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" The Angel: Their Congregation  When Pres Montoya divorced his first wife in 1990, after 13 years of marriage, the experience was so traumatic he thought he&amp;#039;d never marry again. He spent the next 13 years in a series of relationships, none of which lasted more than six months. Then, about five years ago, he met Shane Sunn, a pastor at Saint Patrick Presbyterian Church, who explained that it wasn&amp;#039;t fair for Pres to start romances with women if he never planned to hang around, and that people need the love and security of long-term unions. &amp;quot;I wanted to be in a relationship, but I had a fear of commitment,&amp;quot; says Pres, 51. &amp;quot;Shane changed my outlook.&amp;quot;  In August 2002, Pres started dating Emily Jaramillo, who was recently divorced; she, too, was scared about getting close to someone. &amp;quot;I didn&amp;#039;t want my son to go through any more trauma,&amp;quot; says Emily, 38. &amp;quot;I had convinced myself that I didn&amp;#039;t need to be in a relationship.&amp;quot; But Pres simply &amp;quot;swept me off my feet,&amp;quot; she says. Three months later, the Greeley, CO, couple was engaged.  Emily started going to Pres&amp;#039;s church, and during the couple&amp;#039;s premarital counseling, Sunn brought up the idea of a covenant marriage, which he said would protect them from divorce because the couple commits to each other, God and the church congregation to stay married. &amp;quot;That gives me a feeling of total security,&amp;quot; explains Emily, a psychotherapist. &amp;quot;I know that there&amp;#039;s no option but to work things out. I can go to any one of them and ask for help.&amp;quot;  When Pres married Emily in December 2003, he was confident that their rock-solid bond would help get them through challenges, both big and small. For example, if Emily gets upset when Pres doesn&amp;#039;t clean the house the way she&amp;#039;d like, the covenant requires her to look at her own role, rather than simply blaming him. &amp;quot;Instead of getting resentful, I take a step back and look at my own need for control,&amp;quot; explains Emily. The depth of their commitment also gave them the foundation to help their children adjust to a new family. (Emily&amp;#039;s son is 8; Pres, who works in real estate, has two daughters, ages 22 and 19.) &amp;quot;The fact that Reverend Sunn and the congregation are behind us reminds me that whatever happens on a day-to-day basis is just a side issue,&amp;quot; says Pres. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s no doubt in my mind that this is for the rest of my life.&amp;quot; Patrick and Jennifer Kardian had been married for five years when they received devastating news: Patrick had Hodgkin&amp;#039;s lymphoma. All the Roswell, GA, couple could focus on was his chemotherapy treatment, so they were surprised when Joan Giblin, an oncology nurse practitioner at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University in Atlanta, asked if they wanted children someday. She suggested they preserve some of Patrick&amp;#039;s sperm in case the chemo impaired his fertility. The couple had not been sure they wanted kids -- and now, Jennifer feared ending up a single mom. Her doubts were put into perspective when Giblin asked: &amp;quot;Wouldn&amp;#039;t you want a piece of Patrick to live on even if he does die?&amp;quot; Days later, Patrick set aside a sample at a sperm bank. After two months of chemo, his lymphoma went into remission.  Four months later, Patrick&amp;#039;s cancer returned. Again, Giblin stepped in to help -- she researched recurring Hodgkin&amp;#039;s disease and talked to doctors about trying a stem cell transplant and radiation. &amp;quot;It became almost a personal mission for her to help us,&amp;quot; recalls Jennifer, 35, a public relations manager. Thankfully, the treatment worked.  In the fall of 2003, the Kardians decided to start a family. Patrick&amp;#039;s sperm was found not to be viable following his first chemo treatment, so the couple used the healthy sample he&amp;#039;d set aside. Jennifer got pregnant via in vitro fertilization and gave birth to Caroline, now a year old, the following summer. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m very grateful to Joan,&amp;quot; says Patrick, 36, an information technology consultant. &amp;quot;She didn&amp;#039;t sugarcoat reality.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;More than one person might not be here if it weren&amp;#039;t for Joan -- first Patrick and then Caroline,&amp;quot; Jennifer adds. &amp;quot;She watched over us.&amp;quot; When Brian Gaffney met his future wife, Kym, six years ago, she was earning a six-figure salary as a management consultant and was in the midst of buying a town house. She was also seven years older than him. He was 25, just starting his career in marketing, and renting an apartment. &amp;quot;It was pretty humbling,&amp;quot; says Brian, now 31. And Kym was concerned that Brian -- who was raised in a fairly traditional household -- hadn&amp;#039;t pictured himself with an independent woman. &amp;quot;For years I did what I wanted,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I wondered, can this work?