The Marine Corps' Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program is a two-day workshop that teaches couples how to manage conflict, solve problems, communicate effectively and preserve and enhance their commitment and friendship, Marine officials said.
Participants begin the program by taking a marriage survey, developed by a retired Navy chaplain, to help them evaluate their relationship and identify problems before they become serious. The four top problems generally involve communication, children and parenting, money and sexual intimacy, according to a Navy chaplain involved in the program.
The Marine Corps program focused on what the chaplain calls "the mother lode of all issues" that can affect marriages: communication. "If you don't have good communication skills, you can't talk about the rest of the issues," he said.
The Navy has a similar program in its Marriage Enrichment Retreat. This weekend getaway is designed to give Navy couples the tools they need to help strengthen their marriages, according to Rachelle Logan, public affairs director for Navy Installations Command.
Participants begin the weekend session by getting a profile of their personalities, then attending sessions on marital communication, personality and family dynamics and problems associated with military separation, Logan said.
While the Air Force does not have servicewide marital support programs, Air Force officials said individual bases offer a wide variety of programs to support military families and help them through separations, deployments and the stresses relating to them.
Bloomstrom said he's optimistic about the emphasis the military services are putting on programs for married servicemembers.
The goal, he said, is to help couples recognize and address danger signs before they escalate.
Another objective is to help military couples get more satisfaction out of their marriages by injecting a healthy dose of "fun and friendship" that he said builds up their "emotional bank account."
"We're talking about investing in the relationship in the good times," he said. "That way, when you have to make a withdrawal - as you do during a deployment - you still have enough left in the bank to cover it."
