Support Couples

Yes, so long as you have a heart for the couple and the have the time to meet with a couple before and after The Pre-Marriage Course. You don't have to be qualified to provide love and support to a couple planning to get married.

Each couple on The Pre-Marriage Course is allocated a Support Couple. This is a married couple who have completed The Marriage Course themselves and have signed up to host a couple from The Pre-Marriage Course. You will usually be hosted in their home, over an evening. During the evening, the Support Couple will guide you in conversation as a couple, using the findings of your Couple Survey, which you would have completed before the start of the course.

The Couple Survey is an optional series of questions that you will complete before The Pre-Marriage Course begins. The purpose of the Couple Survey is to:

•   Affirm areas of strength in your relationship
•   Highlight any issues that you may need to discuss as a couple
•   Help you to decide whether you are ready for marriage
•   Give a realistic view of what makes a marriage work
  

You will not receive the results of your Couple Survey, as these will go to the Support Couple assigned to you. The link to your Couple Survey expires 60 days after the last Pre-Marriage Course session. Following the course, you will have a discussion with your designated Support Couple. The Couple Survey report will guide this conversation, affirming areas of strength in your relationship and highlighting issues for discussion.

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If you're considering using the Couple Survey, the person registering the course will enter the couples details on the Course Builder and the builder will email a survey to each guest to complete...preferably before the course begins. Each guest should complete the Survey separately without consulting each other. When completed, the results are automatically calculated and returned to the named Support Couple or minister/pastor. Once the guest couple have completed the course this person should schedule an appointment with the guest couple to go through the survey results and any challenges raised. For more details go to themarriagecourse.org/support-couple

Due to General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), we are only able to make Couple Surveys available for 60 days following the last session of the Pre-Marriage Course. Unfortunately, we cannot extend this, so The Pre-Marriage Course leaders and admins need to take this into consideration when organising the Support Couple meetings. Support Couples should also be reminded of this expiration. For more details go to themarriagecourse.org/support-couple

Yes, it is very easy! All of the talks are available online, along with a Leaders’ Guide which has instructions for when to pause for exercises and private conversations for each couple. Promotional materials and other resources are also available once you register your course on Course Builder. Choose a course in the top menu and click Find out about running.

We believe that anyone who has a desire to see relationships strengthened, has experience of working at their own marriage and enjoys hosting couples can run a course. You don't need to have the perfect marriage (no one does!) or be an expert to run it. People who are single can also run the course for couples. We have a number of short training videos that will take you through how to run The Pre-Marriage Course when you register your course on Course Builder. Just choose your course from the top menu, click Find out about running and click Run a course to register.