Couple Enrichment for Friends is for all couples in a healthy, committed relationship, regardless of marital status or sexual orientation.

A couple's relationship doesn't remain static. It is always changing. When it is taken for granted, it can lose it spark. Its vitality depends upon continuing growth.

When a couple is in a strong, healthy relationship, it is a treasure. These couple relationships deserve to be cared for as we encounter the many pressures in living today. We all find it helpful to polish up our skills in teaching, in medicine, in business, and in other vocations. Why not do the same in our marriages?

That is what a Couple Enrichment event is for. It helps couples be more effective in communicating with each other as they share more deeply their thoughts and feelings. Couple Enrichment workshops help couples celebrate the joys and strengths of their relationships and develop skills to enrich facets that could be improved.

What happens in a Couple Enrichment workshop?

A group of five to nine couples meet for a weekend to share with each other. In an environment of growing trust and support, couples take stock, reviewing together what they value in each other, and take time to work through some of the differences or disagreements that they have been pushing aside. They then see how other couples relate, and allow the love between them to flow over everyone.

A Couple Enrichment event is designed for couples with satisfactory relationships that they wish to strengthen and enhance. It is not a therapy session, not marriage counseling, not an encounter group.

The first Quaker Couple Enrichment workshops were developed in 1969 by David Mace, an internationally known authority on family sociology and marriage counseling. He and his wife, Vera, called Friends to face the need for conscious, continuing effort to maintain strong, sound, growing relationships.

Mark Moss and Mary Glazer are trained Couple Enrichment leaders, recognized by Friends General Conference, and trained in accordance with the standards of the Association for Couples in Marriage Enrichment. They bring to their leadership a commitment to growth in their own relationship, a willingness to share about their relationship with other couples, and a sensitivity toward the needs and aspirations of the other participants with them in the workshop.

They know the strength of Couple Enrichment and are eager to share it with Friends throughout the United States and Canada. If you would like to organize a couples weekend or event for your monthly meeting or yearly meeting, contact them at 518-585-7949 or mkglazer@verizon.net. Or, for other leader couples, contact Friends General Conference at (515) 277 2189 or deborahf@fgcquaker.org.