Relationship education and premarital counseling promote practices and principles of premarital education, relationship resources, relationship restoration, relationship maintenance, and evidence-based marriage education.
History
The formal organization of relationship education in the United States began in the late 1970s by a diverse group of professionals concerned that the results of conventional methods and means of marriage therapy resulted in no appreciable reduction in the elevated rate of divorce and out-of-wedlock births.
The motivation for relationship education was found in numerous studied observations of the elevated rates of marital and family breakdown, school dropouts, incarceration, drug addiction, unemployment, suicide, homicide, domestic abuse and other negative social factors when divorce and/or out-of-wedlock pregnancy were noted. In all of the negative categories noted above, statistical over-representation of adults whose childhood did not involve both of their parents was present.
Initial planning for the field of relationship education involved the participation of psychologists, counselors, family life educators, social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychiatrists, clergy from various faith traditions, policymakers, academicians in the fields of social science, attorneys, judges, and lay persons. The goal was to seek the broadest possible dispersal of research and marriage education skills courses which could improve interpersonal relationship functioning, especially with married and pre-marital couples.
Early contributors to the field of relationship education included David and Vera Mace, who founded The Association for Couples in Marriage Enrichment. The Maces conducted their first couples retreat in 1962. Bernard and Louise Guerney launched the "Institute for the Development of Emotional and Life Skills," later known as "Relationship Enhancement," in 1972.
Examples
The National Council on Family Relations focuses on preparing professionals in family life education, a prominent approach to relationship education.
In 2006, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began funding significant multi-year demonstration projects through the Administration for Children and Families to expand the availability of marriage education classes in more than 100 communities nationwide. This project, known as the "Healthy Marriage Initiative," was designed to improve the well-being of children by providing tools and education to strengthen marriages and families.
Jeffry H. Larson conducted several studies on marriage and relationship education, including a review of three widely used premarital inventories – Focus, Prepare, and Relate.
Studies
Relationship education for premarital couples
A multi-year US federal study, known as the Building Strong Families Program, and 2010 meta-analysis of 47 studies found that relationship education "does not improve relationship quality/satisfaction" for unmarried couples.
"Previous studies have asserted that premarital education programs have a positive effect on program participants. Using meta-analytic methods of current best practices to look across the entire body of published and unpublished evaluation research on premarital education, we found a more complex pattern of results. We coded 47 studies and found that premarital education programs do not improve relationship quality/satisfaction when unpublished studies are included in the analysis, although studies that follow couples past the honeymoon stage to detect prevention effects are rare. In contrast, premarital education programs appear to be effective at improving couple communication, with studies that employed observational measures rather than self-report measures producing large effects. Still, given the mixed, modest results, there is ample room and a real need to improve the practice of premarital education."