Couple promotes preventive marriage maintenance

By Jay Nies

Burdett and Joyce Wilson believe a marriage is a lot like a car: easy to work on while it’s standing still in the driveway, but not while it’s doing 70 down the highway. That’s why they’re such strong advocates for Engaged Encounter as a way to help couples get ready for marriage. “There comes a point in marriage when you realize you’re becoming less ‘me’ and more ‘we,’” said Mr. Wilson. “Sometimes, when you’re young and single, it’s hard to imagine being ‘we.’ Engaged Encounter helps you do that.”

Engaged Encounter is a weekend retreat for couples seriously contemplating marriage. It gives them a chance to discuss openly and honestly a range of issues that will affect their future lives together. “A basic goal is to teach important communication skills,” said Mr. Wilson. “Another goal is to show them how, as a married couple, they relate with God, the Church, their extended families and the community at large.”

Couples come away from the weekends with a deeper appreciation for how they are supposed to be a sign of Christ’s love — not just to each other but also to the people around them. That understanding helps build a stronger marriage, family, community and Church. “We refer to a successful marriage as a life-giving marriage,” the wife giving 100 percent.”

The Wilsons, who are members of St. Pius X parish in Moberly, have been the coordinators for Catholic Engaged Encounter of Central Missouri for about a year. They succeeded Richard and Bernice Sporleder of Marshall, who were the coordinators for over 30 years. “Richard and Bernice have done so much for Engaged Encounter,” said Mr. Wilson. “They are probably single-handedly responsible for there being Engaged Encounter in this diocese today.” The Wilsons got involved in Engaged Encounter 21 years ago, at the Sporleders’ request. Another person with decades of service in the movement is the spiritual director, Father Michael Quinn, pastor of Holy Family parish in Hannibal.

The coordinators are responsible for every aspect of making an Engaged Encounter weekend work: setting up dates, fielding and training a team of volunteers, coordinating the logistics and making sure everybody gets fed. It’s a lot of work, but they believe the outcome is more than worth it. They’re now looking for other married Catholic couples of all ages to help with the weekends. “Some engaged couples need to hear from an older couple who has ‘made it,’” said Mrs. Wilson. “Some are looking for someone on their level, just starting off, having the same difficulties they are, trying to find their place in the world. We need to have both available.”

Each weekend includes a priest, two married couples to conduct the weekend, and people to set things up, prepare meals and perform other functions. The Wilsons believe it’s time well spent for couples as well as the volunteers. “If we put into preparing for marriage as much effort as we put into our golf swing, how much better would those marriages be?” said Mr. Wilson. “The things you work at are the things you get better at,” observed Mrs. Wilson. “The things you don’t’ work at are the things you tend to slide on.”

Once after giving a talk on a Marriage Encounter weekend — which is similar to Engaged Encounter, but geared toward couples married for 12 to 20 years — Mr. Wilson met a man who was sobbing uncontrollably. The man said, “After 35 years of being married, I just realized we have been living as strangers in our house. We wasted all that time.” “In Engaged Encounter, we’re trying to help couples not be like that guy in 35 or 40 years,” said Mr. Wilson.

On the weekends, couples learn how to overcome the fear of loss and vulnerability that comes with discussing tough but important subjects such as weaknesses, desires, goals, ambitions and their attitudes about money, sex, family, children and their role in Church and society. “It’s rare to have a couple say they’ve already discussed all of these things,” said Mrs. Wilson. “It’s rare that they don’t find things that they assume they agreed on but might not have agreed on.” For some couples in which the man or woman is not Catholic or has been raised with no faith at all, “this is their first chance to see the Catholic faith and our understanding of the relationship of a married couple as a sacrament and vocation in the Church,” said Mr. Wilson.

Couples on the weekends learn communication skills and rules for arguing fairly. Some think the things they argue about now will suddenly take care of themselves after they’re married. “But you don’t just change overnight,” said Mr. Wilson. “Joyce and I still argue about the same things we did our first year.” What’s needed is a commitment to work through the problems and make home a happy place to be, said Mrs. Wilson.

The Wilsons also meet couples who have been together for years or who met through on-line dating profiles and think they know everything there is to know about each other. “I just smile and nod my head,” said Mr. Wilson. The Wilsons hope every couple engaged to be married in the Church will attend an Engaged Encounter before exchanging vows. But they’re opposed to anyone being coerced into attending. “If they’re forced to come, even by their fiancé, that’s when it becomes difficult, because it turns into a power struggle,” said Mrs. Wilson.

The Wilsons found out a long time ago that working in this ministry together helps strengthen their own marriage. So did going through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) together shortly after they were married — Mr. Wilson so he could become Catholic, Mrs. Wilson so she could learn more about the faith in which she was raised. Mrs. Wilson said it’s exciting to talk to couples who were on Engaged Encounter weekends they coordinated more than 10 years ago, and who are now active in their parish, bringing their kids to church and continuing to build life-giving marriages. “It’s neat that we got to be a part of that in a small way,” she said.