Practicing to Make the Marriage Perfect

“Do you want a kiss in honor of World Marriage Day?” a tall woman with long red hair over her shoulders asked everyone who passed her in the main concourse of Topanga Plaza shopping mall.

She was offering chocolate kisses from a plastic bowl. But, reference to the real thing was definitely intended.

The woman, Kathy Nyby, went out with her husband, Mike, and several other couples Sunday, which was designated by Gov. George Deukmejian as World Marriage Day, to promote their idea of the perfect activity for married couples. It is called Marriage Encounter.

Kisses abound in Marriage Encounter. So do hugs and tears and long, quiet introspections.

Its purpose, Nyby said, is to take one of God’s best creations--marriage--and make it even better.

‘I Love You’

Marriage Encounter is organized religion’s answer to self-improvement through better communication within family. In a kind of aerobic exercise for the soul, it uses rapid repetitions of the phrase “I love you.”

Marriage Encounter was started by a Spanish priest in the 1950s. Since then, it has spread around the world. Each religion forms its own Marriage Encounter groups.

“It’s not religiously oriented,” Nyby said. “But you can’t leave God out. He’s the one who created the institution.”

The Nybys and the couples with them handed out hundreds of kisses along with red-and-yellow balloons and pink Valentine’s cards.

“Let’s make a Marriage Encounter Weekend,” the card said. It had an application form on the back.

Winning converts was not easy. A lot of shoppers took their toddlers to the table to receive balloons and did not stay to hear about Marriage Encounter. When that happened, Nyby just smiled.

One teen-ager wearing a shirt that said “Motley Crue sux” on it asked for a balloon. They gave him one, too.

Some Interest

A few couples showed interest and took the applications.

At the same time the Nybys were promoting Marriage Encounter, about 400 people were practicing it during the annual one-day convention of the Jewish Marriage Encounter of the San Fermando Valley at Stephen S. Wise Temple in Bel-Air.

Usually, weekend encounters are conducted in semiprivate retreats with the focus on individual couples. But at the convention, several couples who have been “encountered” demonstrated in public the joy it brought them.

There were four sessions--one each for families, couples, teen-agers and young adults.

In the first session, Herb and Phyllis Shukiar of Canoga Park and their three children all read letters aloud describing their feelings about someone else in the family.

Herb Shukiar described them as “love letters.”

About 50 people listened, sitting in a circle of chairs around the Shukiars. Many of them joined hands.

David, the youngest, began.

Letter to Sister

“Growing up with two sisters is not easy,” he said, reading to his sister Lisa who sat to his left. “But growing up with you as a sister has made it easier on me. . . . Whenever we go on vacations, you don’t mind sleeping with me. Everyone else hates it.”

David said he will be sad when Lisa goes off to college.

“The only thing that makes it easier is getting your room,” he said.

The Shukiars often used similes to express their feelings.

“Like hamburgers and french fries, we are different, but go well together,” David said.

When he finished, he and Lisa hugged and kissed.

Then Lisa read her letter to her mother.

“Throughout my life, you have always been willing to do anything for me,” she said. “You have always been willing to put yourself aside to make me happy.”

Lisa said her mother’s love made her feel like “a precious possession.”

When she finished, she and her mother hugged and kissed.

Then Phyllis read her letter to her older daughter, Michelle.

“As my first child, we will always share a bond together,” Phyllis said.

‘On Top of the World’

When Michelle was born, “we were on top of the world, like winning the Irish sweepstakes and the New York lottery both at the same time,” she said.

When she was done, she and her daughter hugged and kissed.

Tears began to flow when Michelle read her letter to her father.

She thanked him for loving her in spite of all the troubles she had caused over the years.

“This makes me feel special, like having a special possession everyone else wants. . . . I sometimes think I am disappointing you. That makes me feel sad, like a failure.

“I’m not as good in school as Lisa, and I’m not as good in sports as David. This makes me feel guilty, like someone who got an award that didn’t deserve it.”

When she finished, she and her father held each other for a long time in a tearful embrace.

Herb then read his letter to David.

“I see a strong, helpful and vital man, please God, making a lasting mold on the world. I imagine myself being an eagle soaring through the sky, with his eaglet son flying beside him for all to see. David, my son, if God should see fit to take you from me. . . “

Father and son embraced.

Then Herb Shukiar asked the others in the circle to spend a few minutes writing letters to someone, either a friend or relative, who had brightened their lives.

“Go in love, write in love, but please stay nearby so when we ring the bell you can come back again.”

The circle broke up. People drifted to all corners of the room and outside to tables to write their letters.

A few minutes later Herb Shukiar rang a small porcelain bell.

The families regrouped into smaller circles and began reading their letters to one another.