Improve Marriages, Improve Society, Says Couple

Published November 14, 1985. Last week was an interesting week. I attended the annual National Council on Family Relations held this year in Dallas, Texas. As usual, I came away with some new insights.

One of the most thought-provoking presentations came from Doctors David and Vera Mace from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Now in semi-retirement, the couple related their experiences as they have tried to assist married couples literally around the world.

David and Vera are originally from England, where they started one of the first marriage counseling clinics in London in the early 1940s. During the early years of their own marriage, they decided they wanted to make the world a happier and better place. The obvious question arose – how to do it?

They decided that they could start on their goal by helping to improve human relationships, which they believed at that time needed vast improvement. They also realized that the quality of human relationships is highly influenced, if not determined, by the family in which a person grows and matures.

With this perspective, David and Vera Mace decided they could help improve the lot of humanity by improving marriages in the world, starting with their own.

At the meeting last week, the Maces stated that during the early 1960s they realized something was missing in the help being offered married couples. There was what they called the “before and after” syndrome in helping married couples. Help was being given before the marriage to many couples in the form of premarital counseling. But little was being done until “after” the marital problems, when aid was given in the form of marriage counseling.

According to Doctors David and Vera Mace, there was nothing being done in the form of prevention to assist married couples. They started the Association of Couples for Marriage Enrichment (ACME). Since that time, they have trained thousands of couples and leaders in the preventative aspects and skills of marriage enrichment.

In their recent book “Close Companions,” they noted on page 194: “There are now a number of experiments to use the classroom as a vehicle to effect experiential education. A pioneering effort in this new field, in the form of a college course in marriage enrichment, is at Brigham Young University. . .” At the conclusion of their joint speech, the Mace’s made a fervent plea that professionals helping married couples devote at least 50 percent of their time, personnel, and resources to the prevention rather than the treatment of marital dysfunction.