Engaged Encounter
 

Some of you may have heard of Engaged Encounter, a premarital counseling retreat hosted on many weekends of the year throughout the country by local Catholic Archdiocese. My fiance and I went to our local one this past weekend and LOVED IT!

Neither of us is Catholic (you don't have to be of any organized religion), but that didn't matter. It was a great opportunity to get away for the weekend and focus on us, and talk about specific things that not even we had thought about after more than four years of dating. It was emotionally draining, but we left feeling so loved and excited for our wedding in three months!

Just wanted to let you guys know about it since I know we have a few other engaged GCers on here, or in case any of you have friends who want/need to do premarital counseling. We went to it because our church required PMC to get married, but we probably would've done some anyway. And now after experiencing it, I definitely think PMC is something that EVERY couple should do. For those who want to do it all in one weekend, I can't recommend Engaged Encounter enough.

I can't speak to it as one of a couple, but I highly encourage premarital counseling as a counselor :D

That makes two of us!

Also, if you've ever been engaged or married before, see what the local houses of worship in your area offer in the way of premarital counseling. I was recommending Fresh Start, but I understand it's out of "business". You might be able to ask for a Fresh Start type of program, though. I know many of the local churches require attendance to this sort of program prior to marriage.

I'm so glad that it was a positive experience for you, PeppyGPhiB!

My husband and I attended Engaged Encounter before we married many years ago because it was required of us (we are Catholic). I must admit, I went reluctantly. Did some whining and grumbling. Instead of slogging through paternalistic preaching and Catholic church do's and don'ts as I thought we would probably do, I found it to be really positive and uplifting, interesting and thought provoking. It made me even more sure of the commitment that my future husband and I would be making to one another. I would highly recommend it, or a similar program, to anyone.

I despised Engaged Encounter -- we had to do it because we got married in the Catholic church. It's actually a big part of why I'm not a practicing Catholic anymore. Ours was very very heavy on the preaching -- we literally got locked away in a closet with one of the couples running the show, and they spent an hour trying to convince us that living together was going to completely ruin our relationship (and at that point, we'd already lived together about a year -- no way we were finding the money at age 23 to finance two separate apartments in DC, even if we wanted to). There was a whole afternoon session about how birth control is awful, and snide pointed comments at a few couples in the room (us included) who they knew lived together and used BC. It was humiliating and I was really angry for a long time after.

I am way in favor of premarital counseling (our sessions with my parish priest were helpful), and I'm glad EE worked for some couples, but I can't recommend it to anyone except the strictest practicing Catholics.

It probably does depend on who is running it. Most of the couples in my group were 30 and older. They acknowledged that most of us lived together and just stated what the church's view on it was and why and moved on. We had a special treat at ours, because the priest was a widower and had grandchildren. Although Andy and I found we had already discussed everything, it was fun to see how many times we not only wrote down the same thoughts, but in the same order during reflection time.

I'm happy you had a great time with it PeppyGPhiB. Congratulations on your upcoming marriage!

Definitely agree and encourage pre-marital counseling, as well as continuing counseling.

People have this thing about marriage counseling as meaning that you have issues. That's the problem. A lot of people go to counseling when it is too late.

We went through Catholic premarital counseling. We were already living in sin, so a lot was not applicable. In our case, I didn't find it particularly helpful, but we expected some hoops to jump through in order to be married in the Church.

Wow, I would have been very unhappy if I had been at this EE. I am a pretty liberal Catholic, and don't particularly agree with some teachings. I think, like anything else, it is the luck of the draw. The couple who presided over our weekend were grandparents, had been through a lot during their married life, and were pretty realistic and non-dogmatic. Their focus was on the couples, and supporting good communication, especially the difficult stuff. Birth control talk was for maybe 15 minutes. Pretty cut and dried-this is the Church's position and this is why. They told us that ultimately, it was up to us. The priest was a Jesuit professor at Fordham who was really interesting to listen to and talk to. I guess we just really lucked out.

^^^Jesuits are cool like that.

Husband and I did not do EE, but we did the PreCana training 1 night a week for 5 (?) weeks at a diocese building. We had to do it because of our work schedules and the fact that I was moving to a foreign country.

