Engaged Encounter

RecoveringActor

FI and I just booked our church (THANK GOODNESS!) and because it's a Catholic Chuch, we either have to go pre-cana classes or go to this retreat called Engaged Encounter.  FI did a retreat in high school called Encounter, and as far as I know it's the same type of thing, just centered on engaged couples. 

Has anyone gone?  I've been on religious retreats before (Kairos & Steubenville) but have no idea wheter EE or PC would be a better fit for FI and myself.

jennlp1026

I just mailed our registration for Pr-cana, we're going in October on Wednesday nights. I mentioned the encounter to my FI but he wasn't really down with the idea. Like you, I have done retreats (including one in Steubenville too) and thought it may have been cool (and it would be over with after a weekend instead of a month). A friend at work did the encounter several years ago and he loved it. He said he learned a lot about his wife that may not have come out otherwise. For us, it's pre-cana though.

RecoveringActor

How many classes do you have... is it just a month?  I know one of my friends did an all-day pre-cana class (9-5) but she lives in LA.  I don't know if the Diocese of Wilm offers that.

dibsontop

We did the EE at the end of April.  We're getting married in Wilmington, but live in Annapolis, so we thought it would be easiest to do the weekend instead of driving up for several classes.

The session was held at Jesus House, off Kirkwood Hwy in Wilmington.  It started late on Friday night and we were done by noon on Sunday.  It was...interesting.  Of course, most people that were there, only went because it was a requirement, however, there was one couple that wasn't even Catholic that went because family members had told them how beneficial it was.

The format for ours was two couples talking about different aspects of marriage, telling stories from their relationships, and then the engaged couples wrote in journals, answering questions based on the theme of the talk.  You'd write your answers seperately and then get back together to discuss them.  After a certain amount of time, you'd get back together as a group and listen to another story.  This went on for essentially the whole weekend.

There were some great discussions and my FI and I really tried to get something out of it.  But it got old, fast.  There's only so much listening to stories and writing in journals you can do.

Saturday night, they presented the opportunity to have all the engaged couples get together and ask each other questions, about their wedding planning, plans for kids, family matters, etc.  Anything you wanted.  They wanted this to be a bit more social and decided to provide two boxes of wine and a case of beer.  Well, the guys had already snuck out the night before and bought their own beer and when they saw the host couples bringing in alcohol, they snuck out durning a break and bought more.  So it ended up turning into a big drunk fest.  Lots and lots and lots of drunk people.  The discussion was really great and they said it was the liveliest they've ever had, but it got uncomfortable at some points, as some people got really drunk.  Needless to say, the morning session on Sunday was a bit of a waste because most people were hungover and ready to head home. 

Anyway, I thought overall it was a good experience.  Since we didn't take the regular classes I can't compare about the experience and what you get out of it, but I felt like it was a good opportunity to discuss a lot of things in our relationship and talk through things that we might not otherwise have done, or at least not to the same extent.

I'll be glad to answer any questions you have about it!

jennlp1026

There are four classes that are from 6:30-8:30 on Wednesday nights. There is also the option of Sunday classes. I think the Sunday option is only 3 classes, but I believe they are longer. The classes total 8 hours. We also liked the $95 price tag as opposed to the nearly $300 cost of the weekend. I wish there were an option for a one day class, but sadly the Diocese of Wilmington does not offer it.

Ms.BriarRose

Sparrow did EE, I would suggest paging her.  If I remember correctly, she raved about it.

Sparrow515

Hey girls!
DH and I did the EE weekend November '09 at Jesus House.  We personally did not get much out of it.  It would be a wonderful weekend retreat for couples who may not know each other that well on a deep, personal level, or couples who have problems communicating with each other, but Dave and I knew each other so well and didn't really have much to learn about each other.  That's a GOOD thing though.  Um, it was basically a meet and greet the first night, and then ALL DAY Saturday except for meals, we sat and listened to real life scenarios, and then the girls and guys split up to write in our journals about how we felt about the situation the mentor couple had presented, or how we would handle a similar situation...which was kind of boring.  Like I said, we didn't have much to learn about each other because we'd already covered all these things, like how to deal with in-laws, how many kids we want, etc.  Dave said that while the girls were split from the guys, the guys would put the retreat down and be disrespectful about their women and talk about other girls they'd hooked up with.  Kinda sad.  Saturday night, we all sat around like PP said, talking about things that were important to us in our personal lives, which was good but again, the guys took advantage of the alcohol (glad DH doesn't drink and I think bringing booze on a God-inspired retreat is stupid anyways).  So in summary, it would be a great idea if you want to connect to your FI on a deeper, more intimate level and it would put you or FI on the spot to answer questions that you may be uncomfortable talking about at home.  They didn't talk about finances at all, or much in the way of child rearing, it was more of a "get to know your fiance" weekend, which was a bummer to us.  Plus, we had taken compatibility quizzes prior to the retreat, and never even got those results back, which I had really been looking forward to.  I hope this helps, I don't mean to be a downer!  In hindsight, I would have preferred the weekly classes.

Ms.BriarRose

Ooops, guess I remembered wrong, sorry Lauren!

I do know that for Pre-Cana, you can go to other dioceses for the services they offer (tho it may cost a little more), and I have heard decent things about Baltimore's EE.

I personally am not Catholic, but FI and I did private pre-marital counseling with an actual counselor/therapist (6 sessions).  If you run it by your priest and he oks this in place of Pre-cana, I would be happy to give you the info for the counselor we used.  She was AWESOME.  I cannot rave about her enough.  She taught us skills that we actually use.  In fact, we got into a fight in one of the sessions (which she was actually happy we did), and she stopped us in mid fight to have us use the communication skills that we learned- and it went wonderfully after that.  It has been such a blessing to have these skills; she also worked with us on our problem areas (letting family into our marriage/relationship is a big one for us, and she was wonderful with at; we also worked on not putting ourselves or each other down, and the things we are good at and how to split those good skills up in marriage; there were other topics too).

I personally am of the opinion that everyone who is getting married should do some sort of pre-marital counseling, and it should be outside/in addition to whatever your church requires (which is what we did).  I don't care what a couple says, everyone has something they can improve on, and I would rather encourage a couple to get pre-marital counseling now, than be sad when the divorce is happening.  I know, some strong opinions I have- sorry if I offended anyone, I just feel really strongly about this!

Sparrow515

I guess I should clarify, while we didn't get anything out of the EE weekend, we did also meet with a mentor couple through church who DID help us out immensly.  They were more of a soundboard for us, letting us talk about issues that we had, that weren't brought up on the retreat.  I had no idea that it annoyed DH that I squeezed the toothpaste in the middle.  So I'm not saying pre-marital counseling is stupid and only couples who don't communicate should go, I just mean that each couple needs to find what means of counseling is right for them.  For us, the chance to sit down with another couple, one on one, was much more beneficial for us than sitting in a room with people we didn't know, listening to lectures, basically, and writing in journals.  Our mentor couple even came to our wedding, which really meant a lot to us.  So I'm sorry if I made it sounds like I was trashing pre-marital counseling, because I honestly wasn't.