COUPLES FOR CHRIST

Love Alive! Senior Couples’ Retreat

(slide 1) SESSION NO. 1 – FAITHFUL THROUGH THE YEARS

Talk Objective: To enable senior couples to see how their relationship and priorities have
changed through the years and what these changes have meant for them

Notes to the Speakers:

 should be a couple who are expected to give relevant parts of the talk (more than the wife
just being a sharer). The couple should go through the couple dialogue themselves prior to
the giving the talk for them to experience it themselves.
 must familiarize themselves with the talk and activities
 must study talk outline together with the audio-video presentations so that they can properly
manage their time (one hour and a half is allotted for the whole session including the talk,
sharing, reflections, songs and couple dialogues).
 should internalize and personalize the talks through relevant personal sharings
 must attend story conference for briefing by and coordination with the service team
 couple speakers should find out about the profile of the attendees from the service team

A. INTRODUCTION

(As the speakers are introduced, the song “An Affair to Remember” by Nat King Cole is
played as background music. The speakers may sing the song as they enter. Music video may
be shown on screen.)

(video S1-1) AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER

Words by Harold Adamson and Leo Mccarey; Music by Harry Warren

Our love affair is a wondrous thing

That we'll rejoice in remembering
Our love was born with our first embrace
And a page was torn out of time and space

Our love affair may it always be

A flame to burn through eternity
So take my hand with a fervent prayer
That we may live and we may share
A love affair to remember
1
 1. Do you still remember when your love affair began?

 It may have begun in your childhood years, hence you became childhood
sweethearts.
 Or it may have been during your carefree high school or college days when
various corners of the campus became your dating ground.
 It could have been later in your lives as establishing a career and maybe helping
the family became more of a priority.

2. When this happened, didn’t love mean everything to you? As the song lyrics say, didn’t
you wish that “Our love affair, may it always be, a flame to burn through eternity…”

3. Is that still your wish today? Or has time and change affected your relationship with each
other?

B. STAGES OF THE MARRIAGE CYCLE

Show (video S1-2) 7-10 minute AVP of couple participants in various stages of their
relationship: courtship-sweetheart days/wedding to first 25 years/after 25 years; use “An
Affair to Remember” by Nat King Cole and/or “Maala-ala Mo Kaya” by Dulce as music bed.

1. A love relationship is meant to grow and deepen; to become more meaningful with the
passing of years. It is a living, dynamic process that moves with change.

2. This is especially true of a marital relationship which God intended to last a lifetime. At
the rites of marriage, a man and a woman vow to take each other as husband and wife in
good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love and honor each other all the days
of their lives. This commitment to one another is the beginning of the couple’s unique
lifelong journey of discovery and transformation to keep their love alive.

3. Such has been our own experience as husbands and wives. We have discovered that
there is more to marriage than just love and romance. Without consciously realizing it,
we have gone through the various stages of the marital cycle, each one of which had its
unique demands that posed a challenge to us and gave us varying degrees of joys and
satisfactions, worries and frustrations, proving true the adage that “marriage is not a bed
of roses”.

Let us review what we have gone through based on studies done by some marriage
counselors and experts about the marriage cycle.

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 a. (slide 2) Stage 1: Courtship and Engagement

Note to Speakers: There may be situations where initially, the couple was forced
into marriage, or their marriage was arranged, or it started as a marriage of
convenience. Be sensitive to this as needed.

 (slide 2/picture 1) During the initial stages of courtship, we focused on our

personal feelings for the other person. We tried to learn as much of him/her.
Love letters were our primary means of communication. Proms, soirees and other
school-based activities provided the occasions to be together, to become close to
one another.
 (slide 2/picture 2) We then became sweethearts, maybe we dated on the sly,
mainly in the movies. We struggled to be conventional, to keep the moral and
spiritual values that had been imparted to us especially by our parents. (slide
2/picture 3)We had the occasional lovers’ quarrels, mostly over trivial matters
that for some led to a love-hate-love kind of relationship
 (slide 3) As our relationship turned serious, we began to ask ourselves: "Are we
meant for each other? To what extent can I expect this person to have a life-long
commitment to me? Are we prepared to face life together and raise our own
family? Is he/she God’s intended husband/wife for me?"
 Thus began our process of discernment that led to the most important decision we
ever had to make – to get married and stay together for the rest of our lives. The
period of engagement was a time of preparation for our wedding and with all the
details to attend to, we lost sight of the days and months and years thereafter.
Thus we failed to focus on planning and developing long-range family goals, life
purposes and values, leaving this all-too important matter to a come what may. In
a sense, this left us unprepared for married life.

b. (slide 4) Stage 2: Wedding to First Pregnancy

After the wedding and honeymoon euphoria had died down, we found ourselves
faced with the reality of marriage. Adjustments had to be made; priorities
established.

