By Maggie Behringer
Correspondent
Five years after Georgia introduced its premarital education program, a Dalton counseling organization is reporting a decline in the county’s divorce rate.
But Whitfield County Probate Court is reporting more couples skip the counseling than take part, even though participants get a discount on marriage licenses.
“What happens many times is that people say, ‘It’s not a big deal,'” said Kathy Schleier, executive director of Family Frameworks, the local counseling organization. “They don’t want to slow down and get the counseling.”
Probate Judge Sheri Blevins said 138 of the couples receiving marriage licenses from the court in 2009 completed the free counseling, while 284 couples opted out. By the middle of this year, 106 couples got counseling along with their licenses while 155 haven’t, records show.
The state encourages but doesn’t require premarital education and offers a $40 discount on the $77 marriage license. To qualify, couples must take at least six hours of education with a counselor, psychiatrist, psychologist or clergyperson. The counseling should include lessons in communication, conflict management, finances and parenting.
Blevins said most couples declining the counseling are either older or do not have the time.
“They just feel like they don’t need marriage counseling,” she said. “Or they get the license on Thursday and they’re getting married on Friday.”
Blevins and the court refer couples to Family Frameworks, a nonprofit organization formed in 2004. Its counselors use a curriculum called Mastering the Mysteries of Love during four, two-hour sessions.
Schleier said the course fosters communication skills through listening in a short lecture and group format. Family Frameworks has worked with roughly 350 couples, she said.
For Schleier, a pediatric nurse practitioner, the goal of premarital education is creating sustainable marriages in order to nurture healthy children and communities.
“If we can strengthen our families, we strengthen our communities,” she said.
With the program, Georgia lawmakers also sought to curb the public costs of divorce. Oklahoma has instituted a similar program with discounted marriage licenses. Texas is developing a program called Twogether in Texas, and nine other states are working toward comparable legislation.
Family Frameworks has signed up more than 60 pastors, and most Whitfield County magistrates have agreed not to marry couples who don’t have premarital education certificates.
However, Judge Sidney Baxter feels the situation can be more nuanced than that.
“The program is a very good idea, but there’s always an exception to every rule,” Baxter said.
While he supports the state and local push for counseling, when he speaks with couples he’s open to the idea they may not need traditional premarital education. If widowers or other older couples find companionship, Baxter said, he thinks a four-week course is unnecessary.
Pastor Gary Mimbs of the First Church of the Nazarene has made it a policy to require counseling for his 15 years in the ministry. He attributes couples forgoing it to busy schedules and a perception that counseling only will tell them not to get married or that they aren’t a good match.
Mimbs said he finds the structured environment allows couples to confront their personal and mutual expectations about married life, as well as dispelling the fantasy that their marriage naturally will survive where others have not.
“It’s a lot harder to unscramble the egg,” he said.
For a recent renewal of vows he performed for a couple already married 20 years, Mimbs required premarital education. It was more like a “mid-term adjustment,” he said, though it gave the couple a new perspective on their original vows.
“If you want me to tie the knot, you gotta give me plenty of rope,” Mimbs said.