Prijateljstvo - Delivering A Marriage Seminar in Montenegro.

 



This last week I had the experience of delivering a Marriage Enrichment evening in Bar, Montenegro. 'Love Well-Live Well' in Serpski, through an interpreter made for a very interesting and amusing evening.

Montengro is known for many things but hosting a Marriage Event may be one of the more unusual. In the local Sports Complex the same week they hosted European Women's YouthVolleyball Championship (won by Poland) and a high profile Boxing Event. But in the quieter surroundings of 'The Living Room,' 8 couples attended a Marriage seminar. The nationalities represented being German, Russian, Montenegran, American, French and Australian.

 

Here are some of the feedback comments:

 

"I hope to remember about the 4 Bad Habits and to avoid hurting."

 

"This has been a very useful evening. I heard a lot of things which I would never have thought about before."

 

"I enjoyed looking back and being reminded of the beginnings of our relationship and the great memories. It encouraged me to apprecaite these things and get motivated to create new ones."

 

"I hope this evening will help me to be less critical but instead to be more encouraging and to create a daily culture of appreciation."

 

"I hope from this evening I will learn to be a better listener and to love my wife the way she needs to be loved, to better understand how she needs to be loved."

 

"The best thing about tonight was thinking about the things that brought us together in the first place. Thinking and talking about these, in a way, brought us back to those days and we laughed together a lot tonight."

 

"Molim vas, napsite jednu recenicw Koja ce opisah kako se xi nodote dece ove vece wticah na vasw vesw"............ I take with me that we should talk from time to time about wonderful moments we had together."

 

"I hope that we will both learn to listen better to each other and to ask rather than assume."

 

"I will think about things in a different way, but I won't promise anything."

 

But perhaps the most surprising feedback came  from a Montenegran man who came on his own because his wife was working. For a man in the UK to come to a Marriage event on his own would be amazing, especially since many couples simply think they have nothing to learn and it is not a man-thing to do anyway. Fix  your car? Yes. Put up a fence? Yes. Do the Highland Cross? Yes. Attend a Marriage evening? Not likely, and this in a culture where we are awash with resources and course to help couples  live well together.

 

So, for a man to attend an evening in Montenegro where this kind of event is simply totally unknown, is amazing. He sat in the corner and being on his own could not really fully participate in the execrcises. As the presenter I felt a little uncomfortable and was not quite sure if I should go and speak to him at times. So I left him to it. And in the end had no idea what he thought of the evening but we shook hands as he left.

 

The next eveing, through his daughter as an interpreter he said to my wife, "I really enjoyed the marriage evening last night. Tell your husband he is a very clever man!" To which my wife made the appropriate reply............ in order to keep me humble. Isn't that the role of a wife after all?