Recently, we attended a marriage preparation retreat required by the Catholic Church. Would we have attended this course if it weren’t mandatory? Probably not. After attending would I recommend all couples thinking about marriage register for a similar event? Absolutely.
The setup for our class experience went along these lines. The moderator, Father Bob, would introduce a topic and one of the three couples assisting him would then further the dialogue on the subject. The future brides and grooms would then separate for ten minutes to undergo a personal reflection on the material aided by a series of provided questions. The couples would then convene to discuss their views and opinions with the purpose of understanding one another’s take on life.
Personally, I found a majority of the topics to be very important to all relationships. They included family, parenting, finances, sexuality, and religion and no, you will not hear how our discussions went. At the very least, we had already covered all of these issues at some level, but the retreat helped further our dialogue on them. One of the biggest concepts for me occurred when I needed to anticipate Bethany’s answers during the exercises and while I didn’t always turn out to be correct we definitely built on those ideas as a foundation for discussion.
We will have been together for five years at the end of the month and one of the things that struck me the most was how many couples would be getting married after knowing each other for a relatively short period of time. I used to have a very negative attitude about couples getting married after a brief dating period because I felt it would be impossible to know someone well enough to determine you would want to spend the rest of your life with them. My attitude has turned towards the positive after this course because it provided the opportunity for everyone involved to learn about their future spouse and we heard from a few people it had never occurred to them to discuss some of the presented topics.
Realistically, do I think this saved marriages that would not have worked out? No, but I think it’s very important to know who you are marrying and not think it will all just sort itself out. If you want to buy a home and start a family while your fiancé thinks you’ll be moving around Europe for the next ten years it’s best to know it before you’re at the altar. That’s an extreme example, but the point is it’s important to communicate and understand who your spouse is because it will make for a more fulfilling relationship
The setup for our class experience went along these lines. The moderator, Father Bob, would introduce a topic and one of the three couples assisting him would then further the dialogue on the subject. The future brides and grooms would then separate for ten minutes to undergo a personal reflection on the material aided by a series of provided questions. The couples would then convene to discuss their views and opinions with the purpose of understanding one another’s take on life.
Personally, I found a majority of the topics to be very important to all relationships. They included family, parenting, finances, sexuality, and religion and no, you will not hear how our discussions went. At the very least, we had already covered all of these issues at some level, but the retreat helped further our dialogue on them. One of the biggest concepts for me occurred when I needed to anticipate Bethany’s answers during the exercises and while I didn’t always turn out to be correct we definitely built on those ideas as a foundation for discussion.
We will have been together for five years at the end of the month and one of the things that struck me the most was how many couples would be getting married after knowing each other for a relatively short period of time. I used to have a very negative attitude about couples getting married after a brief dating period because I felt it would be impossible to know someone well enough to determine you would want to spend the rest of your life with them. My attitude has turned towards the positive after this course because it provided the opportunity for everyone involved to learn about their future spouse and we heard from a few people it had never occurred to them to discuss some of the presented topics.
Realistically, do I think this saved marriages that would not have worked out? No, but I think it’s very important to know who you are marrying and not think it will all just sort itself out. If you want to buy a home and start a family while your fiancé thinks you’ll be moving around Europe for the next ten years it’s best to know it before you’re at the altar. That’s an extreme example, but the point is it’s important to communicate and understand who your spouse is because it will make for a more fulfilling relationship
2 comments:
Hey D&B:
Happy to hear you found this beneficial. Amy and I did too. It's a crash course but builds a good foundation for further discussion. I definitely found some of the couples to be interesting. One of my favorites was the couple that was openly uncomfortable talking about sex. The guy was physically uncomfortable. Not necessarily a good sign if you can't talk to your future spouse about sex. I hope they're working it out.
Uh, don't they have Cosmo quizzes for this kind of thing? If Cosmo can't start good relationship discussions than what is it good for?
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