Did you do premarital counselling?

[Sascha Fitzpatrick]

Our church does the PREPARE questionnaire - basically you do a 100 odd question paper on your feelings towards your partner and various areas of a relationship (finances, family, sex, etc etc), and then it is supposed to show you if there are any areas requiring growth in your relationship, and what areas are strengths.

Anyway, we had our first premarital counselling session with our minister last night after getting the results back, and I was interested to see how our opinions on marriage in general were going to be reviewed.

Anyway, our minister basically said that out of all the younger couples (I don't think we're THAT young considering I'm 25 and he's 31, and most people around here are 18 and engaged!) he's done marital prep with, we're probably the most realistic and 'unromanticised' about marriage he's ever worked with. And yeah - that's a good thing btw (in case you didn't think so)!

I am SO relieved about this - here I thought we'd be written off as morose, negative party-poopers, and we got told we were REALISTIC and had a good grasp on what marriage would mean!

Go us! Out of any strength he could have told us about our relationship, this was probably the best one I could have wished for!

What did premarital counselling do for you?

Sasch

 

[plum]

I am not there yet, but I am excited for it! So is my boyfriend. We've already committed to doing it together no matter what the 'rules' of our church/pastor are. We truly want to have a good number of sessions together to pepare us for marriage and help us finalize some things. Bssically, I want to be asked the tough questions.

I hear good things about Prepare! what do you think?

 

[Catholic Wife]

Our parish actually requires a lot of engaged couples - they take it that seriously. First we had a meeting at the parish to discuss what the parish requires and allows (and won't allow), and we took the FOCCUS survey. It's like the PREPARE.

Next we met with the priest at least 2 times to discuss the results of the FOCCUS and marriage in general. That's when we finally got to set the date!

Then we had to go to a Saturday workshop called pre-Cana. We also had a second Saturday workshop called Cana II since I had been married before. We have the Engaged Encounter weekend retreat coming up in two weeks.

We also had to meet with a sponsor couple at least 5 times to discuss various aspects of marriage, parenting, etc. Those were some pretty interesting and informative meetings!

Finally, we have to meet with the priest one last time in a month or so to iron out the details of the liturgy for the wedding mass (ceremony).

 

[Roxa]

We started the counceling on Thursday... We are doing the PREPARE course... so far we like it. Our pastor told us that we got 100 out of 100 on the area of Communitcation.

 

[Maeyken]

We're doing the PREPARE marriage prep too, although all we've done so far is the questionnaire. Our first meeting with the pastor is at the end of the month. We were supposed to start our sessions at the begining of Jan. but because of schedules, etc. it's been delayed until the end of Feb. That's ok though, we'll still have lots of time.

We did our questionnaires so long ago that I think some of my answers will have changed by now (like it asked about whether we'd discussed certain things, and at that point in time we hadn't but now we have), but I don't think that should make *too* much of a difference!

I'm really interested to see what the questionnaire shows, although I have to admit I'm a bit nervous about it as well... not exactly sure why though!

 

[Sascha Fitzpatrick]

Yeah, there were some bits there that both of us put 'disagree' as in 'we have discussed such-and-such', that our minister asked us about - the survey actually helped us realise the bits we needed to talk a bit more about, so we were able to tell him that we had since discussed those issues and come to a good solution.

Sasch

 

[Singin4Him]

Being married I can tell you if you get some very in-depth premarital counseling you will not regret it! My husband and I got some great premarital counseling from the pastor that married us, plus we went to the family life conference, and we also attended a 6 week on day a week pre-marriage class as well. They were all very in-depth and very very helpful. I can honestly say we have used things we have learned, we have had times in our married during conflict or tough situations where we have said "rememeber what we learned or talked about..." These things will help you during the rough time of adjustment that we all go through once we get married. I can promise you, you will not regret getting premarital counseling and I highly suggest you go to a pre-marriage class as well, it's great to get advice from many sources. There really is no down fall to getting pre-marital counseling unless you're afraid they might tell you're wrong for each other.

 

[Linnis]

We did and I'm happy we did. It wasn't a class we talked with the pastor that was going to marry us about marriage, our relationship, family etc. He was really the only Pastor who understood we wanted to get married and wasn't justmental but realistic about our situation and how we could work on things etc. He was willing to work with us and talk about the tough stuff and not just write us off as another couple "living in sin" because we wanted to change that and needed help.

I would recommend counseling as well.

 

[cougtpt1]

Our councilling was very good it gave us a better reult of where we were spiritually together. We have and always had a good relationship but that process brought us closer spiritually.

 

[Quantum_Man]

My fiancee and I are almost done with our pre-marital counseling with my pastor, just 1 more session left. We've talked about Roles in Marriage, Family, Communication, Finances, and next is Sexual Intimacy. It has definitely helped us to talk things out and for my pastor to raise questions and thoughts that we probably wouldn't have thought of on our own.

