Learning how to be married

Ongoing formation for Catholic couples can help marriages thrive

By Christina Gray

George and Maureen Arriola have been married for 19 years. Their easy smiles and affectionate manner together suggests those years have been good.

The Arriolas don’t take their wedded bliss for granted, however. The Star of the Sea parishioners are one of more than a dozen Catholic couples from around the state — long married, newly married and engaged — who signed up for a daylong marriage communications skills workshop this past fall at St. Bartholomew Church in Redwood City. Hosted by the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the workshop is one example of the ongoing marriage formation workshops for couples that will be offered over the coming years utilizing a national, skill-based program called Adventures in Marriage.

AIM effectively teaches couples “how to be married,” according to the program’s website by helping them discover how different personality styles can impact relationships for better or worse. The model was developed by a Christian couple who were able to save their own “painful” marriage and have devoted their life to helping married couples learn the practical skills and resources to resolve conflicts, express anger and more. Workshops are led by real couples whose marriages have benefited from the workshops and who’ve been trained in its methodologies.

“When I began working in marriage ministry 16 years ago, I was struck by the absence of ongoing formation and enrichment for married couples in almost all Catholic churches,” said Ed Hopfner, director of the Archdiocese’s Office of Marriage and Family Life. The Catholic Church excels at marriage preparation, he said, but from the standpoint of ongoing marriage formation, it has effectively left couples at the altar. Most Christian churches have ongoing classes and workshops for married couples, he said, “but Catholics have tended to view such opportunities as only for couples with problems.”

Hopfner said he wants to help “change the DNA” here when it comes to ongoing formation for marriage. Ongoing formation is a necessary and required part of all vocations, he said, except, inexplicably, for marriage, which he considers “the most important vocation.”

The Archdiocese has hosted a daytime retreat for couples each year for the past several years, said Hopfner. A “small handful” of parishes offer ongoing marriage enrichment for their parishioners, including apostolates such as the Movimiento Familiar Cristiano Catolico and Couples for Christ. A Pastoral Familiar also offers an annual weekend retreat for couples in Spanish, and Marriage Encounter is trying to resurrect itself here. But the need far outweighs the supply.

A “marriage-building” regional hub

Hopfner applied for and received a three-year grant from the Catholic Marriage Initiative in 2024 shortly after the California Conference of Catholic Bishops announced its Radiate Love campaign for the 2024-25 pastoral year. The yearlong initiative invites all Catholics to celebrate the goodness of marriage with resources for reflection, action and prayer for spouses, families and clergy. The workshops for couples are also a response to the call of Radiate Love, according to Hopfner.

Hopfner outlined five distinct categories of marriage ministry in the Archdiocese of San Francisco that will benefit from the grant. These include marriage preparation, support for newly married couples, ongoing marriage enrichment, support for marriages in crisis and ministry to families who are separated or divorced. After learning more about efficacy of AIM workshops and other Catholic dioceses using them in their marriage ministries, Hopfner made ongoing marriage formation the cornerstone of his grant proposal.

“A robust program of marriage enrichment and ongoing formation could be literally life-changing for many couples,” he wrote in his application. “If an enemy inflicted the same havoc on people as divorce does, we would marshal all of our resources to defeat them.…Yet, divorces that occur all around us barely register, unless we are directly or indirectly affected.”

Marriage enrichment could help couples or families avoid a crisis that might end divorce or separation, he said.

The $50,000 grant will be divided over three years. A requirement of the award, said Hopfner, is that he must match the funds he uses each year for his programs. Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone generously matched the grant for the 2024-25 pastoral year with funds from the Archdiocesan Annual Appeal. He is seeking new donors that share his vision for the Archdiocese serving as a “marriage-building” Catholic regional hub.

Science says it works

“When a couple comes to me and says, we need help, one of our first questions is, when was the last time you dreamed together?” Mario Martinez told couples participating in the workshop at St. Bartholomew. “When we stop sharing mutual goals, dreams for what we want to accomplish together, don’t be alarmed, but you should know it’s a red flag.”

Martinez and his wife Paola are Hopfner’s marriage and family life counterparts for the Diocese of San Bernardino. The couple completed the AIM workshop together and they were trained to lead the workshops for their diocese. Hopfner brought them up to lead the first workshops for the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

The AIM workshop model is that workshops are peer-led. In the Archdiocese of San Francisco, married Catholic couples will be helping other married couples transform their marriages and families. Hopfner hopes local couples — perhaps deacons and their wives — who have completed the workshop and training will agree to lead marriage workshops in local parishes.

“Fifty years ago, we didn’t hear about ongoing formation for marriage,” Martinez told participants. “But there is now tons of research that shows the link between so many of our societal problems and the breakdown of marriages and family life.”

The AIM workshop curriculum is effective, he said, with measurable outcomes.

Research done by the University of Florida with AIM workshop participants nationwide found that 91% of participants reported some kind of improvement in their marriage. Another 76% reported improvement in their communication, 67% reported improved conflict resolution, and 81% had higher marital satisfaction.

A new love language

Maureen Arriola told Catholic San Francisco that one of her main takeaways from the workshop was that individual spouses have different ways of showing love and affection. “It’s good to know the ways your spouse feels loved and supported,” she said.

Participants answered questions about personality “type.” The types were categorized with unique attributes under the headings of Lion, Golden Retriever, Otter and Beaver.

“This was fun for us,” she said. It explained why a spouse might react to or perceive certain situations in a different way than the other.

George found the session on unhealthy patterns of communication helpful.

“They had two sessions we really enjoyed called ‘Trash Talking’ and ‘Dirty Fighting,’” he said. “When you can see patterns of unhealthy behavior, you can evaluate how to improve communication.”

Newlyweds Paul and Maria Campa enjoyed meeting other married couples at the workshop. Paul is the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s new director of evangelization and stewardship.

“We are brand new to marriage,” said Paul. “It was good hearing from Catholic couples who had been married a lot longer than we have.”

Funds raised in the annual AAA campaign help support a variety of vital ministries like this one. Make an an online gift today at sfarchdiocese.org/aaa.

Christina Gray is the lead writer for Catholic San Francisco.