By Lalig Musserian
WATERTOWN — More than 110 people gathered at the St. Stephen’s Armenian Apostolic Church’s hall to hear Rev. Dr. John Mokkosian, a licensed pastoral psychotherapist, discuss how to strengthen marriages and relationships and how to show appreciation and support to enrich a couple’s life and keep them together.
Using humor as a backdrop, Mokkosian shared stories of couples’ struggles and some common stress areas that cause relationship troubles. His points resonated so strongly with the attendees and there were a lot of laughs, nods and a few sighs too.
The key message was that marriage is a work in process, and just like anything valuable worth nurturing, your partner also needs to feel loved and cherished. In our busy lives, it is easy to feel taken for granted and sometimes neglected. Over time, these feelings will create a divide between spouses, then can grow into a bigger and bigger separation of emotions and lives unless we are paying close attention to each other emotionally and verbally.
Following the event, the organizing committee conducted a survey to gauge whether future events like this would be valuable. Overwhelmingly, the attendees encouraged more events like this at a greater frequency. While this was the third time this event was held, the organizing committee will consider increasing the frequency based on the feedback.
The Couples Ministry, led by New England Armenian clergy for parish families, organized this event. The goal of this program is helping our community and parish family couples to pause and reflect on their relationship, address the challenges of their relationship, give them hope, and motivate them to invest in their relationship to prevent it from withering.