Overall, ours was fine. Nothing too shocking on the dogma front, but we're both practicing active Catholics. The only thing that super super creeped me out was the NFP lady who came up to the mic to speak about how she had 9 children and knew the conception dates of each one (and then told us). And then she passed out her mucus and temp charts. Sorry lady, don't need to know.

Ahh EE....I remember that...by the end of the weekend my husband said, "I don't know if I have any feelings about anything left to discuss." Even I was tired of talking about my feelings at that point.

They tried to shove NFP on us and my husband's explanation of NFP was "No effing p***y."

LOL!

I'm glad we didn't do EE. Most of what I've heard about it has been negative, particularly the bits about NFP. DH and I did some premarital counseling with our rabbi, just the three of us, and that was perfect for us.

It's funny I saw that you posted in here and my first reaction was "I thought she was Jewish" lol.

I have heard NFP referred to as "Never Fail Pregnancy." I attended a Catholic high school, and I had to take a class entitled "Marriage and Christian Family Living" in order to graduate. Never mind that I wasn't even dating yet! Anyway, we had to learn about the various types of NFP, and we were supposed to do the whole charting thing, and turn in our results.... I refused, and instead wrote a paper about all of the different types of birth control. Needless to say, I got a "D" in the class!

After that experience, I pretty much left the church. The sad thing is, i was so put off by that whole experience, that when my husband and I got engaged, I refused to attend any sort of marriage preparation class. We would really have benefitted, I think, and avoided many difficulties in our early years of marriage.

I am. ;) My understanding is that it's required for Catholic couples who want to get married, but you don't have to be Catholic to do it.

You had to turn in your results? Intrusive much?? What did the boys have to do (or was it an all-girls' school, or was the class only required for girls)?

NFP has such a high failure rate that I do not consider it a valid method of birth control. At best, it slightly alters your chances of pregnancy in any given month.

Some sort of premarriage prep is required for Catholics, whether a one day Pre-Cana, a six week Pre Cana or the Encounter sort (I remember my parents going to Marriage Encounter which is the post-marriage bit.)

This was an all-girls school, in the very early nineteen eighties. Yes, the whole thing felt very intrusive to me. I do not think that the school requires this any longer. I recently received a fundraising phone call from my alma mater....I politely informed them that my money, ( and my children!) now go to the Episcopal church.

WOW, that is a completely different experience from ours, and the first time I've heard that from anyone who's gone through EE. I'd say 75% of the couples in our weekend live together, and most were age 30+. There was not one single talk about the Catholic Church, and there wasn't even a talk about birth control at all. Natural Family Planning got about two minutes of time in one of the talks because one of the couples is just starting it and they were talking about how interesting they thought it was. But other than that, the only talk of religion was between us couples when they sent us off to talk privately about what we wanted for our family in the way of religion/spirituality, and on Sunday when we had a 45-minute Mass. Sorry you had such a bad experience with it, but it definitely sounds like the exception.

ETA: One of the couples in our group even told everyone (as part of their introduction) that they "did things backwards accidentally" and had their daughter a couple of years ago and now they're getting married. The hosts laughed with the rest of us and said basically, "Sometimes that's the way things happen!"

ETAA: Our EE weekend also did not have a priest for a host, just the older couple and younger couple. According to the hosts, the priests who attend EE weekends do so on a voluntary basis, and sometimes they can't find one to do some weekends. I think it was better for us, because neither of us is Catholic. The priest just showed up for Mass, and he was a hilarious old retired priest from Ireland, who wanted to hold Mass at 10 am instead of noon because he wanted to watch the World Cup final.

^^^My church's priest is this elderly Irish guy and he's hilarious. Each week he has a list of people to thank and then always goes "And finally, I'd like to thank myself for being here" :D It's a smallish parish and he's our only priest. I loff him and hope he lives long enough to be the priest at my wedding.

When my parents did pre-cana eons ago (at least 25 years) they talked to a priest who basically told them to use whatever birth control they wanted. Not in that many words, but that was the general gist of it.

BF's parents help with a pre-cana weekend at least once a year. I'm nervous to go through it when I get married but really want to get married in the catholic church.

The other half and I did premarital counseling thorough our church also, and it really just emphasized communication and how to do it effectively. We had discussed mostly everything that was brought up.

I DEFINITELY recommend it for all engaged or thinking about getting engaged couples. :)

I agree wholeheartedly with what KSUViolet said. At our EE, it was all old hat to my husband and I because we had discussed all of that stuff before, but we had also been together for almost 6 years at that point and had lived together for 4.

