The Marriage Course runs over seven sessions, and each session begins with sharing dinner as a couple, followed by a fun, insightful video covering topics that are relevant for every couple like Good Sex or Resolving Conflict. In short? Your marriage. But better.
Learn practical tools to deepen your connection and keep the spark alive.
Enjoy private, intimate conversations as a couple giving you the space to engage openly and honestly throughout each session.
Choose to go through the course at a local venue in the company of other couples or online in the privacy of your own home.
Gain insights from interviews with leading psychologists, authors and psychosexual specialists.
Translated into 45 languages, created for use in any country, by any church or organization using pre-prepared video material by world leading experts.
The Marriage Course has been run in over 117 countries for over 1.5 million couples since its inception in 1996.
Nicky and Sila explore what it means to understand and respond to each other’s needs, work through challenges and review your relational connection. Through the analogy of tending a vineyard, they explore the aspects of adjusting, pruning, supporting and renewing in marriage. The episode also touches on the amazing impact of making time for each other and learning to nurture each other.
This session tackles effective communication, the importance of recognizing and expressing your feelings, and barriers to talking. It also unveils five bad listening habits and the transformative power of reflective listening. As a couple, you will work on your communication one-on-one, through sharing a significant memory with each other and practicing a listening exercise as demonstrated in the video.
Session 3 reveals how couples can grow closer by learning methods to resolve conflict. You will discover four principles for resolving conflict and learn ways of showing appreciation; how to recognize and appreciate your differences; plus, how to implement the all-important “10 o’clock rule”. The session also covers five practical steps to help reach agreement and helpful ways of supporting each other.
How can a couple recover from the ways they may have hurt each other? In this session, you will learn whether you are a rhino or hedgehog as you hear about harmful approaches for dealing with anger. You will hear the effects of unhealed hurt and the importance of dealing with underlying problems, alongside a practical three-step process for healing hurt and an exercise in “clearing the drain” and comforting each other.
Couples carry different experiences and expectations into marriage from their upbringing, and Nicky and Sila share the importance of leaving our parents and creating a new decision-making structure and center of gravity as a couple. You will learn tools for creating a safe place for each other, through resolving disagreements, considering boundaries with parents and in-laws, and reflecting on any negative patterns from your past.
Keeping the spark alive in marriage requires a good emotional connection and an other-oriented approach. Nicky and Sila reveal five secrets for a good sexual relationship, and four ways to affair-proof a marriage. This episode is full of practical advice, from leaving screens outside the bedroom to being creative when it comes to sex. It also addresses research into the damaging effects of pornography and fantasising about other people.
In the final session, Nicky and Sila look at the different ways a person may feel most loved, using Gary Chapman’s “five love languages”. Emphasizing the importance of discovering how your partner feels appreciated and that loving intentionally can take real work, they unpack each of the five love languages (words of affirmation, gifts or presents, quality time, kind actions and physical touch). They also discuss how commitment in marriage can create a liberating feeling of safety and intimacy.
At the start of each session, you will share a special meal together. This is an opportunity to unwind and connect, helping to create the romance and enjoyment of a date.
Each engaging and enriching episode explores a different topic through real experiences, expert insights and relevant teaching, with breaks for conversations.
Through workbook prompts and questions, you will be invited to enjoy private, intimate conversations that help you to engage with honesty and openness throughout the session.
The Marriage Course not only transformed my marriage, it saved my life. We had been married for three years when my husband and I did the course. We had a traumatic birth, lost another child and we needed real help. Now we have been married for 15 years, we have had twins and I tell everyone to do The Marriage Course.
Couples are loving the experience of going through The Marriage Course as it provides so much space for them to talk about content throughout each evening in the privacy of their own home. We feel the opportunity to do this online has reached far more couples than we ever could have imagined.
We’ve really appreciated this marriage course. Not just because of the easy-to-engage format, but also because of the quality of the video content. The hosts in the video are great at clearly communicating ideas in an entertaining way that makes us feel like we’ve been invited into their lives to learn alongside them.
The Marriage Course helped me tremendously, moving me away from trying to fix my wife, to listening to her.
We’ve always wanted to participate in the course, but having a severely disabled child, it’s virtually impossible to get a babysitter. This has meant we’ve never been able to participate in the course when it’s been running at our church. Now that it’s online, we can join in and we’ve already got so much out of it just in the first session.
…it means that we stay friends, interested and really invested in the same things as opposed to just drifting apart. That means that we catch stuff really early and don’t allow resentment to creep in.
Yes, The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course have been translated into Spanish, Chinese and several other languages. Please log-in here and create a course to see all the language options.
