The "Time Gap" Need
Research has discovered that most couples who seek professional help in their relationships do so 5-6 years after they first acknowledged they were having trouble.  This is an alarming statistic.  If we did that with physical diseases, our life expectance would be significantly less.

Since religious communities care for people from the cradle to the grave, they are an idea center for providing couples with help, support and information during that 5-6 year period that is the ideal time to address problems while they are still in the early stages.

The "Information Gap" Need
Mental health professional have learned more about relationships and what makes them work or not work in the last 30-40 years than probably in the prior 3-400 years.  Yet this information is often available to couples who have the time and the money and a strong enough need to seek professional help.  The Couples Garden program is designed to meet this "information gap need" and churches are an ideal place for this information to be shared because of the trust and the contact that is part of the community.

The "Malnourishment Gap"
The pressure on two-career couples with families is powerful in our present culture.  Among the big three of "career", "children" and "marriage", guess which one gets neglected first as the pressure, time demands and exhaustion of life  increase.  It is ironic that our trust in our marriages and in our partners often makes our marriages the first choice for benign neglect.

That's why we say that malnourishment is as great a risk for marriages as serious emotional or personal problems.

Faith communities can intervene before the malnourishment gets too great, and the Couples Garden program is specifically designed to provide both information and the time for regular nourishing of the marriage and of each other.

The Support Gap Need
We sometimes refer to this as the "good intentions trap".  Couples who try to fight the malnourishment gap and who determine to have regular nourishing times with and for each other have a hard time sustaining their "good intentions".  They will often stay with it for a few months and then the demands of life, career, church, family, friends, etc. etc. etc. lead them back to the troubling, malnourishing ways.

The Couple's Garden provides structure and support for couples scheduling regular nourishing times together.  Faith communities are the ideal place for couples to go to receive information, encouragement and support for doing this

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