Marriage Encounter- bad experience?

[Agustin_Hippo]

A few days ago I visited a thread on Catholic Answers Forums entitled “Anybody else have a bad WWME experience?” As it happens, we did. I noticed that mine was the first comment on the thread since April 16, 2012. No matter, I said what I thought, which generated a lively discussion. Today I find that the thread is CLOSED, this despite many older threads still being active, although untouched in years.
Back in 1972, Antoinette Bosco wrote in “Marriage Encounter- the Rediscovery of Love” (St. Meinrad, Indiana: Abbey Press, 1972.) that “Failure to agree with the leadership in New York (WWME) means the eventual end of one’s involvement in Marriage Encounter in any official capacity (page 109).” She also wrote, “Perhaps the most significant criticism of all is the repeated comment that in New York (WWME) area, one ‘dare not criticize Marriage Encounter (page 114).’” Things haven’t changed, over forty years later.
I want to share my ideas and opinions on a movement that was once significant in the Catholic Church in the United States. I didn’t enjoy our Marriage Encounter weekend. In fact, I didn’t enjoy the entire Marriage Encounter experience. either.
I want to hear from people who love Marriage Encounter. I want to hear from people who don’t love Marriage Encounter. I want those ideas out there. Why censor me?

 

[Windmill]

To answer your question, I didn’t have that great an experience with Marriage Encounter. It seems like it is locked in the 70’s with its approach to communication. “How do you feel about _____?” and then write out a page of your thoughts. What I wish they’d do is channel all of that organization to facilitating marriage couple groups at a parish getting together on a routine basis (monthly?) at one of the couples homes, having a potluck dinner, and spiritual formation/discussion questions that build up their marriages.

I don’t think WWME should be scrapped, just reformed to meet the needs of young couples today who have different ways of relating to each other.

 

[Tarpeian_Rock]

A few days ago I visited a thread on Catholic Answers Forums entitled “Anybody else have a bad WWME experience?” As it happens, we did. I noticed that mine was the first comment on the thread since April 16, 2012. No matter, I said what I thought, which generated a lively discussion. Today I find that the thread is CLOSED, this despite many older threads still being active, although untouched in years.
Back in 1972, Antoinette Bosco wrote in “Marriage Encounter- the Rediscovery of Love” (St. Meinrad, Indiana: Abbey Press, 1972.) that “Failure to agree with the leadership in New York (WWME) means the eventual end of one’s involvement in Marriage Encounter in any official capacity (page 109).” She also wrote, “Perhaps the most significant criticism of all is the repeated comment that in New York (WWME) area, one ‘dare not criticize Marriage Encounter (page 114).’” Things haven’t changed, over forty years later.
I want to share my ideas and opinions on a movement that was once significant in the Catholic Church in the United States. I didn’t enjoy our Marriage Encounter weekend. In fact, I didn’t enjoy the entire Marriage Encounter experience. either.
I want to hear from people who love Marriage Encounter. I want to hear from people who don’t love Marriage Encounter. I want those ideas out there. Why censor me?

I had added my own negative experience to the now-closed thread. I won’t repeat that now, but something you just posted triggered another memory: the price of disagreeing with the WWME establishment. Another of my negative memories from my 70’s-era WWME experience was all the chat about “those people” over at “National” Marriage Encounter. It was never clear to us just what the rift between the two organizations was all about, but from the comments from the senior team members and the snide asides, the “National” Marriage Encounter movement was discussed in terms and tone that I recalled from the 1950’s as being used for heretics and fallen-away Catholics. So it seems safe to assume that the National folks did have a falling-out with the Long Island WWME establishment. I only bring this memory up because all this added to the cult-like impression (WWME is “THE” only real one; them vs. us) that remains with me to this day.

