Chapter 2

We are often asked to provide preparatory material for the participants, including books to read, but we do not think there is any way to "prepare" for this kind of experience; and recommending books to read might convey the impression that we are going to engage in intellectual discussion, which is not the case.

We ourselves do not "prepare" for the retreats and do not ask the couples to do so either. It is an adventure in sharing into which we all move together, ready to take it as it comes.[E]

This does not mean, however, that our sessions are totally "unstructured." A timetable is worked out by the group, not imposed upon it. Obviously it has to be planned in relation to the place and the circumstances of our meeting.

INTRODUCTION TO THE FRIENDS' EXPERIENCE

In the living room of "Waysmeet," the house at Pendle Hill in which we held our first training retreat, there was just room for ten couples to sit in a wide circle.

"What we are going to do here," we explained, "is to experience together a marriage enrichment retreat. We hope this experience will be meaningful to you all personally, quite apart from the fact that you will be learning how to conduct a retreat yourselves after you return home. We know of no better way to train you than to let you go through first what others will later go through under your leadership.

"However, we shall be working together at two levels. At any point we can break off and examine together, objectively, what has been happening to us subjectively. You can ask us as your leaders any questions you wish, about what we are doing, or why we are doing it.

"Our goal is very simple and very clear. As married couples we are here to engage together in communication-in-depth about relationship-in-depth. Everything we do will be done with the intention of sharing with each other the directions in which we want our marriages to grow. How far we travel will be decided not by us as leaders, but by you as a group. No one will be put under pressure to do anything he does not wish to do, or to say anything he does not wish to say.

"Our function as leaders is to be 'participant facilitators.' We are in every sense members of the group, and will fully share all the group's experiences. We do not wish to be treated as experts or authorities. The only way in which we shall exercise our role as leaders is to help the group to achieve its goal, or to tell it if we think it is not taking the best direction toward that goal. We make no claim to be infallible. If at any point you don't agree with us, it is your duty to say so. If in any situation we don't know what to do next we shall say so frankly and ask you to help us.

"Now we are ready to begin. The first thing we must do is to get to know each other as couples. The sooner we get well acquainted, the faster we can move toward our goal."

Most of the first evening is devoted to the process of getting to know each other. Our favorite method is to ask the couples to volunteer in turn to be freely questioned by the group. We usually volunteer first, and make it clear that we are prepared to answer the most personal questions. We indicate at this point that we would like to be called by our first names, and we hope the others will agree to do the same. The questions then begin, and when there are no more, we ask another couple to volunteer. We prefer not to go round the circle in order, or take names alphabetically. Everything is done voluntarily as far as possible, to encourage spontaneity.

Time goes quickly as the questions come thick and fast, and it is usually necessary to limit the questioning, or to ask for brief answers. It should be emphasized that the participants are free at any time to ask each other personal questions; this understanding creates a climate of openness which emphasizes the goal of communication-in-depth.

THE GROUP IN ACTION

Assembled again on Saturday morning, we begin by preparing our "rolling agenda," as one of the trainee couples called it, in order to keep a record of what the group members want to talk about. The aspects of marriage they want to include for discussion before the weekend is over gives us clues to the issues that are important to them. The list with which one of our trainee couples started their retreat was:

What is the state of our marriage now? How have things changed as our relationship has grown?

What are the memorable experiences in our lives that have enriched our marriage?

What have we found to be the most effective ways of handling conflict?

What do we feel about a depth relationship between one of us and another person outside the marriage?

Have we found ways of sharing that have contributed to our spiritual growth?

We ask the group members if they have any "concerns" explaining that if members of the group feel unhappy, or anxious, or angry, about anything that has happened, they have a duty to share their feelings with us all otherwise the fellowship will be broken. Situations have occurred in which someone had a concern that another member of the group also had and neither was expressing.

As a group cannot function effectively without openness to each other on the part of its members, neither can a marriage grow without the same kind of openness between its partners. This is what every married couple should be doing every day--raising issues that need to be discussed, and being honest about disturbed or negative feelings.

There is a sequence of events that is typical of most retreats. Nearly always, we begin with general discussion of some aspect of married life. At this stage we are testing each other, so we take refuge in generalizations. A common theme is the difficulties of raising children. We can all commiserate with each other about the problems of the generation gap for it is "safer" to talk about parenthood than about marriage. If the talk _does_ focus on marriage, such topics as working wives or overworked husbands or the sharing of household tasks can be discussed without risk.

