Marriage prep

My prep course is Catholic based and so much of it I disagree with...mainly due to my pro-choice/feminist views.
we're doing ours online.

My FH and I still need to sign up for this! Getting married at our Catholic church!

The stories I've read below all sound great! Useful information to learn and learn with your partner! We have been together for over 4 years but do not live together yet so I'm sure there's a lot to learn and a lot we can still work on!

A lady I work with was making me a little nervous about these sessions... she said when she went they were asking her a LOT of very detailed and personal questions... :/ shes a little bit older so it was a longer time ago but still...

View quoted message Yea catholic church requires them if u want to be married in Church and follow the sacraments. From what some others commented on here, it looks like there's a different kind of marriage prep. I would just look around more.

View quoted message I guess there different types of marriage prep. Mine is only a full day session. But it's for sure will be informative and helpful. I'm looking forward to it.

I would love to do this but I don't see anything locally, for us in Durham Region, other than through churches.

Ours is 6 sessions, about marriage, communication, children, sexuality, roles and finances. Our church recommends doing them over 8 months, but since our engagement is shorter, we're doing them in half of that. We could choose to do all sessions with the same couple, all with different couples, or a mix (which is what we're doing, 3 sessions with one couple, and the rest with 3 other couples).

We've had one session so far, and it's quite interesting. But we are doing things the more traditional way (not living together before) and we've only been dating a year, so I can see how they might not seem as useful to couples who've been living together for a long time.

I went through marriage prep with my first marriage. We basically just answered questions about each other and how we will deal with conflicts as a couple. Then we wrote love letters to each other to open the day of the wedding.

View quoted message I couldn't agree with u more. Well said.

We are halfway through our course. We have 6 sessions. It has been great but there haven't been any surprises. We communicate well and have talked about expectations, budgeting, family, inlaws, conflict resolution, our roles. But, we are also talking about it in our course with a couple who are like "marriage mentors" for us.

I highly recommend pre-marital counselling of some sort! For us, it is basically a confirmation that we are doing things well and have a great relationship. There are places that offer it without a religious aspect as well.

We never did this morning do we need to. We've lived together for a long time now and we aren't religious so it's not necessary for us. A friend of mine is getting married next month and she and her fiance had to do pre-marital counseling I think they did maybe 2-3 session before the wedding and have to do one every couple months after the wedding too. Basically just to make sure they are ready for marriage, know what to expect when living together make sure they are able to communicate and then after the wedding to support them with anything they may need.

View quoted message They weren't too bad! They were basically on life, how you react to situations, if you want kids and such. Stuff that you already know about each other (basically just a test to see if you are compatible). We did have an exercise for communication where one had a picture and had to describe it and the other drew it. We nailed that! Haha so that made us feel confident in that department. Yeah I can totally understand why they make it mandatory though.

We finished recently too and it was actually fun. It covers all the stuff Megann said, but our parish also had a Natural Family planning expert come speak with us. Every parish does it a little differently. We also took a long comparability quiz that just brings up important dissonance that you should talk about. All of the answers you give stay confidential too

It is more helpful for newer couples who are not already living together though. None of the couple's in my sessions lived together, but all of us had been together a long time. 5.5 years for us,9years for one couple and 13 years for the other!! We should hopefully know who we are marrying at this point.

If you intend to be married in accordance to the teachings of the Catholic Church though, regardless of your living conditions, I think the marriage prep is important. Because after the wedding day, you want to make sure you are married for the right reasons. And you should know how to live your faith through your marriage, if you receiving the sacrament of marriage by choice.

We did ours a few weeks ago. We basically know each other, but it’s mandatory by the catholic church. It was very informative though. We talked about relationships, budgets, sex, having kids and educating them, we learn how to deal with situations and learning to compromise and communicate. We were 24 couples. It was an amazing weekend

View quoted message Oh wow quizzes. My FH dislike quizzes.
Yea your right, it'll be more beneficial for those who hasn't lived togther. It's just the fact that it's mandatory for church to have it that's the only reason why were doing it as well.

We had quizzes and such and then had to read material. Honestly we really know each other, we talk a lot about everything and know each other really well (we've been living together for about two years now). It would be great for couples that don't communicate well or that don't live together. We had to take ours in order to get married in the church. It's quite informative, we found the books interesting. We did a private session though instead of the group. That may have been more fun.

View quoted message I'm on the same boat. I've been living with my FH for 4 years now and been together for almost 7 years. We have a 1 yr old daugther as well so having an all day prep will be hard as we haven't been away from her that long. It's a requirement for us since we're getting married in Catholic church.

I would like to know this as well. From what I've heard it's supposed to teach you communication skills, and help "build a foundation" for the rest of your lives... but I'm not sure if it will be beneficial for us, as we have already lived together for 5 years... so we have gone through our ups and downs of adjusting to life together, and how we will/should communicate when coping with issues, feelings and problems.
Is it more for traditional people, who haven't lived together? Or I know many people do this as a religious requirement before marriage, so they person marrying them can approve of their relationship before performing the ceremony...