Would like feedback about Catholic Engaged Encounter Weekend.

Mapper71

My fiance and I are doing this retreat this weekend. He is not religious at all and all I've been hearing the whole week is "My weekend is shot because we have to do this stupid retreat all weekend".

I am just wondering what exactly do you do there. Is it pretty much just listening to presentations form other people? Are we expected to get up and talk in front of the group? We have to get there at 7PM on Friday and are done around 4PM on Sunday. What time do presentations start and when do they end and how much of a presentation is there that Friday night?

ExpatPumpkin

I can't answer specific scheduling questions, because I'm sure each diocese runs the weekend the way they want... 

But your FI should be a better sport about it as I assume it's important to you.  And it's not religious torture   You'll have discussions about money, kids, sex, how to handle disagreements, household chores, etc.  You know, important marriage stuff.

We found it to be really helpful and not over-the-top religious at all.  It was actually an enjoyable weekend and we learned some new things about each other.  Good luck

blackfire5th

I don't remember how much of a presentation there was on Friday.  I think it was mainly an introduction.

The presentations last maybe 15 min, and then you are given time to write about whatever the talk was about, and then more time to talk about it with your FI in private.  The assignments are really to get you and FI talking about things you may not have discussed so far or that you have discussed but have not made decisions on.  I know you will probably say that you have already discussed all the important things, but I was surprised by how many couples were saying they had not, and you never know if you are one of those couples until you go.

They also teach you things like how to fight fair.

I know it sucks that it takes up your entire weekend, but your FI needs to just stop complaining about it or you two probably won't get the whole experience/benefit from it.

[Deleted User]

I ditto what ExpatPumpkin said. FI and I just did ours in Jan. We are both Catholic, although I didn't want to go bc I didn't want people to sit there and tell me how to handle my problems. But it wasn't like that at all, they are truly there to help you out. The best advice I think you can give him is to go with an open mind. They are not going to single him out for not being religious, in fact, it is more from a Christian perspective, they do no push Catholic teaching or anything like that. At least ours didn't.

We arrived at ours on a Friday night, too, the presentations went til about 11pm and then we had to be ready to go by I think 8 the next day and it went until 11pm that night as well. Sunday was the same thing except it ended with mass around 3pm. Ours was very fast paced and really made you think. If you are going to get anything from it, you have to have an open mind and take the things seriously.

Good Luck! I am sure you guys will be fine. I actually came away thinking, wow, that really did help us out even though I thought we had discussed everything there was already.

Kaye Smith

Our encounter was over superbowl weekend, so that added to the bad attitude that my FI had. I was afraid that this would be an over the top preachy sort of weekend with extremists leading everything.  Thank God I was completely wrong!  What was discussed throughout the weekend was mainly how to communicate effectively throughout your relationship - and they gave us great advice that we will actually use!  Both my FI and I feel like we actually learned a lot and were pleasantly surprised with the retreat.....and we made it home in time for the superbowl.  I hope your encounter will be a good experience for the both of you as well!

Jay+Marissa

It wasn't bad for us, but we were actually disappointed at the lack of religious theme. We didn't really learn anything new, but it was a good experience overall