The evaluation of a premarital enrichment programme for second marriages

The aim of the research was to evaluate the premarital enrichment programme designed by Pretorius (1997) for couples who wish to remarry. The study was motivated by literature, which shows a high likelihood of divorce among divorcees who remarry. Three interested couples responded to advertisements placed in a local Potchefstroom newspaper and announcements made in churches. A qualitative (case study method) research design was used. The programme consisted of six two-hour sessions. The programme was conducted over two weekends. The first three sessions were held with all three couples and the last three sessions with each couple separately due to conflicting schedules. The effect of the programme was assessed by five measuring instruments, participants' metaphoric drawings of their relationships, semi-structured interviews, and the researcher's observations of the interaction between the participants. The assessment took place a week before and four weeks after the programme presentation. The results obtained indicated that two of the couples experienced changes whilst the other couple experienced minimal change. It was concluded that the premarital enrichment programme prepared two couples for remarriage, specifically with regards to their adjustment in the relationship. In the United States, 43% of all marriages end in divorce, two out of five marriages in Britain, Denmark and Sweden and 1 in 10 marriages in France (Benobaitis, 1999). The total numbers of official marriages recorded in South Africa in the year 2000 were 143 391 and 34 102 couples were divorced. In South Africa, the number of minors affected by divorce in the year 2000 was a staggering 38 833 (Lehohla, 2003). According to Bernardes (1997), one in five children in the United Kingdom will experience a parental divorce by the age of 16. Divorce not only causes emotional pain amongst partners but also affects their mental well-being, psychological well-being and socio-economic well-being, as well as families' well-being, health and work productivity (Eshleman, 2000; Saxton, 1993; Stanley, 2001). Parental divorce often results in disruption in the lives of children. The extent of this disruption depends on how parents handle the divorce process, yet most divorces are not eloquently managed. This may have an impact on the children's emotional functioning, psychological and social well-being as reflected by lowered self-esteem, fear of abandonment, feelings of anger and resentment, behavioural problems, psychological distress caused by economic hardships, decrease in academic performance, truancy, lower quality of education and fear of forming romantic relationships (Allan, 1994; Benokraitis, 1999; Bernardes, 1997; Coltrane & Collins, 2001; Eshleman, 2000; Sasse, 1997; Saxton, 1993; Skolnick & Skolnick, 1992). Almost half of the marriages in the United States are not first marriages for at least one partner in the couple (Benokraitis, 1999). In the United States, 75% of couples who divorce remarry and 60% of these remarriages fail (Stahmann & Hiebert, 1997; Marano, 2000). In South Afiica in 1990 there were 1 820 white males and 1 437 white females who had been married twice and were divorced. In the same year there were 2 498 white women and 2 050 white males that had been married three times and were divorced (du Plessis, 1993). No recent South African Statistics on remarriages were found as verified by a phone call to Statistics South Africa (25 02 2004). When couples remarry, often a new stepfamily is formed with its own complications. In the United States, the number of stepfamilies increased kom 16% in 1980 to 21% in 1990. One out of 3 Americans is a stepparent, a stepchild, a stepsibling or some other member of a stepfamily (Benokraitis, 1999). The increase in divorce, remarriage and stepfamilies has brought about countless new complexities. Programmes have, therefore, been developed to help people cope with the effects of divorce and remarriage. Some of these programmes are "Focus On Kids Program" (Hans & Fine, 2001), "Educational Programs for remarried families" (Fitzpatrick & Smith, 1992), "Family Life Education Programs" (Schroeder & Hughes, 1998), "Personal Reflection hogram" (Kaplan & Hennon, 1992), "Stepfamily Enrichment Program" (Michaels, 2000), "Preparing for a Creative Marriage: Premarital preparation with reconstituted families" (Kemp, 1982), "A Model for Stepfamily Development" (Mills, 1984), "A Model for Group work with Remanied Couples and their Children" (Mandell & Birenzweig, 1990), "A Family Education Group for Working with Stepparents" (Pill, 1991) and "RENEW A program for building remarried family strengths" (Duncan & Brown, 1992). Most of these programmes focus primarily on strengthening the reconstituted family and not on the marital relationship itself. The premarital enrichment programme for second marriages that was developed by Pretorius (1997) is based on developmental and systemic theory. Her programme aims to prepare the couple for remarriage, thereby placing more emphasis on strengthening the marital relationship. Her programme was based on a need assessment conducted on South Afiican participants, therefore making her programme more applicable to the South Afiican population. Although Pretorius's (1997) programme was developed in 1997, it is apparent from recent literature that the themes she indicated as important for second marriages and reconstituted families are still valid (Eshleman, 2000; Coltrane & Collins, 2001; Benokraitis, 1999; Mauldin, 2001; Stahman2000; Becvar & Becvar, 2003). This present study attempts to evaluate Pretorius's programme scientifically, as this had not been done before. The research proposed to answer the following question: does the premarital enrichment programme of Pretorius (1997) prepare couples for their second marriage, specifically with regard to their adjustment in the relationship.