The group will move at its own pace from the superficial testing stage to the deeper sharing. The leaders can facilitate this process, but it isn't helpful if they try to hurry it. "Personalizing" the discussion by using such questions as "Mary, did you raise that subject because it's an issue between you and Tom?" or "I wonder if any couple could give us an example from their own experience of what Harold has been talking about?" is helpful.

Once a couple have shared some situation in their own relationship, one of the leaders can ask "Did any of the rest of you identify with Peg and Larry as they were talking?" This will help other couples to share rather than discuss, and move the communication to a deeper level. A phrase we often use is "making yourself vulnerable"--an act of trust by sharing a problem about which the couple feels some embarrassment. The group's response to this is invariably warm and supportive with an effort to help by sharing similar problems which others have experienced or are experiencing. Sometimes a major breakthrough is achieved when the _leaders_ are willing to be vulnerable.

This process of deep sharing must not be seen as an orgy of humiliating confessions. Not at all. The areas where the growth of a marriage is blocked are almost always sensitive ones which we tend to keep hidden because they make us feel inadequate or defeated. It may well be that a way out is not really difficult to achieve, but as long as we are avoiding the whole problem we are not likely to find a solution. Bringing the issue out in the open, in the presence of other couples eager to help because of similar problems may suddenly break the log-jam and move the relationship along the path to enrichment. This happens quite often during retreats, and the results are usually decisive and lasting. The resolution may come for a particular couple when they are alone together later reporting it to the others; or it may actually come in the supportive atmosphere that the group is able to generate. Such experiences are deeply reassuring and rewarding for all the participating couples.

FACILITATING EXERCISES

The use of simple "exercises" in these retreats has been found to be very helpful. What they do is to break up our stereotyped and often rather sterile patterns of interaction when people get together. They are simply devices designed to bring about _couple_ interaction--sometimes for all the couples in the group together, sometimes for one couple at a time.

A good example is asking each couple to draw a picture of their marriage. Paper and crayons are made available, and the couples scatter about the room and work on their pictures. They may choose to do this verbally (discussing the drawing together as they go along) or non-verbally (working at it together in silence). When all have finished, we come back to the circle of chairs, and each couple in turn lays their picture on the floor and explains it to the group. This is an activity the couples always seem to enjoy; and it enables us to learn a good deal about each other. The leaders, of course, also draw their picture, and display it with the others. We have accumulated quite a collection!

One of our trainee couples introduced dancing. Lights are dimmed in the room, a record is played, and all the couples dance, each couple improvising whatever movements express their mood. They then sit round and report on what the experiment meant to them.

Occasionally when we are faced with a controversial subject (for example, "How far are you prepared to allow your partner to go in friendships with the opposite sex?"), we might ask all the couples to discuss this privately together for ten minutes, and then report to the whole group what conclusions they have reached.

Another kind of exercise is what we call "dialogues." A volunteer couple sit in the center on chairs or on the floor facing each other, and talk back and forth on a subject chosen by the group but accepted by them. Some topics have been "How do we deal with conflict in our marriage?"; "How do we overcome fears of intimacy?"; "What are our procedures in decision-making?"; "How do we meet each other's dependency needs?" The subject should of course focus on husband-wife interaction.

It is best for the interchange between the couple to be slow and deliberate. Indeed, it is helpful for each to allow a period of silence before replying to the other (learning to pause in this way is a very helpful means of making husband-wife discussions more effective). Sometimes two or three couples may volunteer; all sit in the center of the circle (the "fishbowl," as it is sometimes called) and the dialogue is taken up by each in turn. While the dialogue is going on, other members of the group should not intervene or in any way act as an "audience." The general discussion comes afterwards, and provides an opportunity for others who identified with the couples in dialogue to share what they felt.

An interesting variant is to ask if another couple will volunteer to sit with the couple involved in dialogue, and to function as _alter egos_ (Latin for "other selves"). The _alter ego_ on each side listens carefully to what is going on, and intervenes from time to time to verbalize deeper levels of communication and interaction that are not being expressed in words. Playing the _alter ego_ role requires some insight and skill, but it is highly effective when well done.

