When Beth and Mike Dible attended their first local Worldwide Marriage Encounter retreat, Beth joked that “the Holy Spirit was a bird that didn’t have very many feathers left before we got to our weekend.”
That was February 2015.
For the past decade, the couple has committed to strengthening their marriage and remain active in the ministry. They currently serve as local Marriage Encounter leaders for the region that includes Columbus.
Worldwide Marriage Encounter is the world’s largest faith-based marriage enrichment organization. Its mission is to proclaim the value of matrimony and Holy Orders in the Church and the world.
The organization is divided into regions across the United States and the world. Ohio is composed of three regions.
Worldwide Marriage Encounter offers a peer-to-peer experience, typically over a weekend, when married couples and priests reflect privately on the meaning of their vocations. Tools are provided to nurture love between spouses, and priests and their bride, the Church.
“They can learn that, even though they have their difficulties, the love that brought them together in the first place is a love that’s really worth fighting for,” Beth said.
“If they pick up the tools that they need to rekindle that love, then they can make that marriage last their entire lives and be that example for other married couples.”
The Dibles, who are members of Sunbury St. John Neumann Church, have been married for 37 years. They have three children and two grandchildren.
Their oldest daughter heard about Worldwide Marriage Encounter at church and gifted registration for a weekend retreat to her parents one Christmas.
Beth said she knew about Marriage Encounter for the duration of the couple’s married life. She wanted to go on a local encounter weekend, but Mike needed some convincing.
With their daughter’s Christmas present, the Dibles attended the retreat.
“We weren’t initially quite sure what we were going to expect,” Beth recalled. “We knew it was going to be a marriage retreat. We thought that there would be interaction, advice for your marriage, but we found out quite the opposite.”
“More of a way to improve communication,” Mike added.
The encounter weekend helped the couple return to the days when they first discovered their love for each other.
After the first years of marriage, Beth explained, couples can begin to drift apart. The weekend retreat was an opportunity to attend to each another.
“Even though we knew another couple there, we hardly talked with them because all the talk was focused like you were the only ones in the room, and it helped us to engage and really get to know each other again,” Beth recalled.
The format is the same for encounter retreats worldwide.
Couples learn how to forgive when they wrong each other. They also discover that there is more to intimacy in a relationship and a deeper level of sharing, such as communicating what experiences mean for each other. “It just brings us so much closer,” Beth said.
For the past eight years, the Dibles have served as presenters for weekend encounters, and most recently, as local leaders.
Outside of the encounter weekend, marriage can be tough. Difficulties often arise when communication breaks down.
“I thought my husband could read my mind, and kind of vice versa, but we always make these assumptions about each other in our marriage,” Beth admitted, “and that kind of leads us down this road of fighting and ‘he says, she says,’ but once we understand where each party is coming from and how we feel about a subject matter, it just opened a whole new world into our marriage.”
The couple’s children visibly saw a change when their parents returned from the first retreat, Beth recalled. They noticed that their parents were much closer than before the weekend.
Mike noted the importance of children seeing a closeness between their parents. It provides a sense of confidence or security that the marriage will endure.
As the primary teachers of their children, Beth added, a strong marriage teaches children what a loving relationship is in contrast to the world’s idea of a relationship.
“We can celebrate that we’re not just a couple; we’re a sacrament,” Beth said. “That’s far better than anything secular could ever offer them.”
After the weekend retreat, there are share groups that meet monthly for a community experience. Social events are offered, such as a community-wide picnic. A community-wide gathering also takes place during Christmastime.
Community events are not mandatory for couples, but they can help improve dialogue and be an extra support for marriages.
Share groups meet in couples’ homes or in a parish.
“It helps to reinforce what you learned on the weekend and to then get to know other married couples who see the value in their marriage and marriage in general,” Beth said.
Father Pete Gideon, a priest of the diocese, serves as a regional minister for Worldwide Marriage Encounter. He has been active in the ministry for decades.
Worldwide Marriage Encounter began in Spain in 1952 with a series of conferences for married couples. Father Gabriel Calvo began presenting retreats in his native Barcelona in 1962. The encounter experience spread to several major cities in the United States in 1971.
A Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend experience will be held Friday, Sept. 5 to Sunday, Sept. 7 at the Procter Camp and Conference Center in London, Ohio. Registration includes a fee of $75, but couples who cannot afford the fee will not be denied attendance.
Married couples, although at least two years of marriage is encouraged, and priests are invited to attend. Previous attendees are invited to attend for an “anniversary re-encounter.”
The retreat can accommodate 18 couples. Space is currently available.
To register, visit www.WWME.org.
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