BARBARA PETTY LIKES TO REMIND COUPLES OF THE THINGS THEY KNEW ABOUT ONE ANOTHER AND THE THINGS THEY DID FOR ONE ANOTHER WHEN THEY WERE FALLING IN LOVE.

Yes, they still love one another but, chances are, the day-to-day stresses of work, finances, in-laws and child-rearing have taken their toll since the pair knew just what to do and just what to say. The couple’s “love buckets” have likely developed sizable leaks that neither one of them quite understands how to stop.

“Our society requires us to take driver’s education to learn how to drive a car, but all we need to get married is a blood test and a license,” says Barbara Petty, a University of Idaho Extension educator in Bonneville County. “Ninety- three percent of Americans still want that one person to have a long, loving, and lasting relationship with—but we don’t give them the tools to help them learn how to live with each other.” Petty and her husband of 25 years, pastor-chaplain Terry Petty, are pioneers of a five-part “Married and Loving It” class that has attracted waiting lists of eastern Idahoans of every marital status. Intended to reinforce strong marriages and reengage committed couples, the class has expanded into the Magic Valley through the efforts of a team of Extension educators there. After less than three years, graduates already number nearly 250.

“Married and Loving It” starts with communication, which Barbara Petty says contributes more significantly to marital happiness than any other single factor. “It infiltrates every part of your marriage—your finances, how you spend your time, who does the housework, your sex life,” she says.

“Many times couples fall in love, get married, hit a problem area, and then find they don’t have the communication skills to work through it without hurting each other. Or, they leave things unresolved and, after years, those things start to build like weeds in the garden. Before too long, they no longer desire to continue a relationship with the other person.”

So, the Pettys and other Extension educators teach workshop participants how to recognize and learn to speak one another’s “love language.” With five different love languages commonly spoken, odds are that both partners don’t speak the same one. So, he may “tell” her he loves her by buying her gifts, while she “hears” his love only when he spends more time with her. Their love buckets don’t get refilled, leaving the pair vulnerable to other problems.

Terry Petty, who teaches segments on anger and conflict resolution, considers anger an important early-warning signal in a marriage. “It’s an emotion that lets us know that our personal boundaries have been violated,” he says. Typically, anger is triggered when partners damage one another’s self-esteem, violate one another’s convictions of right or wrong, or ignore one another’s basic human needs Unfortunately, couples have 35 assorted and confusing ways in which they communicate—and miscommunicate—“ouch.”

“If you can stop and control the initial anger response and identify why you or someone else is feeling angry, then you can find ways to manage that anger before it becomes even more hurtful and painful,” he says.

“Everyone has differences,” says his wife. “The main difference between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that successful couples have learned how to resolve them.”

Take Ivan and Linda Thomas of Ammon, both in their second marriage. Ivan hears love through Linda’s acts of kindness, while a “hug in the kitchen” is what communicates Ivan’s love to her. And while Linda is slow to anger, Ivan says violations of his sense of self-worth will burn him up every time.

During the five weeks of the marriage education class, instructors pepper the curriculum with in-class and takehome exercises calculated to multiply participants’ “a-ha” moments. Linda remembers being given “$500” and told to spend it on Ivan. She decided to put the money toward lawn sprinklers and fencing. Ivan, in turn, “gave” Linda $500 worth of wallpaper and paint. “We both realized how important home is to us, which I don’t think we would have realized if we hadn’t taken the class,” Linda says.

This year, the Pettys are piloting “Married and Loving It” with low-income audiences associated with Head- Start, which has made healthy marriages a national initiative. Barbara Petty also hopes to attract additional funding through President George W. Bush’s “Marriage Initiative” and the Department of Health and Human Services.

According to Harriet Shaklee, UI Extension family development specialist, studies of families under financial stress indicate that one of the first things to unravel is the marital relationship. “What might have been a loving bond becomes frayed, and the children suffer when the parents no longer stand together as one and are less able to guide and direct them.”

Shaklee says “Married and Loving It” has a “potential to help economically stressed families rekindle that bond and become a stronger force to deal with their economic difficulties.”

In Minidoka County, Extension educator Donna Gillespie has team-taught “Married and Loving It” three times with District III colleagues Rhea Lanting, Marsha Hawkins, Diana Christensen, and Joan Parr. “If you strengthen any aspect of a couple’s relationship, that affects all of the other people they touch,” she says.

Gillespie enjoys watching the participants learn from other couples. “You can hear them say, ‘I thought we were the only ones that had that problem.’”

For Barbara Petty, the satisfaction of teaching marriage education is in observing the couples grow closer over five weeks. “They seem to leave happier than they came,” Petty says. “I feel like I’ve given them a tool they can use for the rest of their lives—and teach to their children and grandchildren.”