Another exercise for individual couples is "positive interaction." A very simple device, it is usually highly effective and often deeply moving. For this reason we often make it the last activity on Saturday evening. It can either be carried out by about three volunteer couples, or all couples may agree to take turns. The couple sit facing each other, holding hands, and are asked to tell each other, simply and directly, what they specially like about each other, being as specific as possible. Surprisingly, it turns out that very few couples have ever done this before, and everyone finds it a heartwarming experience. We think we have encountered here another taboo in our society--married couples spend infinitely more time telling each other what they _don't_ like about each other than what they _do_ like. Most of us have a strangely inhibited self-consciousness about spelling out in detail what we mean by "I love you."

We generally conclude the retreat with a short session of perhaps half an hour in which we share with each other new insights and the rewarding experiences we have had together. This may appropriately be followed by a Quaker meeting for worship.

These exercises are no more than illustrations. Leading couples are inventing new ones all the time, and there seems to be no limit to their ingenuity. The books by Herbert Otto and Gerald Smith, listed in the bibliography, are full of good ideas.

In essence, these were the experiences in which we and our nine trainee couples were involved during the crowded hours we spent together at Pendle Hill. Before they took their departure, we enjoined them not to try to repeat anything we had done unless they could do so entirely naturally and comfortably. They would develop their own patterns of leadership, and these would be more effective than anything we had taught them.

EVALUATION AND REAFFIRMATION

The follow-up retreat at Pendle Hill was much more than a reunion or season of rejoicing. We undertook together an intensive evaluation of what had been experienced. One couple, for example, had had to cope with a marriage in serious conflict so we set up a role-playing re-enactment of the situation to serve as a learning experience for the whole group.

We also tried to pool our ideas about the best way to plan and lead marriage enrichment retreats. Our agenda covered the following areas:

_Organizing the Retreat._ Time, place, cost, recruitment of couples, size of group, preparatory materials.

_Methods and Techniques._ Introductions, agenda, directing discussion, dividing up, special exercises, crisis situations, evaluation.

_Leadership Roles._ Qualifications, goals, training, couple teamwork, preparation, vulnerability, follow-up.

_Future Plans._ Further retreats, training new leaders, cooperation with other groups, books and materials.

_Other Areas for Enrichment._ Retreats for youth, premarital couples, parents and teen-agers, solo parents, senior citizens, Meeting members.

A number of issues of particular concern to the group were extensively discussed. One was the distinction between our retreats and group marriage counseling on the one hand, sensitivity training and encounter groups on the other. Another issue concerned our emphasis on positive interaction, and the discouragement, though not avoidance, of overt expression of negative feelings between members of the group. We also discussed what causes marriages to get "stuck" so that they cease to grow. This led us naturally to consider the limitations of lay leaders without training in marriage counseling, and how to make effective referrals to professionals when this seems to be indicated. We also talked about the use of silence, so natural to Friends, and how far non-Quakers could accept this.

In all our discussions we were looking forward. There was a confident assurance that we had found something of great importance that must be communicated to others--to the Society of Friends generally, but to the wider world as well.

THE SECOND ROUND

Another training program was organized and a second group of couples were invited to Pendle Hill. On a Friday evening in November 1971, therefore, another wide circle of married couples assembled in the familiar living room at Pendle Hill; later went forth to conduct retreats arranged by their Yearly Meetings; and returned triumphantly in April 1972 to report to one another what had happened.

Six of these couples were new. With them we invited two experienced couples from the first group of trainees. Our idea was that they might help in the training of the other six, and be ready then to graduate as trainers in later regional programs.

We have used this method in training couples before, encouraging a couple conducting a retreat for the first time to team up with another trained couple, each supporting and helping the other in shared leadership. This is a good learning process; and now we were applying it at the level of training potential leaders, in the expectation of making ourselves dispensable. A movement of this kind should not be allowed to focus on personalities. It will prosper best by involving many couples in a broad sharing of leadership responsibility.

We might have asked ourselves whether what had happened in 1969-70 could happen again in 1971-72. Would the high caliber of the earlier group of couples be sustained? Would they again learn quickly enough through the experience of one retreat to function as successful leaders? Would they come back with the same enthusiasm and delight? The answers to these questions would do a great deal to validate the plan we had adopted.

When our couples returned in April 1972, the answers were resoundingly in the affirmative. In one case, it was true, the local arrangements had broken down and they had not had the opportunity yet to conduct a retreat--but they came to the reunion just the same. (Their opportunity for leadership came later.) Reports from all the others, including the two "veteran" couples, had the same authentic ring of success that had been sounded so unmistakably a year earlier.

