Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Pre-marriage Preperation?
Hi,
I have a question for everyone. It is very common in my group of friends to attend pre-marital counselling threw whichever church they attend before they get married. My FH and I are spiritual and do not attend church. When doing some quick research online I see that you can enroll in pre-marriage preparation course threw some counselling groups here in Edmonton. I do not know however if my FH and I need this. We get along great, never fight, were very supportive and caring towards each other and seem to be getting better and better at communicating effectively with someone of the opposite sex.
I am wondering if any of you have taken these type of courses and if even if there are no relationship issues that we are currently experiencing would it be beneficial?
Thanks.
Re: Pre-marriage Preperation?
I think courses like that certainly can't hurt. That being said, DH and did not attend one. We've been married for 6 years now and we rarely ever have any serious conflict and, when we do, we work through it rationally and calmly. My bro and SIL did attend a couples retreat and course and, 4 years later, their marriage is a mess, they fight all the time and both have seen divorce attorneys.
Honestly, if you are comfortable with the way thingas are, and your current method(s) of communicating and working through issues, then I would leave well enough alone.
I think most people take them because the church requires they take it before they will marry them.
We didn't take any marriage prep courses. We'd been together for almost 4 years and had been living together for 2.5 of those, so we knew what we were getting ourselves into
I had to take a marriage prep. course in order to be married in an anglican church; Dh and I had been together for 6 years and didnt feel we needed it but being a requirement to get married in the church we choose; we took it!
We loved it; because of the person who ran it... (other nesties had the same person and i think that is what made it enjoyable) We found some of the advise interesting and helpful at the time as they were little minisual things you dont think about and are brought up!
We look at it as it didnt hurt and ended up being a positive experience
We took it as a requirement from our church. We have a great relationship, but we still found it to be a wonderful experience.
The course consisted of discussions about family history, conflict resolution, expectations, etc. There were no big surprises for us, but there were some moments of insight which were very nice. If nothing else, it was a great experience to walk away knowing for sure that marriage was definitely the right choice for us. We walked away from each session saying, "Wow... I love you!" Even though we manage pretty well on our own, it was nice to have someone else guide us through discussions about things we sometimes take for granted.
If you have a good counselor, it certainly couldn't hurt. You might be surprised. At the very least, you'll come out of it confirming that this is right.
Baby #2: Surprise BFP 9.19.12, EDD 5.24.13, natural m/c 10.19.13 at 9w
We took marriage prep classes through our church I really enjoyed it.
Nothing really came up that we didn't know about each other but I enjoyed the discussions on conflict resolution and other topics.
Part of my job to marry people, and I do believe some good marriage prep is important and useful. (I also care for couples/families...)
And I'm going to be honest, the phrase 'we never fight' concerns me.
Anyway, I think it's definitely worth looking into! Congrats on your engagement.
Thanks everyone!
I am pretty sure we are going to look into some more and go ahead with it.
We took one, a weekend long course.
It didn't bring up anything new or major that we hadn't discussed, but it was a nice chance to reaffirm that we were on the same page for the big things (family, money, etc).
It was also nice that it was over a weekend (Fri night - sunday afternoon), our lives were so busy at that point that it was a good opportunity to focus just on us and not on everything else going on in our lives.
I don't think it was a necessity for us, but it was a good experience. I think there are also a good number of non-religious ones out there too to choose from if you are interested.