hand, and at about the same time, Calvo came in contact with a group of young couples who deeply impressed him with the evidence of what marriage could be. Their marriages were a picture of mutual trust and conjugal unity, based on a profound spiritual understanding of the meaning of marriage. This is exactly what the other couples were desperately seeking and could not find. Calvo sought the cooperation of these couples in a programme of help for those couples who were struggling to make their marriages and family life better.

Marriage Encounter, both a programme and a movement, is an opportunity for married couples to explore their lives in the presence of God. Although the term "encounter" signifies a confrontation or even a clash, Marriage means "to rediscover" or "to meet again."

The programme, which usually takes place on a weekend, helps couples to search for and rediscover their vision of love. With this programme, God's presence is essential, because the gift of love given by the couple becomes fruitful only in God's presence through the discovery of the place of God within their lives. This belief, then, underlies Marriage Encounter's conviction of the sacredness of the covenant, the Sacrament, of marriage. Fr Gabriel Calvo, the founder of Marriage Encounter, puts it this way: "There is within each couple a divine energy of love. It has to be released by a deep sharing between husband and wife, through the communication of their feelings and of the whole of their lives together. It cannot be done in just one moment."

Dating 20 minutes daily

The Marriage Encounter weekend provides the first moment for this release of the energy of love. During the weekend, the couples have the opportunity to search their own lives for their feelings, dreams, and desires. As they share, the Lord's presence enables the release of the energy of love. Also, as they share, they come to the discovery of God's vision for marriage, which, simply stated, is a call to become united with each other and with God.

Marriage Encounter has had a powerful impact on thousands of couples and enabled them to renew their commitment to marriage as a ministry. Because of Marriage Encounter, these same couples who in the past saw their lives more as confusion now see their marriages as the means for grace and life for themselves and others. Inspired by this vision, they acquire a new understanding of the Gospel and its meaning for everyday life. Ultimately, however, the final goal of Marriage Encounter is much broader than the couples themselves.

There is a natural outflow of love from the couple to family, relatives, friends and, finally, to the larger communities of Church and society. Through the gift of self, there occurs an inner conversion both in the individual and the couple. This conversion becomes the basis of understanding and acceptance, out of which flows the unity of love. A key plank of Marriage Encounter is the Daily Dialogue where couples spent 20 minutes daily to discuss issues close to their hearts and marriage. It is a method of communicating-a presentation based on the experience of life, a reflection on each individual's life experience, followed by a mutual sharing of this individual reflection. This communication approach is based on the truism that there is no unity without reconciliation, no reconciliation without communication and no communication without first encountering, discovering oneself.

- Edwin Wanjawa is a lecturer at Pwani University