Whether through EE or not, pre-marital counseling is something that more folks should do.

While I agree with what KSUViolet said, people also need to understand that sometimes one partner lies their asses off during these sessions, makes all kinds of "promises" and then doesn't follow through on a single one of them once they are actually married.

True. If someone's going to do that though they'll do it no matter what. So all other things being equal, you at least improve your odds by seeking counseling?

I definitely agree the counseling should occur. I think it is important for all parties to be honest during that counseling is just the message I was trying to get across. Don't just say things that you think your partner wants to hear.

*ding!*

Were you married to my ex, too? ;)

One of the reasons why EE appealed to me was that the priest and hosts are not involved in the personal talks between the couples. They give a talk, then we separate to write, then the couples get back together and talk alone for a while. I have a feeling that if a third party was involved in our conversations, we wouldn't be as honest...I think we'd find a way to sugar coat things, or we'd keep quiet about some things because we just wouldn't want to talk about them with a stranger.

DH and I got married in a Catholic church as well, and we had to do the premarital counseling. The options were the EE weekend, or this sponsorship program the parish had that was one day a week for 5 weeks. We opted for the latter. I found it to be really great too! Our "sponsor couple" was a couple who had been married 40 years and was "mixed faith" too. Our wedding was considered interfaith because even though DH was baptized Catholic, he was confirmed Lutheran. There was very little church rhetoric. It was all about communication and expectations (ie, what expectations of eachother are you bringing into the marriage and are you on the same page about that). We lived together before we got married, and our sponsor couple had too, so no judgements there either. We got along very well with them. Definitely something I would recommend to all engaged couples, even if you just go to a regular couples counselor.

Funny this popped up today, because my fiance and I are going on our Engaged Encounter this weekend!

My husband and I did pre-counseling with our minister, and it was a mixed bag - though mostly positive.

I grew up in a mixed-religion household where we never went to Temple or Church and my husband went to Baptist Church every Wednesday and twice on Sundays til he was 18, then stopped for reasons to lengthy to go into here.

Regardless, we opted for a Judeo-Christian ceremony, and the minister, who was a friend of my father's, insisted we have 6 sessions of counseling.

Some of it was great - one question that sticks with me today is one that asked, "When you are sick, what does 'being taken care of' look like to you?" Which is great - because when I'm sick, leave a glass of juice at the door and leave me the hell alone. But when he's sick, he needs a lot of face time and popsicles.

What wasn't great is that in our first session, our minister started talking about how it was God's commandment to fill the Earth with children, and how they were arrows in our quiver. Well, we had already decided we weren't looking to have kids and we explained that to him. He insisted that it was God's commandment to fill the Earth, to which my husband replied, "Well, the Earth's pretty full." The minister said we could think about it and discuss it later.

I remember getting into the car and driving back to my apartment and we laughed the whole time.

We also had a running gag that kept us united. There's an old joke where God comes to Adam and offers him a perfect helpmate- beautiful, kind, loving... All he has to do is give up a leg. To which Adam replies, "What can I get for a rib?"

So, this would come up in our workbooks from time to time, and I would always get out my highlighter and underline "rib", and show it to my husband, and he'd elbow me and give me a look, and try not to laugh.

Good times. Granted, we've only been married five years, but I think it helped a lot.

AEPhiAlum: I too am and AEPhi alum and as a very old married lady we too had premaritial counseling with our rabbi. My husband, who is not Jewish and I, Reform, thought it was a good experience. My concern was his antisemitic parents (they were) and the problems they would cause (they did). The counseling brought out what was lurking and how to deal with it. I think that counseling, without preaching any dogma, is an excellent venue to relax and explore your future together.

...married 31 years...and counting.

My fiance and I just went through our Engaged Encounter this weekend. We both thought it was amazing! We had some trepidation going into it, for different reasons - he thought it would be preachy and I thought it would be too emotional - but we both feel like we grew so much.

The couples who presented were both very real and very open. They shared a lot about their marriages in an honest but not oversharing way (although fiance could have lived without the hearing about the older couple getting frisky!).

I didn't really have any doubts about marrying him going into this weekend, but after this weekend, I know he's the one. I feel ready to marry him right now - but we have another seven months to go... :-)