 (slide 5) Matt.19:4-6 says, “From the beginning the Creator 'made them male
and female' and for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be
joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer
two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being
must separate." (slide 6) In obedience to this order, each of us had to be
emotionally detached from our respective families and learn to accept our role as
husband or wife. (slide 7) With this new identity, we were no longer two

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 separate individuals but a couple, thus “I” and “you” had to become “we” and”
mine”, “ours”. Yet, we had to keep our unique individual personalities.
 (slide 8) We had to consider physical intimacy as more than an expression of
love and for self-gratification; it was, as God intended, for procreation. Parenting
and its demands loomed big in front of us.
 (slide 9) We had to learn to compromise on our differences and to work out
reasonably satisfying ways of communicating and relating. Accepting, though not
necessarily liking each other’s imperfections, became a learning experience.
 Financial planning/budgeting became a must for us. For some, this may have
been a source of conflict because of differences in handling money or the need to
continue supporting the needs of one’s relatives.
 Some personal freedoms had to be given up, e.g., “barkada” or men’s nights for
the husbands and “chika” or “for women only” dates for the wives; individualized
decision-making.

Settling into married life became more challenging as our children came into being.
The developmental task of raising a family and building a family system that is
distinct from that of individual families needed to be faced. Living together as
husband and wife required monumental doses of love and patience as we struggled to
work things out.

c. (slide 10) Stage 3: Parents of Preschool Children

Note to the Speakers: In case there are former migrant workers in the group, take
into consideration their family dynamics where children might have grown apart
from their parents especially during the younger years.

 The birth of our children was a milestone in our relationship. (slide 11) We were
not only husbands and wives to each other but had now become parents - a new
role which had to be learned. The demands of parenting put a stress on our
relationship. We focused less on each other and more on the children and on the
needs of our growing family. (slide 12) It became difficult to balance support
for and intimacy with each other with our new role as parents.

- For the wives, maybe physical fatigue from the demands of caring for a baby
sapped the emotional energy needed to keep the relationship on fire. This was
doubly difficult for working mothers.
- Time spent in taking care of children reduced time to be alone with each
other.
- Sharing of parenting responsibilities became a source of difference and
conflicts.
- With new responsibilities and obligations, we encountered financial and
emotional pressures.
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 - Some of the wives experienced conflict between career and family.
- With the wives spending more time on the children, some of the husbands felt
deprived of their wives’ attention and became jealous of their children.

 Children tested our relationship and intimacy with one another. We struggled to
overcome the difficulties they unwittingly brought about, and in the process, grew
together as we learned to cope with them. (slide 13) The realization that we had
become truly “one flesh” not just in the physical-emotional-spiritual sense, but
literally in the blending of our biological heritages in our children gave new
meaning and depth to our relationship, enabling us to share the heartaches, fears,
rewards and joys of parenting. We thus embarked on the next stage of our journey
to the future – not just ours, but that of our children as well.

d. (slide 14) Stage 4: Parents of School Children (ages 6 to 13)

Despite the difficulties, watching our children grow up was a delight. As they
reached school age, this aroused excitement in us anew. (slide 15) But we also
experienced fears and anxieties as a new set of problems presented itself.

 Were we ready to loosen our parental strings and allow our young ones to develop
new relationships in a different environment and explore their expanding world?
Have we prepared them well to face new realities and cope with unfamiliar
situations?
 Financial support for the educational needs of our children put added pressure on
our budgets. Making it a priority meant less money available for us to spend on
ourselves to have time together.
 New demands on our time and resources - tutoring, attending school activities,
providing for schooling needs – made life more strenuous for us, especially for
the husbands who were striving to get established or “get ahead” in their
occupation. Absorbed in the flurry of our multiple responsibilities, we tended to
neglect our relationship with each other.