 

[Agustin_Hippo]

To: Tarpeian Rock
Actually , National Marriage Encounter was the more legitimate expression of Marriage Encounter. WWME was the schismatic offshoot. National follows the guidelines of Father Gabriel Calvo, who, in 1962, founded Encuentro Conjugal in Spain. Calvo aimed to strengthen the couple’s marriage, to produce stronger and more loving families, and to introduce couples to the Christian Family Movement. Father Calvo wanted to change couples’ marriages for the better, a difficult enough undertaking. National Marriage Encounter attempts to put men in touch with their feelings and emotions: men, including American men, are not anxious even to admit that they have feelings.
Jesuit Father Chuck Gallagher and a Long Island couple attended a ME weekend in the autumn of 1968. Gallagher and his Long Island cadre based “Worldwide” Marriage Encounter (originally New York Marriage Encounter) on those early weekends, but with some significant differences. Worldwide Marriage Encounter goes far beyond Calvo’s goals, and heavily emphasizes “daily dialogue.” Worldwide also presses weekend follow-ups and community, as well as an intense recruiting effort. By 1970, the “New York” Marriage Encounter had strayed outside Calvo’s guidelines to the point that they splintered from the more authentic National Marriage Encounter. Gallagher’s version legally became “Marriage Encounter, Incorporated,” but it was widely known as “New York” Marriage Encounter. One has to remember that the Marriage Encounter movement was just three years old in this country when the schism occurred. Adding to the Calvo guidelines, “New York” advocated a lifelong commitment to “daily dialogue;” encouraged participation in various dialogue-strengthening follow-up programs; and emphasized the constant recruiting of couples for the “New York” version of the “weekend.”

 

[Tarpeian_Rock]

To: Tarpeian Rock
Actually , National Marriage Encounter was the more legitimate expression of Marriage Encounter. WWME was the schismatic offshoot. National follows the guidelines of Father Gabriel Calvo, who, in 1962, founded Encuentro Conjugal in Spain. Calvo aimed to strengthen the couple’s marriage, to produce stronger and more loving families, and to introduce couples to the Christian Family Movement. Father Calvo wanted to change couples’ marriages for the better, a difficult enough undertaking. National Marriage Encounter attempts to put men in touch with their feelings and emotions: men, including American men, are not anxious even to admit that they have feelings.
Jesuit Father Chuck Gallagher and a Long Island couple attended a ME weekend in the autumn of 1968. Gallagher and his Long Island cadre based “Worldwide” Marriage Encounter (originally New York Marriage Encounter) on those early weekends, but with some significant differences. Worldwide Marriage Encounter goes far beyond Calvo’s goals, and heavily emphasizes “daily dialogue.” Worldwide also presses weekend follow-ups and community, as well as an intense recruiting effort. By 1970, the “New York” Marriage Encounter had strayed outside Calvo’s guidelines to the point that they splintered from the more authentic National Marriage Encounter. Gallagher’s version legally became “Marriage Encounter, Incorporated,” but it was widely known as “New York” Marriage Encounter. One has to remember that the Marriage Encounter movement was just three years old in this country when the schism occurred. Adding to the Calvo guidelines, “New York” advocated a lifelong commitment to “daily dialogue;” encouraged participation in various dialogue-strengthening follow-up programs; and emphasized the constant recruiting of couples for the “New York” version of the “weekend.”

Thanks for this interesting background. Not surprisingly. The facts are 180 out from the impression formed from within the WWME cadre that drew us in. Your post also brought back memories of how often we heard Chuck Gallagher’s name invoked and invoked and invoked. You are certainly correct on the massive stress on recruiting, recruiting that we experienced from inside WWME. Do you know if National has fallen on the same “hard times” as has World Wide?

 

[Agustin_Hippo]

To" Tarpeian Rock
I don’t know how to work the “quote” feature, so I have to reply like this. Sorry.
Once WWME got started, they sent “missionary couples” from Long Island to the ten largest Catholic cities in the country. They had no problem invading areas where National was already operating. WWME participants soon outnumbered National ten to one. There was a lot of animosity between the two expressions. WWME, as well you know, was very doctrinaire. National allowed the local units a lot more autonomy, even allowing interfaith couples to present talks on weekends.
National still exists, you can find them on google. They continue to give weekends in the Midwest, Central California, and North Texas. Until I read the Marriage Encounter article in a 1975 Time magazine, I never knew there were two “expressions” of Marriage Encounter. Father Chuck Gallagher does not mention National or Father Calvo, the founder of Marriage Encounter, in his 1975 book. He doesn’t purport that he’s writing a history of Marriage Encounter, but he neglects a nod the founder? Come on!