In most cases, The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course are free to attend, but some churches or organizations do charge a nominal fee to cover the meal and other running costs. As a guest, you may need to purchase your own Guest Journals.
The Marriage Course was created by Alpha International, which also runs Alpha courses around the world. Alpha is a multi-week series of sessions exploring the Christian faith. Each week, the session looks at a different question around faith and is designed to create conversation. Alpha is run all around the globe and everyone is welcome. It runs online, in cafés, churches, universities, homes—you name it! No two Alphas look the same, but they generally have three key things in common: hospitality, a talk and good conversation. Click HERE for more information.
The Marriage Course consists of seven consecutive sessions and is designed with the intention that guests attend one session per week.
As a guest you can purchase your Guest Journals HERE. You may want to first check if the Guest Journals are provided through your course hosts.
There are seven sessions of The Marriage Course, looking at the following topics:
– Strengthening Connection
– The Art of Communication
– Resolving Conflict
– The Power of Forgiveness
– The Impact of Family
– Good Sex
– Love in Action
There are seven weekly sessions and each session lasts approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes including your conversations with each other as a couple.
The Marriage Book was written by Nicky and Sila Lee, founders of The Marriage Courses and is available as a softcover or e-book HERE.
The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course each have their own version of the Guest Study Journal. Each guest on a course requires their own Study Journal (that’s two per couple) and can be purchased HERE or HERE.
The Study Journal is a small handbook that corresponds with the topics of each session, guiding couples’ conversations, prompting discussions, and allowing plenty of space for guests to make their own notes. The Study Journal was created as an additional tool used to help couples reflect on their relationship and the meaning of marriage, as well as to facilitate conversations between them. The Journal is for each guest to keep once the course has finished.
Keep your weekly date nights! You may want to review the Continuing Conversations that are found at the end of each session and review them on future date nights. You’ve made a great investment in your relationship on The Pre-Marriage Course. You may want to consider investing in questions about faith on Alpha. In this short video Nicky and Sila Lee talk about how the Pre-Marriage Course and Alpha work together HERE.
If you attend The Marriage Course or The Pre-Marriage Course in person through a church or organization in your area, each session should have the environment of a date-night: relaxed, romantic, and private. We ask our course leaders to make the evening as welcoming as possible. When you arrive at your course you should be seated at your own table for two, as we believe each couple should have privacy and not have to share anything about your relationship with anyone other than your partner. You should be served a meal in a romantic setting while listening to practical talks that are informative and fun. Background music will ensure that you have complete privacy for your conversations. Arrangements will vary from course to course depending on where it is being held and who is running it, but this is how we recommend the evening be set up.
Yes. To get the most out of The Marriage Course or The Pre-Marriage Course we recommend you try to come to every session, but if you do miss one you could always ask the course organizer to catch you up by sending you the missed session’s episode. You can then work through it with your Guest Journals in your own time. We do not recommend you attempt to do the whole course on your own like this.
If you’ve been cohabiting for more than two years and are not engaged or considering marriage, we recommend you try The Marriage Course. If you’ve been living together or married for less than a year and you are not aware of any major issues to address, it’s a great idea to attend The Pre-Marriage Course.
Use the Find a Course page to locate a course near you HERE.
While The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course are based on Christian principles, they are designed for couples with or without a Christian faith. We would love any couple to feel welcome to attend whether or not they have a Christian faith or any religious faith at all. We are confident all couples will find the courses relevant and helpful for their relationship.
We would love any couple to feel welcome to attend The Marriage Course, whether married or in a long-term, cohabitating relationship. The Pre-Marriage Course is ideal for engaged couples, newlyweds, or couples exploring the idea of marriage.
Both The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course have a similar structure, with the environment of a date night and an emphasis on private discussions for each couple. The key difference is that The Pre-Marriage Course is for engaged couples and those considering marriage, whereas we recommend The Marriage Course for couples who have been married for at least two years. The Pre-Marriage Course can also include a Couple Survey which each guest completes in advance of the course. Following the course they look at the results of their survey over a meal with a designated married “Support Couple”.
Currently we have over 8,000 courses, run in 117 countries, in 45 languages.
The Marriage Course has been run in over 117 countries for over 1.5 million couples and consists of two courses: The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course. The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course recognize the need to help couples with their relationships. The Marriage Course was developed in 1996 by Nicky and Sila Lee (authors of The Marriage Book) for couples looking for practical support to strengthen their relationship. The course equips couples with tools and techniques to keep the spark alive and stay connected. There is no group work and each couple’s conversations are completely private.
The Marriage Course and The Pre-Marriage Course have been successfully run in over 117 countries worldwide since they were created by Nicky and Sila Lee, authors of The Marriage Book.
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