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Prepare and Enrich session?

CorgniliasCorgnilias member
First Comment
in Wedding Customs & Traditions Forum
Has anyone tried Prepare and Enrich? Is it worth it??

My pastor offered to facilitate a "Prepare and Enrich" couples session for my fiancee and I, which is part of pre-marital counseling that he does. It's not a religious thing per se, but a tool to evaluate areas that are either strengths of potential weaknesses to be aware of in a relationship. We are sure we're right for each other as we see eye to eye on the important stuff and we have chemistry, so I'm wondering if this is beneficial. My pastor is a smart guy, so if he has found benefits to this evaluation I'm thinking it might be worth a shot.
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Re: Prepare and Enrich session?

  • natsfans84natsfans84 member
    First Comment
    We just did it last weekend, and haven't gotten the "results" back yet obviously, but for us it was kind of a cop-out. FI's pastor counted that as a counseling session, which are mandatory to get married in his church, so we went with it, but the pastor ended up chatting with us for like 10 minutes, explaining what we had to do with P&E, collected our $35 for the materials (what??!) and left us to fill it all out.
    I've heard good things about it, but honestly I felt like we'd already discussed all these things, so filling out a 165-question packet and sending it off to some stranger to analyze wasn't going to be very helpful. Plus our wedding is in 45 days... if the analysis shows that we're doomed, it's a little late now ;) 
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  • CorgniliasCorgnilias member
    First Comment
    Thanks Kristen. How long does it take to get the results? I was also questioning the value of filling out questions and sending them in to some automated system. If you get the results back and find them useful could you let me know? I was thinking that part of the value might be if the results were accompanied by analysis or counseling from the pastor who actually knows us, but I'm not sure, since I'm new to this.
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  • natsfans84natsfans84 member
    First Comment
    It takes two weeks we were told. If you think your pastor knows you well enough to do that kind of analysis, by all means go for it. Our pastor is FI's pastor-- my dad is a pastor but wanted to just be Dad at my wedding, so I don't know this guy very well. I'll be sure to follow up :)
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  • hoeschjmhoeschjm
    First Comment

    We did it through a marriage course and I loved it!  We took the survey beforehand and the instructor gave us our results during the class.  I wasn't surprised by most of our results but the follow up conversations were great.  Even before we got the results back we discussed some of the different questions- there were a lot that we hadn't talked about before.  Our instructon made sure that the class realized, too, that it was a pass/fail thing.  If you were lower than you would have liked to be she gave suggestions on how to compromise or talk through different obstacles.  Both the Prepare-Enrich and the course were very useful.  I totally recommend!  Plus, in some states if you take it and do some marriage counseling (through class/pastor) you get a discount on your marriage license.  Ours was $75 cheaper in MN than it would have been if we didn't do it.

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  • Avion22Avion22 member
    5 Love Its First Comment
    I would definitely recommend some kind of counseling or marriage prep, whether it's led by your pastor of just a workbook you pick up at the book store. you really have nothing to lose, and can only stand to gain from something like this.
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  • FutureMrsMDJahnkeFutureMrsMDJahnke
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    We are doing prepare and enrich with our premarital counseling, there haven't been a ton of surprises for us ..but it has been fun!
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  • kiki1978kiki1978 member
    First Comment
    We did it and really liked it. You get a very nicely organized print out of things that are your strengths and things that are your weaknesses.  We also got a workbook to use.  We didn't necessarilty follow it, but it gave us good starting points fo discussion.  I think it's very helpful overall.
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  • Brazelton106Brazelton106 member
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    We are about half way through this course, and LOVE it. You will learn some very good tools to help strengthen your relationship, improve communication and conflict resolution tools. Our test was only $30 (for both). And the results came back right away (to the pastor). I highly recommend this course.
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  • kartishkartish
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    Our pastor had us take it - I thought that it was pretty thorough. The results were not very surprising to us though, as we had been living together for a couple of years and dating for five years. It did lead to some good discussions though. I only wish that it hadn't been the only part of our counseling.

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  • jesslynn805jesslynn805
    First Comment
    We did it and it opened very inappropriate doors for my pastor I felt. The answers were not surprising, as we have lived together for six yrs but we actually had to tell the pastor that the things he was discussing, like very inappropriate sexual questions, I.e. bondage, swinging, etc were making us very uncomfortable and was clearly crossing the line. I got more out of reading the material after taking it home instead of him going on a tangent about totally unacceptable topics
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