Marriage Prep - long question :o)

memilie

I've been a lurker here for a little while, and have grown so fond of you wonderful Catholic women.  I converted to the RCC a little over ten years ago, but all of my family and most of my friends are Evangelicals, and I've been yearning to have someone to discuss some of my concerns with. 
Currently my fiance and I live about 3 hrs apart.  We decided to do our marriage prep with his parish which is a very traditional and joyful Dominican parish.  We love it there because the Mass is very reverent and the church is bursting with large families.  We will be getting married in my parish (because that is where the majority of friends and family are) which is more liberal and informal.  Sometimes the masses make both of us uncomfortable (loud talking in the church before and after etc), but we both adore the new priest (who actually grew up in my fiance's church) who is slowly making changes and bringing back some reverence and tradition to the parish.
So, for our marriage prep with the traditional parish, we were asked a bunch of questions, and once they ascertained that we were virgins not living together, that we were commited to NFP, and both had a strong faith with regular Mass attendance, confession etc, they basically said that we would just go over our FOCCUS results and then have one more session after that where we planned our ceremony. 

The other parish that we are getting married in wants us to have had 12 hours of conseling.  They usually do these big watered-down group classes that we don't think would really have much value to us, as we already feel like we are very strong in our faith and intend to 'follow all the rules.'

So while, we don't really want to go through the big group class thing,  I was hoping that we would have some more individualized counseling, where we worked on communication and what marriage would actually be like etc.  We've been together over a year, but we definitely have some issues that we continue to fight over. 
So I guess my question is this: If you did big group classes, did you feel like you got anything out of it?  Were they more focused on the very basics of being married in the Church or did they really enrich your marriage?  Did any of seek counseling with a private counselor?  What was helpful?

Resa77

I haven't gone to my engaged conference yet, but I've heard good things about it.  It's not about going in-depth.  Rather, it's supposed to touch on multiple subjects so that later, in private, you and your FI can talk about these things.  That's my understanding of it, at least.

If you "have" to do it, I'd go into it with an open mind.  It can't hurt, and maybe it'll be beneficial? 

I totally see where you're coming from, though, and sometimes it can be a bit tedious to sit through an hour long talk about why to use NFP when you already know and already plan on it.  But hey, if they talk a lot about stuff you already know, then use that time to silently pray for those who are hearing the message for the first time, that their minds and hearts be open to God's will

Hilraythebride

My FI and I did the engaged ncounter weekend and it was wonderful.  Even if you are in touch with your faith and are doing NFP, it brings up a lot of things that are not religious.

Things like finances, blending of familes and family backgrounds, what will you do if you can't have children, etc.  It gives you and your FI a chance to think and talk about things you may not have even though about before or may not wanted to bring up in a very constructive environment.  The way it went for us is we had two presenting couples and a priest and they did 20 minute talks then each of us wrote for about 20 minutes and then we had another 20 minutes to discuss our responses.

It really helped bring us closer and just affirmed what we already know 

Best of Luck!

lalaith50

We did an evening and morning class called "We Care," that was really just about communicating and stuff. It was pretty good. I think I liked it a bit more than DH, and I certainly wouldn't call it "wasted." (It was about 6 hours total.)

agapecarrie

You can design your own marriage prep....

Read Christian books together. Watch the Christopher West vids together (I've seen them and him so many times and I still get something out of it every time).

Christopher West has an actual marriage prep supplement video series as well that you can look into.

IF you know of any couples that you respect you can ask to meet with them to discuss marriage.

Regarding the classes...I know what you mean about having to sit through stuff that you already know about. IF you're up to it, you can consider it a time that you might witness to other couples there...because its likely most are living together and don't understand chastity.

bibliophile2010

I'd like to echo what everyone else has said. My now-H and I were in a similar situation (not much to learn), but still enjoyed the classes. We used the conversation time to talk about realted topics (for example, not whether to use NFP, but other aspects of sexual morality that we thought of), and just be together. Our stuff (2 day-long classes) was all held at retreat centers, so it was nice for us to walk around and enjoy some time set apart for each other and prayer and such.

professorscience

Ditto Bibli.  H and I had known each other 13 years and had dated for almost 7 when we had our EE weekend.  We'd had a lot of the conversations that they ask you to have, but we really enjoyed the chance to walk the grounds and just talk.  It was very interesting to see how much we had grown up together.

newlyseliski

My husband and I also had a somewhat long distance and long relationship+engagement (5 years) before we got married... and both being Catholic and serious about our faith were looking forward to marriage prep like the NFP classes and meeting with a mentor couple.

We went into our pre-cana weekend worried that we wouldn't really get much out of it... but had a good experience much like the ladies mentioned above!  There were a lot of couples at our pre-cana retreat that made it pretty evident that they didn't want to be there... but we found it to be a good opportunity to try to witness to those couples if we happened to be at the same table during the small group discussions... which there weren't too many of.  Plenty of good, quality time to chat with the fiance, though!

memilie

Thanks for sharing your experiences.  We had our first session of going over our FOCCUS results, and I was amazed at how much we got out of having an outsider listen to what we said and encouraging us and offering advice.  I'm going to see if we can have more sessions on instead of just doing two.  I guess that part of me thinks that you have to sort absolutely everything out before getting married, but I know that that is impossible.  THe part of me that is fearful of fully trusting someone else would rather have some of the trickier stuff 'nailed down'.  But I know that I am going to have to trust him and give myself to him, and love him without reservation. 

mgg242

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/cultural-wedding-boards_catholic-weddings_marriage-prep-long-question-o?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Cultural%20Wedding%20BoardsForum:615Discussion:b8ef7ae8-9c58-405e-a110-01350e92909aPost:6f48741c-bd59-40f5-b312-398919381c49">Re: Marriage Prep - long question :o)</a>:
[QUOTE]My FI and I did the engaged ncounter weekend and it was wonderful.  Even if you are in touch with your faith and are doing NFP, it brings up a lot of things that are not religious. Things like finances, blending of familes and family backgrounds, what will you do if you can't have children, etc.  It gives you and your FI a chance to think and talk about things you may not have even though about before or may not wanted to bring up in a very constructive environment. 



This!    We actually loved our engaged encounter weekend!