SALT LAKE CITY — As sweethearts exchange kisses and candy, blossoms and baubles in honor of Valentine's Day, some will offer their significant others engagement rings.
The Utah Marriage Commission has a suggestion for a gift to accompany that shiny promise of a shared future: A free relationship-enhancement course. And it won't cost a dime.
Starting today, the commission can provide engaged couples free access to an education program based on a University of Denver course designed to help couples get the most out of and put the most into their marriage. It's called ePREP (the PREP part is Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program) and it's a great idea for other couples, too, said Alan Hawkins, commission chair and a professor of family life at Brigham Young University.
It's only free for engaged couples; others will pay $24.99.
Initially, members of the commission had hoped the program would be introduced alongside passage of a bill that would raise the cost of marriage licenses overall while reducing the cost by $20 for couples who took a strong premarital education class — whether this one or not. However, the 2017 Utah Legislature rejected SB29 Monday because they didn't want to raise the marriage license fee, Hawkins said.
Evidence shows
"Statistically, couples who participate in strong education before they're married are three times more like to get counseling when they come across a big problem," said former Utah first lady Jacalyn Leavitt, who has been involved with the commission since its inception 18 years ago. "It sets up a pattern of 'there's information available, there are ways to work through this,'" she said.
Premarital education helps couples learn to solve a variety of problems, from dealing with in-laws to finances and how to raise children, Leavitt said.
When Scott Braithwaite, associate professor of psychology at BYU who modified the Colorado program for use online, was in graduate school, he was assigned to look at all the studies that found factors predicting marital distress. He was "stunned" to find out how much there was that predicted it, but heartened by what was already known about how to intervene, strengthen relationships and prevent divorce.
"Really good premarital interventions cut divorce in half," he said. A 50-percent reduction of some harm, he noted, is the kind of thing one only sees with proven vaccines, for example.
Braithwaite said the Colorado-based PREP course is "rooted in decades of research on risk factors and specific tools couples can use, like how to overcome negative patterns and habits."
ePREP's "decide, don't slide" message is based on evidence that couples who drift through their relationship instead of approaching it with intention are more likely to break up. It is important, research says, to be much more intentional about relationships, decisions and the transitions that go along with it, such as whether one cohabits or gets married and when to have children.
Acting on each decision deliberately impacts not just whether the relationship lasts, but aspects of children's lives. For example, children who are born to married parents have fewer disruptive transitions in their lives, which improves their well-being.
Communication is another major factor in how a couple fares — and it's one the online program tackles, looking at how to disagree without doing harm to the relationship and how communication can strengthen the relationship.
"You would be surprised how many premarital couples do not talk about what their dreams and hopes and goals are," said Hawkins.
Couples will also learn about commitment and managing finances, among other things.
Accessing it
The program is available online at www.lovetakeslearning.com. To get free access, engaged Utah couples can email UTAHprep@utah.gov. They'll get two codes, one for each of them, after answering a few questions designed to show they live in Utah, said Lindsey Kuck, Utah Marriage Commission coordinator, who works for the Utah Department of Human Services.
The program's designed with six modules so ideally couples could do an hour a week for six weeks, said Braithwaite. They can do it together or separately.
Kuck recommends taking it together if possible. Links to the class, which includes quizzes, questionnaires and a little bit of homework as part of the interactive program, are good for six weeks, she said.
Even if only one member of the duo is willing to take the class, "research shows they can still obtain robust effects, although it's definitely optimal if both participate," said Braithwaite.