In marriage, it’s the small things that count

By Alexa Hinton, ahinton@nashvillecitypaper.com
February 28, 2007
 

Ralph Griggs met his future wife in the cafeteria line at a local college they were attending at the time. With the romantic backdrop of cinderblock walls and steaming economy food, he asked the new acquaintance out for dinner and a movie.

“On our first date, I picked Mary up at her dorm not knowing that my roommate had taped a sign on the back of my car that said, ‘Just Married,’ and had tied a welcome mat to the bumper to serve the role of clanging cans,” Griggs said. “He didn’t realize how prophetic he was.”

That was 1976. In just a few months, Griggs and his wife will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. Perhaps pranks on first dates are as lucky as rain on the wedding day, or perhaps it is Griggs’ profession that played the greatest role in navigating the relationship from that serendipitous meeting to a three-decade success.

Griggs calls himself a Marriage Educator. He has his doctorate in ministry and has worked with local churches as a nondenominational preaching minister for more than 25 years, but it is his passion for wanting to help build strong marriages and families that led him to a role in marriage counseling.

But Griggs has taken it a step further than simply inviting couples to sit on his couch and speak. He created Marriage Made Right, a Web site and marriage-counseling course that both prepares couples for tying the knot and saves them cash off the cost of a marriage license.

“My passion comes in part from seeing divided homes and the effect on our extended families. In ministry, I’ve had to stand by too often and witness the ‘death of a family.’ I could either sit there and wring my hands over what is happening to families or I could try and do something, so that’s what I am doing,” Griggs said. “I have no illusions of changing the world, but hope to help as many couples as possible get a good start on their marriages and reduce the family carnage.”

Griggs' Marriage Education Guide can be easily downloaded from the Web site marriagemaderight.com and completed in a few hours. Griggs based its contents on work he’s done with couples in face-to-face counseling over the past 25 years, his graduate and doctorate-level studies in marriage counseling as well as 30 years of personal anecdotes from his marriage, Griggs said.

The guide contains easy “beginner” activities like watching a movie about a struggling marriage and then discussing it afterwards; exercises to determine key areas of growth like communication or conflict resolution; and fun, feel-good tools like his “I Feel Loved When…” exercise.

There are also tips to help wedded duos keep their marriages “sizzling,” whether they’ve been married five minutes or 50 years.

“It’s about getting an extra cup and pouring him a cup of coffee as you are getting your own. It’s telling her she’s pretty. It's picking up something at the store for her. It doesn't have to cost much but let's her know that he was thinking about her today. It's her calling him during the day just to say hello. It's doing the job that the other one usually does — he cooks, she mows the lawn. It's getting your partner a gift they mentioned they'd like to have months ago and didn't realize you paying that much attention. It's bragging about your mate among your friends and letting the word get back to them through the grapevine,” Griggs said.

Griggs likes to personalize his acts of love to his wife. When she was a stay-at-home mom raising their four children, he secretly nominated her for the publication Outstanding Women of America.

“When she received the nominating letter in the mail, she cried, happily,” Griggs said. “This example shows that these things don’t have to be expensive. It took some time and a stamp.”

Griggs said he began putting his Marriage Education Guide together three years ago after Tennessee added $60 to the price of a marriage license to encourage couples to get premarital counseling. In other words, if couples get four hours of premarital counseling from an approved provider and are awarded a completion certificate, they receive a $60 discount on their marriage license.

“While it is well intentioned, most couples are not going to see a licensed therapist for four hours at perhaps $100 an hour to save $60 on their marriage license,” Griggs said. “And some of the people who most need marriage preparation help are the ones who are least able to afford it, or have access to other help. Couples can use my Guide and still save money.”

Griggs admits when he started putting the Guide together he was pioneering new territory and didn’t know if his course would be successful. The response, however, has been gratifying, Griggs said.

“I finally figured out what was happening,” Griggs said. “By using this guide, the couples were achieving what a relationship is: intimacy. You can talk about marriage and what makes it work all day long and nothing happens. This guide engages couples with each other. They share their values, their goals, their dreams, their differences — and as a result strengthen their connection. Another way of saying intimacy.”

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