Marriage enrichment seeks to educate couples in a bid to improve their relationship in a marriage. The goals of this process are to help couples become more aware of their needs and desires, explore and understand their partners feelings and thoughts, to encourage empathy and understanding and to develop effective communication and problem solving skills in both partners. While these programs were initially developed for people that were functioning well in their marriages, they are increasingly being used to help people in troubled and dysfunctional marriage relationships.
The benefits of these types of programs are that they help to strengthen relationships, build better interpersonal skills in participants and prevent marital breakdowns. Research studies have shown that couples who participate in these types of programs report improved marital satisfaction, an increase in sexual intimacy and an improvement in their personal relationships overall.