Marriage Preparation
 

I am in the process of doing all the marriage preparation classes to get married. I was just wondering what type of preparation everyone else did.

Here in Phoenix (for the Catholic church) we have the following steps:
1) Meet with your Pastor
2) Marriage Preparation Inventory aka FOCUS (We took our and the church office lost it. Now we have to go do it again)
3) Married Life Skills Workshop
4) God's Plan for a Joy-Filled Marriage
5) Natural Family Planning Instructions
6) Sacraments of Reconciliation
7) Final Meeting with your Pastor

We're both Catholic, and we didn't do half that. lol...
We met with my priest maybe 4 times in the 6 months prior to our wedding. We also did a marriage "class" with other couples at Ohio Dominican College. this was 8 years ago.

We just met with our priest (Catholic) for the first time on Sunday. We took our FOCCUS Inventory and we get the results in April. Then we have our Pre-Cana class in June. Not too sure what's after that, but I think those are the big things.

So, it's what we called Cana Classes.

I married a non-Catholic and refused to go through the class. I told Father O'Reilly that I sat through 12 years of Catholic school and that was more than enough, and if he made us go through the class, I'd be married in my fiance's Congregational Church if he didn't waive the requirement.

Poor Fr. O. He never recovered. But he did marry us.

FWIW, I've never known a couple who went through the pre-Cana class who ended up divorced.

We have 6 meetings with the pastor, the last one about the wedding itself, and I have 2 books to read and discuss with the pastor. This is my fiance's church/pastor, so it's only right that I learn about his church. Fiance has only one book to read, and I really hope it's about budgets and how crazy women become if they feel neglected or poor!

We have PREPARE to take - is that like FOCUS? I answer questions honestly, then answer them how I think Fiance will answer them. He does the same, and they're put on a graph to show you where you have any problem areas.

For the ones you don't know, I do! (Pre-cana, that's what our classes with my priest were called, I forgot :D )

Our officiant is from a non-denominational church, but his parents attend his church sometimes but have known him for a while. We are supposed to meet with him 4 times before the wedding. Our first meeting will be next Saturday.

It's basically a scantron with questions like "I have discussed how finances will be managed with my fiance" (that wasn't an exact question, but stuff like that). Then you answer agree, disagree or uncertain. We each fill it out privately, the results get sent in, and then we get them back in a few weeks and get to discuss our results (the stuff we agreed on, the stuff we didn't, etc.)

Here's the link for FOCCUS if anyone is interested.

We did Engaged Encounter, a weekend retreat sponsored by the local Catholic Archdiocese. Neither of us is Catholic, but my family's Presbyterian church required some type of premarital counseling, and we figured it would be easier for us to do it all in one weekend rather than once a week after work for many weeks.

We were so glad we went - we thought it was VERY useful, and it was a good opportunity for us to grow even closer together. We've been together five years, and although we talk about "everything," there were still things we hadn't really thought to even talk about...like what traditions we would start for our family. Everyone at our retreat seemed to get a lot out of it. It was a weekend everyone started out dreading, but by the end we were all closer as couples, and it left us even more excited about our future together.

<raising hand> Two rounds of pre-Cana, two marriages, two divorces. It only works if people are 1) Completely honest (don't just say what they think their partner wants to hear), 2) Take it seriously and 3) if the results are taken seriously by both partners and the priest. For example, if it flags a high risk of abuse in a relationship, the bride to be should not just be told "You're too sensitive, relax, laugh a little, he's just joking around" and made to feel like she's crazy for feeling hurt by his emotional abuse.

I think there's been a thread like this before. We did Engaged Encounter and had a HORRIBLE experience (though I know many, many people who have had positive experiences with it elsewhere, so I think it's dependent on your facilitators.) It made me so angry that we ended up not having a Catholic wedding at all, and I haven't returned to the Church since then (four years).

We didn't go through any organized counseling, but I think it is critical to discuss point blank details like kids/no kids/how many/when? If one of you gets offered a great job in a far away place, what will you do? What if it's you and not him? How much is an acceptable amount of money to spend without consulting the other? How much debt do you each have right now? Are your parents/siblings/cousins/friends allowed to live with you at some point in the future? For how long? TV in the bedroom or not?

Some of the really important questions can't be anticipated, but while you're wildly in love and utterly tolerant, you should be covering all the uncomfortable questions you can come up with.

I refused to get married in the church (to my mother, not my husband) so we weren't required to go through any of this stuff, but I've heard enough about pre-Cana that I thought we'd go through as many issues as I could come up with. That's the one part that seemed valuable to me.

I couldn't get into the FOCCUS site without a password, but it sounds very similar to PREPARE. I took it with a man who wanted to marry me, but I knew in my heart didn't know me, so I know a few of the questions. Many are as simple as Do you want children? How many children do you want? How many nights a month do you like to eat out? Are you a morning person? Do you want pets?

It's taken seperately, then you answer it as you think your fiance/e would answer. It's graphed to see your problem areas. There are NO wrong answers, just an idea of what you need to work on as a couple. If you've never really done it before, thinking as a couple is much different than thinking as a single person.

This sounds about like what we did, although it was all focused on the marriage, not on anything church-specific. (We were both Presbyterian, although I don't think that would have mattered. If one of us had been coming from another tradition and planning to become Presbyterian, that would have been dealt with in other classes.)

We took a few assessments like the one you describe, and we also had to do Myers-Brigg. (This was before everyone was doing Myers-Brigg.) We found it very helpful. Years later, we can still see the value in it.

We

MC, I'm only doing the church specific because I'm changing my brand of Baptist. Who knew that the Swedes had their own brand? It's much more How well do you know each other and what you're getting into than preachy. I guess I'll have to make a casserole to prove my worthiness. ;)

My first wedding was Presbyterian, with the Meyers-Briggs etc.