Quoting from the group:

"We felt our job was to provide some structure to help the experience develop, and then let people sort it out for themselves. Both of us felt it was most important to ride with the tone of the developing situation, and avoid any use of the more aggressive techniques of confrontation. Stan was worried on Saturday that the talk was too general. Then one of the wives broke through by asking if we could discuss something "... down here, where I am ... like SEX?" So we got there ..."

"We viewed our task as leaders to be one of creating and sustaining an atmosphere in which each couple could speak personally concerning their marriage. We felt we best accomplished this task when we participated as a couple in the same way as we urged the others to participate."

"We regarded ourselves as facilitators. We tried to be creative listeners; to put questions to the group that would help them to share personal experiences; to bring about a change of pace when we sensed this to be necessary."

"We were quite relaxed. We tried to be perceptive of the needs of individual couples. We hope we didn't talk too much."

"We saw ourselves as equal participants with the others, and facilitators of a process which started well with frank, meaningful conversation. We did agenda-building at several points. Our aim was to create an atmosphere in which defensiveness could be replaced with tolerant acceptance, and trust and confidence could grow as we heard each other and learned from each other."

THE PROBLEM OF UNFELT NEED

"The underlying problem is the fact that the marriage enrichment retreat meets unfelt needs. People don't feel keenly that they need it. If you think your marriage is sound, you aren't strongly motivated to spend a weekend making it even sounder. To get the tingle of a potential deepening and enriching takes emotional impact. This means hearing from someone obviously sensible who is warmly convinced about it."

A number of theories were developed to explain this resistance to our project. In general, it is true that it takes _problems_ to motivate married couples to seek help, just as it takes pain to induce many people to visit a doctor; and in both cases, action may prove to be too late to be effective. On the other hand, many couples with basically stable marriages are wistfully aware that their relationship falls short of their expectations. But it takes a strong stimulus, in the form of a cordial personal invitation, to get them to take the necessary steps to enroll for a retreat.

Whatever the cause of this reticence, expressing itself on occasions as resistance, it seems an inappropriate response to the needs and opportunities of our day and age and one of the many factors responsible for the alienation between young and old which is popularly termed the "generation gap." Our trainees were themselves mainly in the second half of life, and they well understood the "privatism" that is a legacy of our past. They themselves, however, had lost nothing, and gained a great deal by the efforts they had made to cultivate greater openness to others, both in their marriages and in their wider relationships, and they would lovingly invite other Friends to make the same venture. They would also plead with Friends to give stronger support to, and undertake more active participation in, a project to provide marriage enrichment retreats for the couples in the care of our Meetings.

Some views were expressed suggesting a special reticence among Friends. There seemed to be some foundation for two theories--first, that Quakers tend to be very heavily involved in social projects, sometimes to the neglect of their own family relationships; and second, that they tend to be somewhat puritanical in the sense that they consider it improper to open their private lives to others. There may be a deep dichotomy in attitudes of Friends here such as reported by one couple: "vivid impressions of honest encounters between those who regard the worship of God as a private affair, and those who feel the need to reach out to their Meeting community for personal support and a sense of communion which includes closer relationships with other Friends."

Like other Friends, we are finding that these experiences can release hitherto unrealized and untapped resources of spiritual strength and power. As expressed by one couple: "For two years we passed through a dark time in our family, trying to find resources to deal with a seemingly insurmountable problem. At our first retreat, with the loving support of the group, we were able as a couple to recover our self-confidence, sense of worth, and well-being, and reaffirm our strengths to each other.

"The family problem has now been happily resolved, and we have found extra strength to participate fully in the expression of our Quaker concerns in the larger community. Our Meeting did much to sustain us through the bleakest times, and bring us back into clearness and light; but what helped us the most to help ourselves was our activities with the marriage enrichment project. We continue to nurture at home the new openness and depth we have discovered, and have committed ourselves to maintain the healthy growth that has been made possible for us."

CONCLUSION

What has been described in this booklet could easily be dismissed as a new fad that will gain limited attention for a short time and then be forgotten, but it may instead be the discovery of vast untapped resources that can raise primary human relationships to new and higher levels of richness and creativity. If this should be the case the loss of this great opportunity would be tragic.

The need of men and women today, as in all ages, is to learn to live together in love and peace--to build up rather than to tear down, to cooperate rather than to compete, to find meaning in life through open sharing with others rather than through narrow self-seeking.

Religion has always striven to further these goals, because they represent the spiritual development of man. But again and again the simple truths spoken by great religious leaders have been lost in the complexity of elaborate institutions and the lust for power.