About This Course

In successful marriages, couples are intimate, loving companions who truly understand and thoughtfully support each other. However, the busyness of daily life can sometimes unintentionally weaken your connection. This course provides married couples with practical tools to create new patterns that strengthen friendship, love, and service in their relationship. Premarital couples are also welcome.

You’ll learn to engage in meaningful activities that help shape the culture of your marriage, enhancing unity and fostering mutual service to each other, your families, and others. By deepening your friendship and commitment, you’ll sustain the strong bond you’ve built, keeping it alive through thoughtful words and actions. Together, you’ll communicate, share joy, and create lasting memories. Every day offers new opportunities to serve each other’s needs, dreams, and aspirations, keeping your marriage strong, joyful, and fulfilling. 

Note: You will complete your self-directed learning study of each Unit as best as you can before your group meetings. Some couples set aside evening or weekend time. Other couples find if they spend 15 minutes a day working on their marriage that they make excellent progress. Experiment, learn, and do what works best for you. You won’t lose access to the course at the end, so you can continue to study at the pace that works for you as needed.  

Strengthening Your Learning: You are in charge of your own learning, and we are here to accompany you. We invite you to turn to your marriage partner to do the learning activities throughout this course. You may also find it very helpful to work with another couple on studying the materials and carrying out activities. Alternatively, a close friend may be able to help you with your learning. You may find it beneficial to choose someone consistent to work with, or you may find you learn more by doing activities with a variety of people. It may also assist you to be in communication with your facilitators and your fellow participants through Discussions as well. Arrange what works best for you. Welcome to this exciting journey of learning! 

Course Schedule

Course Dates: June 1-June 22, 2026 (4 sessions)

The course runs on Mondays, 8-10 p.m. Melbourne, Australia time, with facilitated meetings occurring weekly at this time throughout the course. [Note: This time zone will best fit for learners in Australasia, Europe, and Africa.]

  • June 1, 2026: Course Opening Meeting
  • June 8, 2026: Unit 1 Discussion
  • June 15, 2026: Unit 2 Discussion
  • June 22, 2026: Unit 3 Discussion


Note: Time Zone conversions can be done using one of these tools:

https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html

https://www.worldtimeserver.com/meeting-planner.aspx

Benefits of the Course!

  • Appreciate the quality of your friendship and see ways to expand the friendship you have between you.

  • Understand ways to express love and respect that increase a healthy unity between you.

  • Thoughtfully be of service to one another and balance service inside and outside your home.

  • This course contains quotations from many science-based and spiritual sources. It is not affiliated with any particular faith nor sponsored by any religious institution. Some quotations are from the Baha'i Faith (bahai.org). This course is part of an effort to fulfill quotations like this one: “A new conception of family begins with a new conception of marriage. Bahá’u’lláh observes that marriage is not only ‘the key to the perpetuation of life for the peoples of the world’, but ‘the inscrutable instrument for the fulfilment of their destiny.’ (Universal House of Justice, March 19, 2025, quoting Bahá’u’lláh in “To Set the World in Order: Building and Preserving Strong Marriages, #1)

Course Curriculum

    1. Please Introduce Yourself!

    2. Course Orientation

      FREE PREVIEW

    3. Course Communication Guidelines

    4. PENDING - Course Schedule/Group Meetings Link

    5. Frequently Asked Questions

    6. Change Notes for the Course

    1. Elements of the Course Opening Meeting

    1. Unit 1: Goals, Learning Content, Activities, Questions

      FREE PREVIEW

    2. Unit 1: Build Understanding - Love Map Activity (PDF)

    3. Unit 1: Happiness, Joy, Laughter, and Humor Quotations (PDF)

    4. Unit 1: Activity Ideas for Couples (PDF)

    1. Unit 2: Goals, Learning Content, Activities, Questions

    2. Unit 2: Love and Love in Marriage Quotations (PDF)

    1. Unit 3: Goals, Learning Content, Activities, Questions

    2. Encouragement in Relationships and Marriage (PDF)

    1. Responses to Some Topics from a Previous Course

About this course

  • $60.00

Cost of the Course

We welcome everyone to this course who wishes to participate. This course invites you to commit time, effort, and money. We hope you can afford the cost of the course, as that helps cover the cost of the course platform and a small amount to the facilitators for their service. However, we do not want financial difficulties to prevent registration. If you or your partner cannot afford part or all of the fee, there are coupon codes available for financial aid. Please contact Susanne Alexander, course administrator, at [email protected] with specifics of how much you can afford or the discount you need. We are happy to help and look forward to welcoming you to this relationship-enriching course!

Facilitators

Feristeh and Rajaee Rouhani

Co-Facilitators

Ferishteh and Rajaee Rouhani have been married for nine years and are the parents of two young children, Thomas (7) and Howard (3). Their lives have been shaped by diverse cultural and geographic experiences. Ferishteh spent many years in India and the United Kingdom before making Melbourne, Australia, her home in 2019. Rajaee, born in Jordan and raised in Perth, Australia, has likewise lived and worked across regions, including the Middle East and London—where they first met and began their shared journey of marriage. Professionally, both are lawyers. Since settling in Australia, Ferishteh has served the National Office of the Bahá’ís of Australia part-time, while Rajaee continues his legal career. Alongside their professional lives, they are actively engaged in community service. Together, they are members of the Local Spiritual Assembly of Bayside and are involved in grassroots efforts to build community, including initiating children’s classes in their neighborhood. They have also had the privilege of accompanying others in their service, including co-tutoring Ruhi Book 12 on marriage and marriage preparation with several young couples. Ferishteh has also contributed to developing marriage workshops at summer schools in both the United Kingdom and Australia. Although they married later in life than they had once anticipated, they have come to see their varied life experiences as a source of strength as they strive to understand and uphold this Divine institution. They view their marriage as an ongoing space of learning—a daily workshop—through which they seek to apply the principles, skills, and spiritual qualities found in the Bahá’í teachings. This perspective has deepened their appreciation for marriage as a path of continual growth, one that requires conscious effort, consultation, and reliance on spiritual principles. In this spirit, they view the opportunity to facilitate this course as a way to align their lives with the two-fold moral purpose: striving for personal transformation while, in whatever small way, contributing to the strengthening of families and the advancement of unity in society.