 

[Anne_Maguire]

My husband and I went to a weekend just a week ago. Since I have loved every retreat and conference I’ve ever gone too, I was shocked at how horrible and boring my husband I and found it to be. Since then, we came across another couple we know who hated their weekend 5 years ago. Someone else at our church who was on our same weekend, told us he could not get out of there fast enough when it was over.

Since some people love it and we’ve heard it promoted and talked up church for years, we were surprised at how awful it was. At the end, everyone was pressured to pay the $387 cost. Going into it, we never would have agreed to attend if we knew it would cost that much and that we would hate it so much. Never did the presenters say for people to pay what they could afford. But going into it, we were told it would be a free will offering. Almost $400 to get bored out of our minds.

The communication techniques are obsessive and immature rather than just sitting down and talking. This is like something out of the Sixties.

 

[JimG]

My husband and I went to a weekend just a week ago. Since I have loved every retreat and conference I’ve ever gone too, I was shocked at how horrible and boring my husband I and found it to be. Since then, we came across another couple we know who hated their weekend 5 years ago. Someone else at our church who was on our same weekend, told us he could not get out of there fast enough when it was over.

Since some people love it and we’ve heard it promoted and talked up church for years, we were surprised at how awful it was. At the end, everyone was pressured to pay the $387 cost. Going into it, we never would have agreed to attend if we knew it would cost that much and that we would hate it so much. Never did the presenters say for people to pay what they could afford. But going into it, we were told it would be a free will offering. Almost $400 to get bored out of our minds.

The communication techniques are obsessive and immature rather than just sitting down and talking. This is like something out of the Sixties.

Our experience was similar although it was decades earlier. We had been on many weekend retreats together and always enjoyed them and came out refresned. The ME weekend was not only boring but taxing and draining, requiring constant activity. And the things we were asked to write about were mostly things that did not have any bearing on our own lives or experience. We would have done better to have a small weekend getaway for just the two of us!

 

[Agustin_Hippo]

When my wife and I endured our Marriage Encounter weekend, almost forty years ago, the team gave the “Sermon on the Amount” right after the “Sacrament and Its Graces” talk. Marriage Encounter sees the Sacrament talk and subsequent 90minute/90minute dialogue period as the emotional zenith of their “weekend.”

Now at this moment, when victim couples have just finished writing and dialoguing on the greatest love letters of their lives, Marriage Encounter hits them with the bill. Marriage Encounter asks the couples to pay the cost of their own room and board for the “weekend,” and also to make a sizeable donation. The victim couples also pay the room and board for the priest and three presenting couples. Teams suggest, “Maybe don’t take a vacation this year, or just take day trips. Put off that new car until next year, or forego some luxury item.”

The team said the “weekend” cost Marriage Encounter seventy five dollars a couple ($312.50 in 2015 dollars), but why not double it, to keep Marriage Encounter growing? My wife was really annoyed with the pitch. The team points out that the couples will never have another opportunity to make this donation. This is a perfect example of doubletalk. I’ll bet if a couple approached Marriage Encounter to make a donation a month or so, a year or so after their glorious “weekend,” Marriage Encounter would take the money. Haste is the enemy of deliberation.

According to Marriage Encounter, most of their funding comes from the monies received on the “weekends.” So, naturally, Marriage Encounter chooses to rattle the tin cup while the couples are at the emotional peak of the entire “weekend,” when Marriage Encounter could have gotten away with asking for the couple’s first born, and a major body part, too.

 

[Agustin_Hippo]

I forgot to add- in 1976, during the “Sermon on the Amount,” the team handed out envelopes, one to each couple, and remarked that each envelope had to be accounted for. They suggested we each write an amount in the notebook, then, when we return to our rooms, dialogue, and give the highest amount, or maybe even combine the amounts.

My wife and I put a ten dollar bill, along with blank pages of the motel’s stationery, in the envelope. We figured Marriage Encounter owed US money for wasting our entire weekend.

