{"id":3280,"date":"2008-01-25T11:19:00","date_gmt":"2008-01-25T11:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/back-from-the-brink-a-retrouvaille-story.html"},"modified":"2008-01-25T11:19:00","modified_gmt":"2008-01-25T11:19:00","slug":"back-from-the-brink-a-retrouvaille-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/01\/back-from-the-brink-a-retrouvaille-story.html","title":{"rendered":"Back from the brink: a Retrouvaille story"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two of the great unsung heroes of the modern church are a couple programs designed to help marriages: Marriage Encounter<\/a> and Retrouvaille<\/a>. <\/p>\n

My wife and I made a Marriage Encounter weekend several years ago, and found it immensely enriching. But you hear less about the Retrouvaille program, which is designed specifically for marriages in trouble. <\/p>\n

Now, thanks to this piece<\/a> in Faith magazine, that’s changed: <\/p>\n

Like most young couples who fall in love, for Frank and Debbie Kruise it all started out well. They met at Mount Aloysius Junior College in Cresson, Pa. Frank was from Coalport, Debbie was from Warren. They got to know each other in an English lit class, where they discovered they both liked the same kind of poetry. \u201cDeb has this bubbly personality,\u201d Frank says. \u201cShe is so outgoing, fun-loving and compassionate. I was attracted to that because I consider myself straight-lined.\u201d They became good friends, going for long walks, solving the problems of the world. It wasn\u2019t long before Frank says he knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Debbie. \u201cShe was everything I wanted in a wife and friend for the rest of my life,\u201d he says. \u201cI never expected to meet someone in college,\u201d Deb says. \u201cI thought I was going to get a degree in fashion merchandising and travel the world. But I met this sweet guy and everything changed.\u201d Everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t rain on our wedding day, but you can see the dark clouds overhead in all the pictures,\u201d Deb says with a laugh. The Monday after their wedding, Frank\u2019s father was diagnosed with cancer. His funeral was held just two months later, the day before Frank graduated from mortuary school. \u201cThings didn\u2019t start off the way I thought they would,\u201d Deb admits. \u201cI had envisioned his dad coming over for Sunday dinners.\u201d Frank, who had lost both his mom and grandmother at a very young age, threw himself into his work.<\/p>\n

They decided to send Deb to mortuary school as well, in order to secure the second license required for their funeral home. That meant Deb had to move to Pittsburgh while Frank stayed in Madera to run the funeral home. Still young and in love, the Kruises made it work. \u201cI loved Pittsburgh,\u201d Deb says, \u201cand I saw it as a chance to find myself.\u201d As good as her intentions were, in some ways this decision contributed to the difficulties Frank and Debbie would later experience. \u201cIt just didn\u2019t really hit me that I\u2019d actually be working as a funeral director,\u201d Deb says, although her studies gave her new insights into their daily experience as a couple.<\/p>\n

\u201cI began to appreciate why our dinners were always interrupted during the first three years of marriage, why family plans were always cancelled at the last minute, why other families always came first,\u201d she observes. \u201cI had a much better understanding of how that played on our marriage.\u201d (Frank and Deb took turns answering more than half a dozen phone calls during this interview.) Upon her return to Madera, the couple became a solid professional team.<\/p>\n

At this point, as in so many marriages, things changed again when the Kruises, having been married for five years, welcomed their first child, Christina. Three years later, Anthony was born. Deb has always been certain of her desire to be a wife and mother. She is deeply grateful that working from home allowed her to remain actively involved in her children\u2019s lives. Today, Frank feels a certain sadness about this period in their lives. \u201cI regret that I missed a lot of that growing up time,\u201d he says, acknowledging he often gave his career greater priority. \u201cThere were many times when she took the kids somewhere and I stayed back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another well-intentioned series of decisions that weakened the foundation of the Kruises\u2019 family life. That\u2019s the thing about this story. Their marriage crumbled so slowly it was almost imperceptible. There was no abuse, no complicating factor such as alcoholism or gambling. But as Deb grew increasingly dissatisfied, having denied some of her own goals and dreams, Frank grew complacent and tensions rose. They rarely acknowledged it, even to each other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest. It’s worth it. <\/p>\n

And share it to someone you love for Valentine’s Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two of the great unsung heroes of the modern church are a couple programs designed to help marriages: Marriage Encounter and Retrouvaille. My wife and I made a Marriage Encounter weekend several years ago, and found it immensely enriching. 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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}