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The two men in my life. Oh, and I have a husband too...
Did you do pre-marital counseling?
I'm just wondering if this is normal. The UO thread about fighting made me think of this. We were married in a United Methodist church and they required us to get several sessions of pre-marital counseling. It was (ETA) secular counseling.
DH and I totally rolled our eyes about it, but I think it was actually really good for us. We had a workbook that we had to complete beforehand and it really forced us to open up about things.
Funny story: We had to answer questions separately and then discuss them at the session. One of the questions was "What's your favorite thing to do together?" I guess DH didn't realize we'd have to talk about the answers? When we were going over them, I glanced at his paper and he had written "Knockin' boots." LOLOL!! When we got to that question, the counselor asked him what he had written. He totally stammered and his face got red and he goes "Ummm... watch TV...."
I 
him.
The two men in my life. Oh, and I have a husband too...
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Re: Did you do pre-marital counseling?
We were married in the Catholic Church and we also did the classes. I think we both figured it was going to be preachy and never ending, but it wasn't at all.
We talked about many things that forced DH to open up (he's pretty quiet with his emotions). I went into it thinking "omg what if this leads to us figuring out we're not ment to be?!" but in the end I walked away even more secure in the fact that we were a good team and had the same goals. I'm very glad we went!
FWIW a couple ended up cancelling their wedding bc they found they had SO many issues and conflicts about important topics. Sucks, but better for them in the end. I'm sure it would have ended badly if they hadn't make that choice.
Yes. In Florida there is a 3 day waiting rule after requesting a marriage license if you have not compelted pre-marital counseling (for Florida residents only). BUT, we were going to do it anyway.
We found an approved online, self-paced course. It was about 8hrs long, so we spent a few weekends doing some of the different exercises. We had to submit all of our completed answers & paperwork to the counselor and they reviewed it and sent the state a certificate of completion. I actually enjoyed it. One of the exercise was to draw a picture of what you envision you & your spouse doing over the next 5-10 years. We drew almost EXACTLY the same things! And we both had 'at least' two kids written down. Kind of funny.
Yes we did. Not married in a church (outside in a garden) and had a mostly secular service. Ours was not related to religion in any way. Best thing and I think it should be a requirement to get a marriage license. Ours was once a week for 8 weeks.
ETA: By "mostly secular" I mean it was not a religious service but we had 2 readings from the bible we thought were appropriate to anyone getting married, whether or not you believe in god.
Yup, required by our church (Catholic). We had to do a session with our priest, attend a day-long couples' workshop, take a long-ass multiple choice survey about our past, future, and views on relationships, and meet with another (older) married couple several times.
It mostly felt like jumping through hoops. Nothing came out of it that we hadn't already talked about.
The two men in my life. Oh, and I have a husband too...
Boo. Would've been way funnier if your DH had to admit to "knockin' boots" in front of a nun.
Yes, we did. We were married in the Catholic Church with a pretty conservative priest. We had to do the pre-cannen (sp?) which was about 5 sessions with the priest. We had to take a test on how compatible we were and then talk about the ones we didn't match on. We also had to do about 8 sessions w/ a sponsor couple where we had to do a workbook with them. It was kind of annoying, but I'm glad we did it.
Funny story. Our first meeting w/ the priest, he was getting some logistical info from us, birth dates, phone numbers, addresses, etc. When he asked for addresses, we both gave him the same one b/c we were living together. He said, "well, you should know that 98% of marriages fail when the couple lived together first." I was like...ok......
Nope, we were married in a Lutheran church and it wasn't mandatory; we didn't find it necessary then nor do I regret not doing it. FWIW, the summer we got married 6 of my good friends also got married and 5 of the couples took the counseling - out of that group there have been 3 divorces and another couple are miserable in their marriage. So, while I don't think it's a bad idea I also don't think it's a save-all - IMO a good base to marriage starts long the proposal even takes place.
Yes we did, we had counseling from both a Baptist Minister and a Catholic Priest. We had contemplated most issues raised before, but it allowed us to clarify and come to terms with some others. Obviously there were/are some big religious differences - and we totally failed those sections on the mulitple choice test!
We got this comment as well, also got a "talking to" about using Birth Control from the Priest. Which wasn't unexpected, but given that the Priest is also known as DH's Uncle Joe - that made it a little wierd at the next family dinner.
Good ole Catholic church... yes. With a couple form the church and then the diocesan wide retreat day.
I almost walked out of the family planning part of that retreat.
Why? I found that to be the only interesting and informative part of the whole day. It's so hard to find accurate information about NFP. In my experience most OB/GYNs even have a hard time recommending NFP resources. Without that experience, I'd probably still think NFP = rhythm method.
We did not. But we got married by a non-denominational pastor at a park.
My parents were married in a Catholic church. The church required them to do pre-marital secular counseling. (Dad was not Catholic, but he wasn't forced to convert.)
My parents did the best out of all of the people in that group (which included couples where both people were Catholic).
You H's answer was funny LOL
No, we didn't do it either. Our ceremony was nondenominational.
We did do premarital counseling because it was required by our church too. We are really great communicators though and we'd been together for six years before we got married so there wasn't much we hadn't already discussed about our future/views. It lasted five hours (since we were on a roll) and didn't really teach us anything new.
I did enjoy the experience though and I can see how it could help people who don't really discuss important subjects before they get married.
It was mandatory for us to be married at our church. Plus, I think it was good to take a step back from all the planning of the big day to focus on the fact that I had one day to be a bride and the rest of my life to be a wife.
I think also the personality/experiences/background survey showed me that my DH really struggles with his confidence, since his dad walked out on him when he was a baby and his stepdad verbally abused him, and eventually walked out on him, too. We're Christians, and my DH is a strong guy who knows his identity and self-worth is grounded in Christ, but knowing about how his dad(s) failed him as a boy helped me understand why a) he thinks any time MY dad offers to help him, my dad must think DH can't do it on his own (which is untrue), and b) he is TERRIFIED that he will not be a good father to our DS (which is BS because he's such a caring, unselfish dad).
Plus, it showed me my own weaknesses and any places where I might have had unrealistic expectations about what marriage (and parenthood since I was 3 months pregnant when we got married) would be like.
Yes and no. DH wanted some youth pastor from a Baptist church that he was friends with (neither or us are Baptist, we're both Methodist) to marry us. Fine. Whatev's, we weren't having a church ceremony so I didn't really care. The pastor was SO damn nervous and had NO clue what to do that the counseling was a joke. I was a little irate, because I know how much it really can help get things out a little, as my ex-H and I had a TON of pre-marital counseling. *we got divorced because of the issues we tried to work out in PMC...mommy issues anyone?*
Anyways, DH's "friend" stumbled through the whole ceremony during the wedding, he was shaking like a leaf and it was just awful. THEN....he never sent in our paper! We had to stay on his ass to get him to send it in to the state, and he wouldn't answer his phone or call us back. AWFUL. TERRIBLE. Him being kicked out of his church to begin with for getting involved with a youth(ish..she was 18)should have been enough to make me put a stop to it.
bahaha! that just cracked me up.
But we did premarital counseling because we got a discount on our mariage license if we participated. DH's uncle is a pastor and he married us so we went to his house for the counseling. Yeah, he asked like one or two questions but then him and DH got into the whole "How's the family?" conversation and talked about family drama for 3 hours (smh...men). He signed off on 6 hours of counseling afterwards and told us he couldn't wait for the wedding.