&amp;quot;  Still, the Brooklyn couple felt a strong connection. Brian accompanied Kym to Emmanuel Baptist Church, where he met Rev. Anthony Trufant. Brian admired how the reverend (known as &amp;quot;Rev&amp;quot;) talked lovingly and respectfully about his wife, a successful lawyer. Rev&amp;#039;s example inspired Brian to propose to Kym in March 2002. She happily accepted, but knew they&amp;#039;d both need help in learning to make compromises. During premarital counseling (required at Emmanuel), Rev taught the couple to break traditional gender roles. &amp;quot;He said, there&amp;#039;s a woman in my life who&amp;#039;s ambitious, and I can be intimidated and run -- or move forward with her,&amp;quot; says Brian.  Rev urged Kym to see that couples often meet at different emotional, financial and spiritual stages. Even now, after two-and-a-half years of marriage, Brian asks Rev&amp;#039;s advice on issues like how to make time for each other. &amp;quot;Some angels intervene in times of crisis,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;Rev is the kind of angel who travels along the journey of marriage with you.&amp;quot; Six months before her wedding, Jessica Schmoll started hiding credit card statements from her husband-to-be, Rudi, 35, a saver who frets over every purchase. Jessica, 34, who is earning a master&amp;#039;s degree in rehabilitation counseling, likes to eat out and not agonize over every lip gloss she buys. And while she was content with an apartment rental, Rudi, a carpenter, wanted to save up to buy a house. &amp;quot;I felt the house kept getting farther away,&amp;quot; he says. When they&amp;#039;d go shopping, he&amp;#039;d suggest inexpensive things Jessica could buy; if he caught her with a new purchase days later, he&amp;#039;d shout, &amp;quot;But you just went!&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;I was scared our marriage wouldn&amp;#039;t survive,&amp;quot; Rudi says. So they went to see financial planner Elizabeth Jetton of Financial Vision Advisors (she&amp;#039;s now at Mercer Global Advisors); she charged them $150 an hour for 10 sessions over a few years to help them develop a budget that would accommodate both their spending styles. Jessica loved that the plan gave them each an &amp;quot;allowance.&amp;quot; She had a decent clothing budget, could buy takeout once a week and didn&amp;#039;t have to account to her husband for every purchase. Rudi was thrilled that he didn&amp;#039;t have to police his wife. And he even treated himself to a golfing vacation with his buddies.  The conflict disappeared, and the Atlanta couple, who now own two houses, say the process brought them closer than ever. Says Jessica: &amp;quot;Elizabeth showed us we can work toward the future together.&amp;quot;  Suzy Ruttenberg was just 28 when her mother, Phyllis, committed suicide 13 years ago. She was deeply touched when her new boyfriend&amp;#039;s mom helped make funeral arrangements and brought meals to her grieving family. That&amp;#039;s just part of the impact Rochelle &amp;quot;Rockie&amp;quot; Ruttenberg would make. She became Suzy&amp;#039;s surrogate mom -- saying how proud she was of her accomplishments, while honoring Phyllis&amp;#039;s memory. &amp;quot;When we went shopping, she&amp;#039;d say, &amp;#039;Your mother would have loved you in this,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; says Suzy, 41, an executive business coach and life coach for women in Boca Raton, FL. &amp;quot;She became a second mom and friend.&amp;quot;  When Suzy married Rockie&amp;#039;s son, David, three years ago, her mother-in-law-to-be helped plan the wedding. Hours before the ceremony, Rockie whispered to Suzy: &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t worry, honey -- if you ever get in a fight with my son, I already know it will be all his fault.&amp;quot; David, 42, a music producer, says of the bond between his mom and wife, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve always wanted to please my parents, but I think the thing I did to please them the most was marrying Suzy.&amp;quot;  Rockie showed her devotion yet again a few years later: When Suzy&amp;#039;s father took his life, Rockie went with her to Minnesota, where he had lived. &amp;quot;She spent 18-hour days going through boxes, throwing away trash and preparing his belongings to be sold,&amp;quot; Suzy says. &amp;quot;Rockie showed me that an annexed family can be as real and deep as a biological one. She was the &amp;#039;gift with purchase&amp;#039; that came with my marriage.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/love-sex/relationships/advice/a154/marriage-makeover-0106/>