PreCana: Update #2

My future husband and I were able to do all of our pre-Cana work/classes online. We did ours through the Archdiocese of Chicago. Really saved us travel time and expenses!

We're doing ours as a weekend. But I know a bit about them.. yes, they talk about sex and natural family planning. It's graphic. You want a Catholic wedding..that's part of it. But they also focus on communication..possible issues(finances, in laws..etc), ways to be supportive.. I'm excited to go to ours. Don't look at it as a chore, you might really like it.

Our last class is this weekend, our classes were spread out over 8 weeks every Sunday in the evening. The main focus was communication. they did talk to us about NFP and in depth about the difference between intimacy and sexual intimacy. I am so glad that we were a part of the classes. it really reassured both of us about the strength of our relationship and our ability to communicate. I'm in agreement with Sarah. if you go with an open mind it'll be a good thing. You'll even notice things in this forum that'll make you really glad you are participating in the classes lol!

Thank you for the responses! We're going tonight and then tomorrow 12-6pm. I will update with our experience in case anyone else is wondering.

Ours was 8am-9pm and the next day 8am-2pm. It's like a marriage counseling class essentially. They talked about each of our love languages and how to communicate, how to solve arguments, what each of our priorities and values are, how we each want to raise a family, etc. Yes they do talk about sex, but they didn't lecture us on it. They basically taught us it's more than just the physical act and how to truly enjoy it as a couple. I thought the whole thing was helpful

Ours was actually very informative and legitimate counseling. They talked about sex (like any good marriage prep would), but not in a lecturing way.

Agree with PPs. Ours was a weekend thing too. The sex talk was mostly about NFP and about rooting the sexual relationship within the marriage - nothing super graphic or lecture-y. We honestly found it super helpful. The practical tips on love languages and communication and stuff was useful, but more that we were able to reorient ourselves towards thinking of the marriage as a sacrament, which I think made our bond stronger.

Update:

So just got back from Day 1 of PreCana and it really wasn't as bad as I thought. It was a little corny, but there were some useful elements. In the workbook they gave us there was a budget planning guide which was helpful and did get us thinking, since we are in the process of house-hunting. We also answered questions and played games that all reminded me of the books they have in Barnes and Noble where the one person answers, then the other person answers the same questions and you check how you compare. It wasn't as lecture-y (so far) as I expected but there were lots of speakers.

They did provide us with pamphlets that absolutely made me roll my eyes. Inside one brochure it said:

"If you and your husband/wife decide not to have children, you should be intimate during the infertile times of the woman's cycle"... really? Lol just could not believe they felt the need to write that. They also gave us lots of info on how birth control is bad and how God is the 3rd person in your relationship (FH majorly rolled his eyes every time they said that).

They told us that tomorrow there would be a discussion about sex. So we will see what that is like and I will post another update. All in all, apart from the fact that we would have preferred to rest tonight, it wasn't bad and certain things were easy to ignore. We were each given a "forgive me" stone from a married couple of 54 years which they said we are supposed to exchange during arguments. I thought that was actually pretty adorable. FH also was selected to pick a winner from a jar and he ended up picking our names at random, so we became PreCana winners lol. We won wine, pasta, sauce, cookies, and a nice basket. No complaints here.

Our winnings

I'm glad you had a positive experience! We'll be doing a day long marriage prep in February and I've been wondering what it'll be like. We met with the priest once and were both pleasantly surprised how much we enjoyed it despite being nervous. Thank you for sharing!!

No worries! I have to be honest and say FH absolutely hated it though because he felt like there was an air of superiority in the room. I was fine tolerating the arrogance from speakers that bothered him so much. My FH saw it as a waste of time and is not looking forward to tomorrow. I will say today was plenty with all the information they gave us. Going for 6 hours tomorrow, a day where my FH is now losing money because he had to take off of work to attend, seems like overkill. I think if it were maybe only a couple of hours the second day I would feel differently. I'm more optimistic, though, and don't think it will be so bad. I will update afterwards!

We did ours as a weekend. I was really nervous as my FH is not Catholic. He had a completely open mind and we were able to connect on a whole other level. We are closer now than ever!!

I'm of the mind that almost every type of pre-marital counseling is helpful, and actually, my accountant used to teach one pre-cana class in finances, which I thought was brilliant of his church to include!

good luck~!

Please update about the rest of your pre-Cana sessions. FH and I will have to take these soon and having some input of experiences is super helpful!

We actually enjoyed ours through the Diocese of Brooklyn. Friday night was a prayer service for about an hour and a half with a presentation about the sacraments by a priest. Saturday was 9-3 ish. Different topics with an older married couple. They made it interesting and moved it along quickly. Breakfast and lunch were provided and gave us time to socialize with the other 19 couples. We did go to a session specifically for inter-marriage as FH is not Catholic.

@ d&g114 ours was basically all topics covered by older couples so far, and it's kinda funny because they don't provide food but they provide lots of wine and cheese.

@celia we had a woman with no financial management background talk about finances with us but the resources she gave us were really wonderful. That definitely was the part I liked.

Thank you for posting this. We will have to complete precana so I am finding this very helpful.

We did ours on a Saturday from 8-4 and we didn't bring anything since we were provided with booklets and such. It was a long day but there were probably 30+ other couples there with us. There was sex talk but it wasn't too in depth. There may be some cringeworthy things with NFP but it wasn't too too bad. Honestly my FH and I didn't get much out of this class. My diocese required us to take the Pre Cana, NFP and Sponsor Marriage Couple Meetings prior to getting married. And we preferred the one on one sponsored couple meetings we did-it was much more enlightening than an 8 hour class that touched on multiple topics.

That's great that the first day went so well! And those prizes are pretty awesome lol.

We didn't have a great experience with our pre-cana, but it had a lot to do with the couple who led our day session. Our priest is great though.

Our retreat was a little cheesy but overall it was a great opportunity for us to talk to one another about a lot of things we've never talked about. It helped that we kept getting 30 min discussion breaks, and FH and I went to the bar next door. Including NFP i spent over 40 hours in marriage prep, definitely

overkill.