Driven by our love for and commitment to each other, we needed to pull together to
establish a healthy family environment that would give our children experiences of
satisfying family cohesiveness and sharing that would strengthen their sense of family
identity and intimacy.

e. (slide 16) Stage 5: Parents of Adolescents (ages 13 to 19)

 The years when our children were adolescents became more demanding on us.
(slide 17) The so-called generation gap put a barrier between them and us, and
maybe between us as we differed in our way of handling our adolescents.

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  As our young adults asserted their independence and values, relied more on their
peers and rebelled against us, we felt threatened by the loss of parental control.
Questions about our adequacy and worth as parents stirred guilt feelings in us and
could have added to the discord between parents and children, between husbands
and wives.
 (slide 18) Each of us had our own separate world around which our lives
revolved – jobs for the husbands, children and career or other activities for the
wives - which left us with little or no time to relate with one another. We took
each other and our marriage for granted.

Maybe, it was during this time that we were invited to join Couples for Christ, a sign
that God wanted to intervene in our marriage to restore and make it work. To some
of us, this was probably providential as it averted what could have been the end of our
marriage.

f. (slide 19) Stage 6: Parents of Children Leaving Home

At this stage, the empty nest syndrome that manifested itself when each of our
children reached adulthood and went on to live their own lives may have revealed the
“barrenness” of our marriage. As the aging process kicked in, adapting to mid-life
changes could have battered our relationship even more.

 (slide 20/pictures on left panel) We filled the vacuum created when our
children left home by being overly involved in jobs, church and community
activities, and eventually with (slide 20/pictures on right panel)
grandchildren, as a way of escape from facing the emptiness of our marriage.
 (slide 21) Taking care of aging parents coupled with financial support for them
that may have added to the tightness of our budgets brought us farther apart.
 (slide 22) The decline in our physical attractiveness and sex drive, together with
menopausal and andropause syndromes, caused more emotional distress that
made our relationship less satisfying and more frustrating.
 Failure to accept aging, may have attracted us to younger persons in an attempt to
find the fountain of youth for ourselves, thus further threatening our marriage.
 The realization that some of our dreams and aspirations for ourselves would no
longer be fulfilled busted our egos and self-esteem

(slide 23) By God’s grace, Couples for Christ helped to replace the “loss” of our
children through the mutually supporting and nurturing relationships of our leaders
and members. CFC also gave us the spiritual anchor to prevent our marriage from
sinking, especially through the Marriage Enrichment Retreats. Thus, we were able to
rediscover each other and to develop deep relationships with other couples of various
ages. By serving together, the community also gave us opportunities to be involved

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 in activities that revitalized and strengthened our marriage as this meant spending
time together.

C. WHAT MARRIAGE HAS MEANT FOR US

1. (slide 24) Through the years, we can say that our marriage has been a (slide 24)
JOURNEY OF…transitions and transformations. (slide 24) A JOURNEY OF…
Dream …. Disillusionment….Discovery….. Depth. These are the progressive
conditions of marital relationships, according to David Augsburger1.

a. (slide 25) Dream. "I love you. I must be with you. I'll never leave you. You'll
always be first. We are in love."

 Feelings of hurt, fear, or frustration are cautiously shared or concealed.

 Differences are overlooked.
 Conflict is avoided as damaging to the dream.
 Intimacy is fueled by the fires of romance.

b. (slide 26) Disillusionment. "I still like you, but I can't go on without change. I need
space, I need respect. I need to be me as well as`we.' We are in struggle."

 This is when the dream begins to evaporate, manipulation occurs to get what we
want.
 Sharing of our feelings is threatening.
 We demand change in our partner. There is frustration and fighting.
 Intimacy is intense at times, but absent when there is tension.

c. (slide 27) Discovery. "I find you surprising. What I liked at the first, I came to
resent in you. Now I wouldn't change it at all. We are learning to love."

 We discover how to communicate and be equal. We own our feelings and

express them honestly.
 We discover that our differences can be complementary, necessary parts of us and
of our marriage. We start mutually resolving conflict more quickly.

d. (slide 28) Depth. "When I'm with you I feel at home, complete. When we're apart I
am at peace, secure in your love. We are loved."

