Page 37 - July2019 FOP Magazine

Lessons in love
Lessons in love
and law enforcement
and law enforcement
Workshop helps Chicago police power couples keep their marriages strong
■ BY AMBER RAMUNDO
■ PHOTOS BY JAMES PINTO
Hypervigilance.
Emotional control.
Awareness of surroundings.
These are all traits that law enforce-
ment practice in order to strengthen re- sponses on the job. But what happens when we forget to turn these traits off? And how do they fit in with officers’ rela- tionships at home?
These are the questions Chaplain Kimberly Lewis-Davis was interested in exploring when she first had the idea to plan a workshop that would help strengthen law enforcement marriages.
With 16 years of experience on the job and a husband who is currently an active CPD officer, Kimberly has committed much of her efforts as a chaplain to keep- ing law enforcement marriages robust by putting date nights and couple retreats on officers’ calendars.
And on June 21, six CPD couples gath- ered for a marriage workshop that would renew partnership, trust and romance between the spouses.
“The truth is, we don’t have this whole marriage thing figured out,” noted Kim-
37 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ JULY 2019
Couples at the
law enforcement marriage workshop view the results of personality quizzes to help get to know each other better.
berly, who has been married to her hus- band, Mark Davis, for 15 years. “We are organisms. We change and we adapt to different situations and so, it’s really good, as we change, to check in to see if we are working in tandem with our
spouses.”
Every facet of the Strengthening Law
Enforcement Marriages workshop was planned specifically to enrich the experi- ence for couples — from the scenic loca- tion on Lake Katherine in Palos Heights