In recent times, marriage mentoring has become increasingly popular not only for those in a Christian marriage but also for just about any couple who’s looking for other couples to share their problems and exchange advice with. If you’re uncomfortable about approaching a marriage counselor, marriage mentoring is probably the next best thing and could produce just as excellent results for your relationship and family life.
How Marriage Mentoring Works
Marriage mentoring is usually offered by religious groups or any local community. You can also start a marriage mentoring group on your own in your neighborhood and workplace.
Finding a Match
Strictly speaking, anyone can join a marriage mentoring group. There’s no age limit and couples from all religions, cultures, and walks of life are usually welcomed. What matters is that you and your spouse find a perfect match for your needs. For some, the ‘opposite attracts’ rule works because it lets you perceive your situation in a completely different light. For others, ‘peas from the same pod’ is the standard rule because they feel they’ll get along more with couples they have something in common with.
A professional marriage mentoring group would usually have prescribed rules for couples to find their ideal match. At times, a couple may even have been pre-assigned for you. With informal groups, however, couples can form and break mentoring partnerships anytime.
Give and Take
Once couples are matched, the idea is to share whatever experiences and stories they’d like to share and exchange advice when welcomed and desired. At the very least, you know with a couple mentor, there’d always be two essential parties ready to listen or give you either a congratulatory pat on the back or a shoulder to cry on. Needless to say, you and your spouse should always be ready to do the same in return.
Honesty and Confidentiality
This doesn’t really need repeating, but just for the sake of clarity – it’s also always better to be safe than sorry – then whatever revelations you have been made privy to by the other couple should remain completely confidential and vice versa.
On the other hand, both couples are also expected to be completely honest with their sharing because how else can mentoring help if all cards haven’t been laid out? After all, the greatest attraction of marriage mentoring is that you have two persons who could greatly empathize with what you’re going through. These people aren’t there to judge you. Heck, they aren’t even in the position to do so because they also have their own problems to deal with.
Mentor couples are not like pastors or counselors, and as such you and your spouse are less likely to feel intimidated and awkward toward the other couple.
Schedule
Schedules for private meetings between you and your mentor couple is up to the both of you, but in most cases, marriage mentoring groups usually arrange general assembly meetings just to ensure that every couple is able to benefit from marriage mentoring.
Training and Seminars
Some groups may require member couples to join training in order to improve their mentoring skills while other groups offer it as an optional service. In any case, you should do your best to join even just one seminar as this would not only help you become better mentors to other couples but it can also help you maximize the benefits you can enjoy from marriage mentoring.
Tips for Mentoring Other Couples
If it’s your first time to mentor another first-time couple and there is no opportunity as of yet to join a mentoring program, here’s what you can do for now to make mentoring mutually beneficial.
Establish rapport.
Don’t jump directly to asking couples what their problems is. That’s just plain rude and awkward. Instead, take pleasure from making small talk and establishing rapport between the two of you. Treat your first meeting as if it were just another chance to make new friends. It’s not easy for many people to open up. Others are also understandably wary about revealing sensitive information about themselves and their marriages to people they’ve just met. Surely you feel the same way, too.
As such, you should take things slowly and just let your friendship develop naturally. Enjoy each other’s company for what it is and if either of you feels like sharing or asking for advice then great. But if not, then perhaps having simply someone ready to listen is enough.
Never judge.
Your role is to extend support, sympathy, and understanding. You are to avoid, however, being completely judgmental. This will only make the other couple retreat and feel reluctant to continue sharing because they’re not getting the support they need. You always have to keep an open mind. Try to put yourself in their position and see where they’re coming from.
Be tactful.
Even if your mentor couple isn’t the most sensitive persons in the world, you should still strive to be as tactful as possible when conversing with your mentor couple. If you have advice to give or you need to make a painful truth clear, do so gently and remember that you’d want the same treatment when it’s your turn to hear an ugly truth.
Don’t pressure.
You can’t nag the other couple into spilling the beans or about changing. It’s called free will. Even if you know that they’re doing something either completely immoral or self-destructive, it’s not your place to control them. You have to make them see the light with gentle persuasion and rational logic, but you can’t force them to do something they don’t want to.
Solutions and advice are easy to give but following them and putting them to practice are a lot harder. It’s your role to motivate them to do their best but don’t force them to change overnight. Things like forgiveness and healing take time and it’s your role to help them get by day after day as one struggling couple to another.
Marriage mentoring may not be for everyone, but it won’t hurt to give it a try. There’s nothing to lose but there’s a lot to gain for yourself and your marriage.
