MORE ABOUT RECOMMENDATIONS

Very often PTPs recommend and encourage premarital couples to participate

in the four-month PAIRS Relationship Mastery Course developed for

the specific purpose of practicing, improving, and sustaining healthy marriage

relationships. This semester-long course is recommended because it

not only fully addresses relationship fundamentals, it also addresses emotional

literacy, understanding one’s history and oneself, as well as advanced

topics such as pleasure (sensuality and sexuality) and relationship

reconstruction.

Alternatively, when appropriate and available, the PTP may recommend

that the premarital couple attend one of the shorter PAIRS programs. These

include the one-day PAIRS JumpStart, If You Really Love Me . . . , and the

Jewish, Catholic, or Christian PrePAIRS programs; the two-day Passage to

Intimacy Workshop; or the three-day Christian PAIRS or PAIRS First programs.

The PAIRS website, www.pairs.com, provides descriptions, schedules,

and location information about these programs. The short programs

contain a careful selection of pieces from the full PAIRS curriculum tailored

to specific target groups. Most of the short courses begin with understanding

the PAIRS Relationship Road Map, learning basic communication and

confiding skills as well as how to complain constructively to effect helpful

change. Each program adds further PAIRS pieces that are appropriate for its

purpose. The PrePAIRS and PAIRS First programs were originally designed

for couples in the early years of relationship commitment. These courses are

highly appropriate for premarital couples seeking to strengthen their relationship

through learning intimate relationship fundamentals.

The premarital couple with moderately high ego strengths, emotional

literacy, and openness to learning often finds that the 6- to 10-hour assessment,

by itself with the new insights and brief but specific skills and

concepts offered, is sufficient to gain renewed confidence in the relationship

and in plans to marry. The PTP may also recommend one of the

shorter PAIRS workshops to provide elaboration, practice, and consolidation

of the new concepts, skills, and strategies that have been developed in

the assessment. An invitation is issued for them to return when need

arises in the future, indicating the PTP’s interest and availability as well as the normal inevitability of the need for continuing attention to the

work of a relationship.

For the majority of premarital couples (considering that about half of all

marriages end in divorce) and especially for those who are emotionally illiterate,

ignorant about successful relationships, and unskilled at intimacy,

PTPs routinely recommend the 120-hour Relationship Mastery Course. This

program affords the breadth, depth, time, and practice needed to change destructive

attitudes and behaviors. This Mastery Course is recommended for

those who already have complex issues, are possibly in mutual allergy, may

be embarking on a second or third marriage, or are on the verge of breakup

but not ready to give up. Typically, the PTP will remain available to the assessment

couple for evening 90-minute office sessions to oversee extra practice

with the PAIRS skills during their participation in the course, and then

again after the course for any “RePAIRS” that may be needed to refresh the

concepts, practice the tools, or help the couple get quickly unstuck should

they again become negatively entangled.

When a course or workshop is not immediately available, the PTP may

counsel premarital couples in need of more training via OFFICE PAIRS until

they can participate in a PAIRS program. The PTP selects concepts, exercises,

and experiences thought to be most cogent to their missing competencies

and then teaches these in a series of 90-minute sessions. In locations where

there are no available PAIRS courses or workshops and when a couple cannot

travel to one in another location, the PTP may contract to lead the couple

through the content of one of the shorter PAIRS curriculums in a defined series

of 90-minute sessions. When engaging a PAIRS curriculum, each purchases

a participant’s handbook for the selected course and a copy of The

Passage to Intimacy book, which provides a deeper presentation of the ideas,

skills, or attitudes under study. In such OFFICE PAIRS activities, couples receive

homework assignments and are expected to practice daily the skills

they are learning. OFFICE PAIRS is not undertaken lightly. Teaching these

skills is usually easier and more natural in a group setting than in the office.