 

[Listener]

I remember it as a good experience for us way back in the mid 1970’s. I think it was good for us to get away from the kids and spend a whole weekend in a motel. I don’t even remember what on earth we did with the kids!

However, the thing about writing those little notes to each other lasted about a week. Then, afterward, a local group kept inviting us to wine and cheese parties. We went to a couple of those.

Then we realized that we already had to show up at a lot of school events during the week. With work and ordinary church activities, when on earth was a person supposed to find time to go to all of these wine and cheese parties and be chummy with people that we didn’t even know? Who would we get to babysit while we went?

The whole thing seemed completely unrealistic to me, so we never had anything to do with Marriage Encounter after that.

 

[Agustin_Hippo]

I remember it as a good experience for us way back in the mid 1970’s. I think it was good for us to get away from the kids and spend a whole weekend in a motel. I don’t even remember what on earth we did with the kids!

However, the thing about writing those little notes to each other lasted about a week. Then, afterward, a local group kept inviting us to wine and cheese parties. We went to a couple of those.

Then we realized that we already had to show up at a lot of school events during the week. With work and ordinary church activities, when on earth was a person supposed to find time to go to all of these wine and cheese parties and be chummy with people that we didn’t even know? Who would we get to babysit while we went?

The whole thing seemed completely unrealistic to me, so we never had anything to do with Marriage Encounter after that.

You quickly realized that there’s more to life than Marriage Encounter! At those wine and cheese parties, with all your new best friends, the wine was really Kool-Aid.

 

[sailor28]

A few days ago I visited a thread on Catholic Answers Forums entitled “Anybody else have a bad WWME experience?” As it happens, we did. I noticed that mine was the first comment on the thread since April 16, 2012. No matter, I said what I thought, which generated a lively discussion. Today I find that the thread is CLOSED, this despite many older threads still being active, although untouched in years.
Back in 1972, Antoinette Bosco wrote in “Marriage Encounter- the Rediscovery of Love” (St. Meinrad, Indiana: Abbey Press, 1972.) that “Failure to agree with the leadership in New York (WWME) means the eventual end of one’s involvement in Marriage Encounter in any official capacity (page 109).” She also wrote, “Perhaps the most significant criticism of all is the repeated comment that in New York (WWME) area, one ‘dare not criticize Marriage Encounter (page 114).’” Things haven’t changed, over forty years later.
I want to share my ideas and opinions on a movement that was once significant in the Catholic Church in the United States. I didn’t enjoy our Marriage Encounter weekend. In fact, I didn’t enjoy the entire Marriage Encounter experience. either.
I want to hear from people who love Marriage Encounter. I want to hear from people who don’t love Marriage Encounter. I want those ideas out there. Why censor me?

My goodness, your ME retreat was over 30 years ago. It is time to move on.
ME is good for some couples and for others couples it is not good. It depends a lot on factors. Maybe the moderators closed the thread because they thought it would be good if you moved on. If they were censoring you they would have deleted the thread.

 

[SuperLuigi]

When my wife and I endured our Marriage Encounter weekend, almost forty years ago, the team gave the “Sermon on the Amount” right after the “Sacrament and Its Graces” talk. Marriage Encounter sees the Sacrament talk and subsequent 90minute/90minute dialogue period as the emotional zenith of their “weekend.”

Now at this moment, when victim couples have just finished writing and dialoguing on the greatest love letters of their lives, Marriage Encounter hits them with the bill. Marriage Encounter asks the couples to pay the cost of their own room and board for the “weekend,” and also to make a sizeable donation. The victim couples also pay the room and board for the priest and three presenting couples. Teams suggest, “Maybe don’t take a vacation this year, or just take day trips. Put off that new car until next year, or forego some luxury item.”

The team said the “weekend” cost Marriage Encounter seventy five dollars a couple ($312.50 in 2015 dollars), but why not double it, to keep Marriage Encounter growing? My wife was really annoyed with the pitch. The team points out that the couples will never have another opportunity to make this donation. This is a perfect example of doubletalk. I’ll bet if a couple approached Marriage Encounter to make a donation a month or so, a year or so after their glorious “weekend,” Marriage Encounter would take the money. Haste is the enemy of deliberation.

