Do I need a certification to become a Trainer?
No — we don’t have a formal certification process, and we’ve never wanted one. What follows are simply guidelines for how to prepare yourself to train Sponsor Couples for your parish or diocese. The real decision about whether you’re ready belongs to your pastor or your diocese, not to a piece of paper.
One thing we do ask: if you’re married, you and your spouse should already have lived out the experience of being a Sponsor Couple® yourselves before you take on training others. You can’t hand someone a gift you haven’t unwrapped yourself.
What are the concrete steps to prepare?
- Study For Better and For Ever the way an engaged couple would. Sit down together and work through every question and every dialogue exercise with your spouse — don’t skim it as a trainer would skim a manual.
- Study the Key Concepts documents: English | Spanish
- Contact For Better & For Ever at 210-557-3660 or info@forbetterandforever.com to take part in a Zoom training.
What should I actually teach once I’m training sponsor couples?
Stay close to the text of For Better & For Ever® itself. This isn’t just a preference — it’s one of the main reasons the 1998 edition exists at all. We wrote it so that sponsor couples wouldn’t need to go hunting for additional material. If you feel pulled to bring in something different, talk to our team about it first.
The one exception: anything already recommended in the Resources section of the book and website is fair game.
Beyond the book, how do I grow into this role myself?
The steps above will get you through the mechanics. But the couples you train — and eventually, the engaged couples they sponsor — will be able to tell the difference between someone reciting a program and someone speaking from their own marriage. That’s really the heart of it. The areas below aren’t a checklist to complete; they’re an invitation to keep growing in your own marriage so you have something real to offer.
Family of Origin.
Study Keeping the Love You Find: A Personal Guide by Harville Hendrix, and especially work through the Self-Knowledge Inventory. Share what surfaces with your spouse and, if it helps, your spiritual director. The point isn’t to master a theory — it’s to be able to sit across from a sponsor couple and tell them honestly what this study did for your own marriage.
Communication and Intimacy.
If you’ve had the experience of a Marriage Encounter weekend, and if daily dialogue is already part of your life together, you’ll teach the communication skills in this book with a lot more credibility than if they’re new to you. A few resources worth your time: Hendrix’s DVD Through Conflict to Connection, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, and Hendrix’s own conversations with his wife Helen Hunt on dialogue — Video 1 and Video 2 — along with this playlist on Hendrix’s book and the practice of dialogue.
The Meaning of Sexuality and Marriage.
Two books we’d point you to: A Daring Promise: A Spirituality of Christian Marriage by Richard Gaillardetz, and Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas.
Couple and Family Prayer.
Here’s the honest truth: you won’t be able to convince a couple that praying together matters if it isn’t already part of your own marriage. Good resources for building that habit: When Couples Pray Together by Stoops, Reminders of God by Grizzle, and The Blessing Cup by Travnikar. Our Prayer in Marriage page has more, including real stories from sponsor couples who were just as awkward and hesitant about praying together as your engaged couples will be — and how they got past it.
Interfaith and Interchurch Marriage.
Sooner or later you’ll sit across from a couple who don’t share the same faith background. Our page on this topic walks through how the Church approaches these marriages today — with real respect for each person’s conscience — and separates out “interchurch” couples (both Christian, different traditions) from “interfaith” couples (one Christian, one not), including guidance for couples where one partner is agnostic or atheist.
Natural Family Planning.
The basic science: a woman is fertile for only about 100 to 120 hours each month, and NFP methods are all trying to help a couple identify that window. A few specific approaches worth knowing: the Creighton Model, the Billings Method, the Couple to Couple League, and Natural Womanhood.
Annulments.
You’ll be asked more often than you’d expect to sponsor someone who has been through an annulment, so it’s worth taking the time to understand how your diocese handles this. Reach out to your local Diocesan Tribunal, or contact the For Better & For Ever Resource Team for assistance.
