My name is Teresa Kilcrease. I have been married to my sweetheart, Mark for nearly 21 years. We have been involved in Passport 2 Love for a year and a half and I volunteer as the Social Media Consultant for Passport 2 Love. This is my personal journey...
Marriage Education and PREP was not something that I had ever heard of when I got married. My sweetheart and I married 21 years ago with stars in our eyes and dreams of happily ever after. Everyone knows *how* to be married, right? Isn't that the idea, you just fall in love and live your very own personal fairy tale? While there were plenty of moments of fairy tale, there were some pretty difficult moments too. By our second anniversary we had added two amazing wonderful children into our family. Just 4 short years into our marriage, we buried our stillborn son. We struggled through job loss and unemployment, We struggled through in-law issues and health issues. By year 11, we now had 5 children and the fairy tale moments seemed fewer and further in between. We hit a point in our marriage that was bad! When I say "bad," I mean the kind of bad where people get divorced. Hindsight has given me a much clearer idea of what went wrong, but at the time I felt completely blindsided. The rug had been pulled out from under me, and I didn't know where to turn. One night, I made up my mind. I was leaving. It was over. The only thing that stopped me was that I was too pregnant (with our 7th and final child.) and too tired to do it. At this point we had been struggling to "make it work" for two years. I can't even begin to tell you what happened in those long and dark hours that night. Something happened that changed our minds and hearts. Softened them. Before the sun set again, we had determined to give our marriage one last shot. Somehow, through sheer stubbornness and the grace of God, we made it through. We relocated, made changes and muddled through.
A year and a half ago, just shy of our 20 year mark, we again found ourselves traveling back down a difficult road. This time we recognized it. We saw the signs, and knew that it wasn't a road we wanted to travel again. What we didn't know was how to change course. We started to look around for resources. We took a marriage class from a local college. It was our first introduction to PREP. We followed the first class up, by signing up for the original Passport 2 Love date nights. We learned a several skills that have made a significant difference in our lives, and in our marriage. The first of these principles are the three central themes of PREP. First, "Decide, don't slide." We don't have to simply accept that we have a bad or good marriage. We can make a conscientious decision to improve our marriage. This is the same if you have been married for 2 weeks or 25 years. Even a great marriage can be improved when couples choose the path their marriage will follow. The second of these principals is "Make it safe to connect." This was a huge wake up call for me personally. It was choosing not to let my emotions rule the conversation and reminding myself that I love this man and I want him to know that he can come to me with his concerns without being hit with a blast of emotional backlog. The last of these principles is "Do your part." Once again, this principle really put things into perspective for me. Am I a "right-fighter?" Where is my priority? Is it getting my point of view through or is it improving and nurturing my marriage and my husband.
While it is possible to muddle through and hope that you come out alright at the other end (we did it once before.), there is an incredible comfort in knowing that you can take control of the course that you are following and you can choose to have a bright and amazing future with your sweetheart. The Passport 2 Love program is even more amazing because you get the opportunity to learn these skills, and many more in a safe, fun environment with other couples, who are also charting their own course to a better marriage through Passport 2 Love.