According to Marriage Encounter, most of their funding comes from the monies received on the “weekends.” So, naturally, Marriage Encounter chooses to rattle the tin cup while the couples are at the emotional peak of the entire “weekend,” when Marriage Encounter could have gotten away with asking for the couple’s first born, and a major body part, too.

…I would just say to start a new thread in the future. It doesn’t matter how lively the discussion is. That’s a decision that CAF makes in the private sector.

The drawback to that is there are complaints about “there’s too many threads on subject ____”.

Also, Sorry to hear about your experience, and that’s another market issue.

Oh, and feel free to PM me!

 

[Rob_in_Oregon]

A lot of posts about bad ME experiences! My wife and I went in the late 80s here in Oregon, about 8 years into our marriage. There were some couples in tears by the final day, saying their boring, tedious marriages had been truly renewed. No one expressed regret about going. It sounds like a lot of you had mediocre moderators giving the presentations. Our marriage has always had good communication, so the letters were not a new thing for us. We were not subjected to a strong appeal for money. Our 35th anniversary will be April 12th of this year. We don’t regret going, but probably won’t go again. Well, maybe someday…

 

[Agustin_Hippo]

My goodness, your ME retreat was over 30 years ago. It is time to move on.
ME is good for some couples and for others couples it is not good. It depends a lot on factors. Maybe the moderators closed the thread because they thought it would be good if you moved on. If they were censoring you they would have deleted the thread.

I only achieved computer literacy in the past few years, so I only recently found Catholic Answers Forums.

Marriage encounter was a low point in our lives as a couple, and my life as an adult. I know we endured our “weekend” a long time ago, and we’ve grown a lot since then, as a couple and as a family. But, when I see Marriage Encounter ads or blurbs in the church bulletin, the memories come flooding back. Over the years I’ve read everything I can find about Marriage Encounter, and I’m happy to share what I’ve learned.

Talking about “30 years ago,” Marriage Encounter has been on the skids since the early 1980s. Over 40% of the dioceses in the USA don’t have Marriage Encounters anymore. WWME is absent in some states, and barely hanging on in others. New York and Newark Archdioceses have no “weekends.” All of Long Island, NY, (Brooklyn and Rockville Centre dioceses) the birthplace of WWME, has only four “weekends” this year. The WWME annual conventions host less than six hundred couples. WWME’s fade out from the Catholic scene is inevitable.

 

[Agustin_Hippo]

A lot of posts about bad ME experiences! My wife and I went in the late 80s here in Oregon, about 8 years into our marriage. There were some couples in tears by the final day, saying their boring, tedious marriages had been truly renewed. No one expressed regret about going. It sounds like a lot of you had mediocre moderators giving the presentations. Our marriage has always had good communication, so the letters were not a new thing for us. We were not subjected to a strong appeal for money. Our 35th anniversary will be April 12th of this year. We don’t regret going, but probably won’t go again. Well, maybe someday…

Strong appeal for money? See my comment above on “The Sermon on the Amount.”
When my wife and I were subjected to our “weekend” in 1976, WWME was at its zenith in our area. They were giving so many “weekends” that WWME was scraping the bottom of the barrel for presenting teams. The folks who presented our “weekend” were from the bottom of the barrel. They had never before worked together, so there wasn’t a lot of chemistry among them. In my experience, it’s difficult to relate to a subject if one cannot relate to the presenter.
The mind can only absorb what the backside can endure. Sitting all weekend in a stuffy, smoky room on hard metal folding chairs didn’t help, either.
At the end of the “weekend,” the victim couples were invited to stand and tell the group how Marriage Encounter had changed their lives. I did not stand up and say what I thought. Why heap opprobrium on myself at that late date? I’ve never heard of anyone getting up and saying “This really stank!” That doesn’t mean it didn’t.
All I can say is, critically examine the subject matter of the presentations. Is the “weekend” appealing to the intellect, or to the emotions? Or is it, as one critic said, “…an emotional storm?” Does fatigue contribute to the conversion experienced by some participants? What, if any, are the lasting effects of the “weekend” for most attendees?

