Almost all couples want their marriage to succeed, an expert on marriage and family said this morning.

Speaking during a conference “Do marriage and family have a future?”, organised by Progett Impenn, a task force of the Kummissjoni Djocesana Familja, theologian Aldigonde Brenninkmeijer said 98 percent of couples wanted to make a success out of their marriage even though the number of those getting a divorce was on the increase.

Studies also showed that married couples had a higher standard of living and earned more money than single, divorced or cohabiting couples.

Ms Benninkmeijer spoke on the importance of teaching young people the beauty of marriage and not to focus on crisis.

Marriage, she said, was the only sacrament for which people were not prepared. Men wanting to become priests, for example, had six years of preparation.

Marriage, she said, was not sailing into a safe harbour but into a storm and it had to be taken very seriously.

She said that for the first 10 years of marriage, couples were busy with their career and children and did not have time to work on their marriage and delve deeper into it.

A marriage, she said, was not a temporary lifestyle that could be chosen because of better prospects.

Unfortunately, couples often tended to focus on the actual day of marriage than on what the sacrament entailed.

Having a successful marriage, she said, also meant that one was successful in life and more companies were recognising the importance of having employees who had a healthy marriage.