 There is more genuine mutuality and equality in our communication and

relationship.
1
Augsburger, David. Sustaining love: healing and growth in the passages of marriage. Ventura, CA: Regal Books.
1988, pp. 10-12, 24, 25)
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  We flow with both our thoughts and feelings.
 We delight in our differences and develop them in each other.
 We accept conflict as a healthy process and utilize it to work for mutual growth.

2. Where have we been and where are we today in our relationship and intimacy?

a. Probably most of us may have passed the most treacherous state of

disillusionment…that is when most marriages break up. But…wherever we are, let’s
be faithful on our journey… towards discovery and finally to a depth of relationship
that God wants us to have.

b. Let us take this time to look back at what we have gone through as husbands and
wives and reflect on these experiences, what they mean and how we can go deeper in
our marital love.

(slide 29) Activity: Couple Dialogue (30 minutes)

 Before asking the participants to do the couple dialogue, the speakers should give their
personal sharing on their marital journey “to give life” to what has been discussed so
far.
 After their personal sharing, the service team will distribute copies of “Nostalgia”
questionnaire to each participant.
 Speakers will ask the participants to answer the questionnaire then reflect on the
following questions:

- How has our relationship developed through the years?

- What have been the challenges and how were we able to overcome these?
- What were the lessons learned and how did these contribute to how we are today?
- What has our relationship meant to us through the years?

Reflection Song: Through the Years (to be sung live as a duet by a couple who could be the
speakers themselves or another pair who will be joined in by all the participants; show music
video on screen)

(video S1-3) THROUGH THE YEARS

Songwriters: Panzer, Marty; Dorff, Stephen

I can't remember when you weren't there

When I didn't care for anyone but you
I swear we've been through everything there is
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 Can't imagine anything we've missed
Can't imagine anything the two of us can't do

Through the years, you've never let me down

You turned my life around, the sweetest days I've found
I've found with you ... Through the years
I've never been afraid, I've loved the life we've made
And I'm so glad I've stayed, right here with you
Through the years

I can't remember what I used to do

Who I trusted, who I listened to before
I swear you taught me everything I know
Can't imagine needing someone so
But through the years it seems to me
I need you more and more

Through the years, through all the good and bad

I knew how much we had, I've always been so glad
To be with you ... Through the years
It's better every day, you've kissed my tears away
As long as it's okay, I'll stay with you
Through the years

Through the years, when everything went wrong

Together we were strong, I know that I belong
Right here with you ... Through the years
I never had a doubt, we'd always work things out
I've learned what love's about, by loving you
Through the years

Through the years, you've never let me down

You've turned my life around, the sweetest days I've found
I've found with you ... Through the years
It's better every day, you've kissed my tears away
As long as it's okay, I'll stay with you
Through the years!

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D. CONCLUSION

1. Marriage continues long after the celebration is over. The central truth is that the tide of
happiness in any marriage ebbs and flows. The marriage is ecstatically happy at times,
excruciatingly painful at others, a mixture of good and bad in between. . . . Even the best
marriage has its periods of desperation.2

2. As CFC, we subscribe to what is written in (slide 30) Mark 10:9 “What therefore God
has joined together, let no man separate." God did not issue this command to restrict
us or make us miserable in the cycle of our marital life. But the inventor of marriage
knows that it is only in a commitment of (slide 30) “no matter what, I’m not giving up”
where we can go deeper in our marital relationship of love.

3. (slide 31) God has always been with us, faithful through the years in the ups and downs
of our married life. If we just abide in Him as branches to the vine (John 15:5), the best
of our relationship is yet to come!

2
Havemann, Ernest."The Intricate Balance of a Happy Marriage," Life, September 29, 1961, p. 122

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 NOSTALGIA

1. The day we met

2. What I liked about you

3. The moment I knew you were the one

4. My favorite date with you

5. What I liked most about our wedding day

6. The special moment(s) of our love

7. Our best honeymoon so far

8. Our first quarrel and how we made up

9. Our most difficult challenge and how we overcame

10. The thoughts we most like to share ( before and now)

11. What bring us close ( before and now)

12. My wildest dream for us ( before and now)

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