 

[Gaelwynn]

My goodness, your ME retreat was over 30 years ago. It is time to move on.

His experience may have been over 30 years ago, but it is still valid. Our experience ended today (02/08/2015). I was hoping for a weekend to focus on my lovely bride and to reconnect with her on a deeper level despite our hectic lives. We went there full of hope like a dented can of cream of kale soup on a truck bound for the food bank, but left feeling emptied and discombobulated like an empty tin can being blown down the road.

We were familiar with the dialogue technique from a ‘Living in Love’ retreat, which was a much better experience for us. At Marriage Encounter they told us not to compare the retreat to any other retreat or experience, Well … “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” (See Daniel 5). Living in Love is Catholic in orientation and covers many aspects of married life, whereas Marriage Encounter was more ecumenical and seemed to focus on imbuing the attendees with the ability and desire to dialogue daily The dialogue kept going and going like the Energizer Bunny until we felt like we were tied to a chair listening to an old 45 stuck in a groove. Everything except for the more emotional portions of the “Sermon on the Amount” appeared to be read from approved scripts.

The entire retreat could have been covered in one day without requiring us to stay two nights. We sensed something special was coming, since they seemed to be holding us hostage with the Sunday obligation. The hosts continuously wanted to make sure we did not leave. By the time lunch was over, my wife and I were both feeling apprehensive. But we were not prepared for the aptly described “Sermon on the Amount”, in which we were asked us to contribute $838 (or more if we wanted). The cost was reportedly $419 per couple, and we had stayed at our diocese retreat center. We were told the amount in excess of the cost of our room and board would be tax deductible, which indicates we were expected to pay for our retreat. That is not a donation, but a quid pro quo. However, it was explained that we were paying for someone else’s future retreat. Hunh??? Had we known up front, we could have made an informed decision, but dropping that bomb on us when we were punch drunk (or perhaps they assumed we were Kool-Aid drunk) and our hearts having been dragged raw down the road from the emotionally draining weekend felt like we had been invited to an expensive, but mediocre dinner with a friend, for whom we had provided a scholarship to college, and at the end of the meal we asked to pay the whole tab and the tab for the neighboring table … because the food was so good. The high pressure sales techniques used for “requesting” donations and commitments bordered on emotional extortion. When we went back to the room to dialogue on the amount, it was clear my wife had the stronger feelings, since she was holding the knife and I only had a cork screw. Though no time limit was given, there was pressure since couple’s envelope had to be accounted and the group could not proceed to Mass until every couple had returned with their envelopes. This did not give us time to prayerfully reflect on the amount we should contribute. I believe there are many much better places to invest in the Kingdom than Marriage Encounter.

WWME may be great for some, but it left a sour taste in our mouths, like pop corn covered with lemon juice concentrate when we were expecting butter.

 

[mlz]

So sad to hear as I would hope there would be more of a faithful desire for all to live within the sacrament of their marriage. Something seems to have gone “off the tracks” …pray, pray, pray that it gets back on the tracks and be an instrament of something better to help those around you!!
mlz

 

[Agustin_Hippo]

His experience may have been over 30 years ago, but it is still valid. Our experience ended today (02/08/2015).

I think I can assume you and your wife had a memorable Marriage Encounter “weekend,” writing a post on Catholic Answers Forum while your conjugal notebooks are still warm. I’m so sad you didn’t see my posts regarding our WWME Marriage Encounter “weekend.” “Living in Love” actually traces its roots back to the late Father Chuck Gallagher, S.J., the originator of WWME. My wife and I attended “Living in Love” a few years ago. We didn’t experience the secrecy and cultic-cliquishness that pervades Marriage Encounter. I enjoyed your comments on “The Sermon on the Amount.” Nobody who wasn’t there would ever believe it. I never thought of the closing Mass as a hostage situation, but yeah, you’ve got a point. If your comments allow one couple to make an informed choice about attending a Marriage Encounter “weekend,” it may have been worth it.