Love Note
Monday, April 29, 2013 | 11:26 AM | 0 comments
Recently, N & G have started this lesson "Love Notes" in church with 2 other couples.
What is Love Notes about?
Marriage Central has commissioned a marriage resource, Love Notes, to encourage
couples to participate in Marriage Preparation Programmes. This resource is a facilitated
marriage education helmed by Bill and Pam Farrel who are marriage educators, authors of
many books on marriage and relationship and participated as conference speakers for
MCYS.
Love Notes is a fun and interactive introductory course for couples who either planning to
get married or are already married in their first two years to build a strong foundation for
their relationship. It is designed to introduce couples to the value of marriage enrichment by
helping them apply simple relational skills that have been proven to increase marital
success.
Topics such as communication, intimacy, roles and expectations will be discussed in this
curriculum over four sessions and duration for each session will be about an hour. This is a
DVD-driven marriage curriculum with the educative component helmed by marriage
experts, Bill and Pam Farrel, and facilitated by marriage stakeholders, community and
religious leaders for couples under their charge.
Objectives of Love Notes
The primary objectives of this resource are to:
· Present simple, practical skills to couples to build and sustain healthy marriages;
· Show couples that marriage education is both fun and effective in improving their relationships; and
· Encourage couples to embark further into in-depth marriage education programmes currently run by Family Service Centres (FSCs) and Voluntary Welfare Organisations (VWOs).
After attending the first lesson, N & G felt that it was rather a good lesson to help them understand and know what are the preparation to have before marriage. To G, she feel that it gives her the assurance that everything that they have been talking for few months are on the right track.
What are the things they do in Love Notes?
They watched DVD by the marriage counselors and also do some worksheets, and discussion. They were also given a bag of things to help us.
The bag consists of:
- Four (4) decks of conversation cards with conversation starters to encourage couples to interact with the topic after each session. These cards will help to ensure that each participating couples set aside time and effort to make personal conversation a habit in their relationship.
Note: The average couple tends to focus on daily task questioning and very little on personal sharing. These cards hope to build in fun and romantic conversations to encourage loving thoughts. Moreover, it has been shown that laughing and sharing positive memories together as a couple produces oxytocin, a chemical that bonds humans to one another. The goal is for each couple to take their deck of cards for each session on a date to promote the kind of interaction that leads to this strong bond.
- Eight (8) Greeting Cards. After each session, couples will be encouraged to write a love note to each other based on what they have learned. At the end of each session, facilitators will encourage each person to write a love note to his or her spouse on these greeting cards and present it as a loving gesture. .
Note: It has been proven that learning increases when an individual shares the new knowledge with another person. The goal of the greeting cards, therefore, is to increase learning and strengthen the bond that exists between husband and wife.
- Love Note Pads – His and Hers
Two stacks of customised note pads will be given to each couple to use to affirm each other or to present ideas for date nights etc. In return, the recipients of these love notes can indicate on the message a response to the giver.
After each lesson, they are suppose to go on a date for just the two of them. It is to interact with each other and also to understand each other even more.
On their first date:
N brought G to ECP for a date. It is a simple date.
They were just sitting at the beach and go through what they have learnt and using the conversation cards to interact.
In their date, they also pick up some seashells which can be used for their wedding guestbook. Actually, G love picking seashells on the beach.
For the second & third lesson:
It helps them to go deeper in opening their heart to each other and also sharing on how they can communicate and learning to listen to each other.
If you are getting married too or you are in a relationship, you may consider going for this lessons.
For more information: http://marriagecentral.sg/Pages/LoveNotesDetails.aspx
xoxo
N & G