 

[Mskedi]

For those of you who had counseling and appreciated it, what kinds of things do you think wouldn't have come up in conversation without the nudging that you found important?

My bf and I talk about everything, and I can't think of anything that we haven't covered. (e.g., money, not wanting children, religious differences, our respective families...)

 

[Singin4Him]

For those of you who had counseling and appreciated it, what kinds of things do you think wouldn't have come up in conversation without the nudging that you found important?

My bf and I talk about everything, and I can't think of anything that we haven't covered. (e.g., money, not wanting children, religious differences, our respective families...)

Pre-marital counseling is not a matter of just discussing issues you need to discuss it's being given godly advice on how to handle certain situations and how to communicate better. Trust me, even if you have discussed issues of communication and conflict you still need godly counsel from older wiser married people to give some helpful advice. I can't even begin to tell you how "tough" the first few months of adjustment will be, they're the most vital few months in your marriage and how you handle things during this time is very important, it really sets the stage for things to come. It's always good to have advice on how to handle conflict, how to communicate with a man/woman, how to handle the roles the Lord has given you both in marriage...etc. These are just things you can't automatically know how to do considering you've never been married before. You may be able to learn these things after making mistakes but why not get a little help first? How can it hurt you and your fiance? Btw, many ministers will not marry a couple without counseling them first.

 

[Woohaar]

We did two or three sessions? (it would have been more but my fiance moved towns halfway thru).

Basically involved reading photocopied chapters that out minister sent to us, discussed the questions at the end of each chapter together, and then went over the chapters again with our minister and his wife when we met with them.

We covered why we're getting married, combining world views, sex, intimacy (emotional, spiritual etc.)

It was all based on a book (unsure of the name, but it was good!) but for the sex bit we also read some of 'Intended for Pleasure' by Dr Ed Wheat

 

[LadyBird]

My fiance and I did the same Prepare questionnaire and we haven't got our results back yet. I'm not too worried though, we have been together for over five years so we know each other pretty well. It was funny though because there were certain subjects that we just never talked about (and when we were dating, I thought we talked about EVERYTHING) so I'm sure there will be some things we'll go over in our premarital counselling. I'm actually enjoying the sessions we have with our pastor. I'm quite curious to see what our results say...

 

[Sascha Fitzpatrick]

Mskedi,

You asked about what kind of things, when you've talked about EVERYTHING.

Well, take it from someone who knows (and who probably knew a bit more about her FH than most on here, due to having lived with him for about 2 years before we started dating)!!!

Sometimes, there's just things that haven't been gone in as much detail as you thought - which 3-way discussions like this (ie with someone else) can encourage.

Sometimes, you may have discussed an issue ages ago, and now that things are a bit more 'real', you just have to recap them, and see if things have adapted at all - you'll be surprised just how much opinions can change over issues in just a few months or so.

And sometimes, no matter how much you think you know a person, something just crops up that you would NEVER have expected from the start of your relationship, and you need to have a good chat, just to ensure you got his/her belief right.

There's also a lot of little things that come out of family life, and how your family did things, compared to how his family did things. For us, the big thing was the way our families thought of credit cards. His approach was a HECK of a lot different than mine (not bad, just different), so we needed to talk about that stuff to ensure we were both happy with how the finances would be handled. Because we've decided on an approach that uses more of his families way of doing things than mine, sometimes I just need a quick reminder on how it's all going to work (because it's something completely foreign to me).

You can't spend every minute of every week talking about every single issue that affects a marriage - if you did, you'd die of exhaustion. Sometimes, without even realising it, months can go by without a recap on a particular thing - and a quiz like PREPARE can help you to go 'you know, I need to just refresh my memory on so-and-so's opinon of that' and it can stimulate those conversations again.

I think it can be quite dangerous to say 'oh we've talked about everything - we're fine in that department', cos it's usually then when little things come and get at you, when you've least expected it.

Sasch

 

[Inperfected]

We haven't started but will when i return from africa... Don't know how but with people from church... It's a requirement, but would've anyway.

 

[JulesM]

We've just finished doing a 10 week 'wise before the event' course. Although none of the subjects were new to us (i.e. we'd talked about them before) there were still some new areas highlighted and also we found being with a more experienced older couple very validating.
I'd say its a must for all engaged couples. We can assume too much!!

 

[Carri20]

Anyway, our minister basically said that out of all the younger couples (I don't think we're THAT young considering I'm 25 and he's 31, and most people around here are 18 and engaged!) he's done marital prep with, we're probably the most realistic and 'unromanticised' about marriage he's ever worked with. And yeah - that's a good thing btw (in case you didn't think so)!

Congratulations! That's so awesome!

Unfortunately, my fiance and I are unable to do premarital counceling. He lives in Iowa and I live in Pennsylvania, and we'll be getting married during a one-week period in the summer when he comes to visit here. Then we're going back to Iowa. So things will be happening pretty fast but that's the only way it will work. Does anyone know of any online premarital counceling options?