so i'm at pre cana

I am shocked.

Haha is awful

Did they tell you not to have sex and not to use birth control yet? After those chairs it will be covered.

Oh my goodness.. glad I don't have to do that...

Arggg......kill me now.....

Mj those were the two 1st topics covered this morning, now we are onto drinking and gambling, I just failed the test they gave me lol .... its a tad outdated

Thankfully we didn't have to go to anything like that for our Pre-cana it was just meetings with our Deacon.

Ugghhh great!!! Im so looking forward to Pre Cana in April, my priest is also making us take a "God's Plan for a Joy-Filled Marriage" class...Oh the joy*sarcasm*

Yet another reason I'm glad H and I elected not to get married in the church. With an all day event like that, won't you be done in a couple days, though?

I think K is done and she's now drinking and gambling to recover.

Soon to be. Maybe you passed them? After all the glass is always half full. They said kids and my daughter says uhhh NO! The priest says okay I just want to make sure you have discussed this and are on the same page.

OH ladies I did in fact go out and have a drink or three after that event!!

We got done 45 minutes earlier but phew that was a very long day!

MJ oh no we "failed" we have to break down into small groups after I posted and they came over, to ask what we missed and to talk about it: one of the questions was do you think living together before marriages helps couples see if they can live together for life. And I answered true and the real answer clearly was false but it said communication is the key if you talk openly you will be able to live with your spouse. opps and then other question I failed was do you think there needs to be more then 24 hours in the day to get everything you need to get done? And I wrote true and it was false it said you need to budget your time wisely.

We also "learned' how to fight using "I" statements. Example: FH and I are fighting?

Me: I've upset you spend every Sunday with the guys.

FH: You're upset that I'm spending Sunday with the guys.

CONT

Me: Can you spend one Sunday with me and not them.

FH I can spend a Sunday with you and not them

^^ this is how they want us to communicate with each other I really can't see this happening.

All and all FH and I had already talked about the major parts of the day. Kids, money, holidays, fights. It was just a long day of sitting on a metal chair listening to 3 couples, one who did the communication for us who have been married 35 years, the next couple were married 27 years and did the money aspect and the last couple where married 3 years and talked to us about sexuality and how to be intimate without feeling afraid or not having sex.

And then we had a NFP (Natural Family Planner) who talked to us about syncing my cycle up with the calendar and not using BC and how effective it is (fh was so unconformable talking time of the month and periods)

Idk I really didn't take that much out of it because like I said FH and I had the important talks already, which I would think every CONT

Engaged couple would have before getting to this point.

I'm glad it is over I would do it again to get married in the church, but I didn't take anything away from it only to know that FH are on the same exact page all our answers (they broke us up to fill out the questions) we're the same, and it made me realize that this is the guy for me!!

Next step is our interview with the priest which is one-on-one.

To all the couples going to pre-cana, if you had discussed all the major points then you will be great, I just hope you all have better chairs and not lecture after lecture like we did for the 1st half of the day.

Ahhh, the joys of atheism. lol.

I am dreading this part. I won't be getting married in a church but have a feeling we'll go through something similar. I'd RATHER go through a couple sessions with a regular therapist. We'll see.

Interesting.. I have some Catholic friends that are married and I've heard a little bit about all of this.. it's certainly.. yeah, I'll still with interesting!

FH and I don't go to church.. we hired an officiant that we don't know to marry us.. since we don't have any "premarital counseling" requirements, we decided we would read the "The 5 Love Languages" as our own little way to continue to strengthen and learn about our relationship

Here's what I honestly find scary. Effective conflict resolution is absolutely critical for a successful marriage. But simplifying it into such primitive statements, and molding people's conflict styles into one is beyond... well nothing even remotely nice that I can say. So please K, don't think about it as "fail", some of those questions are pure cliches with very little substance behind them.

Our pre-canna was not bad, we only had to do 3 hours to complete the course, we didn't have boring lectures, in fact the deacon did all the talking and quite frankly he was funny, we took 15 minute breaks and it was great!

Soon2. That is so funny about the I statements. First I am old and we have never fought. Nope I say what I need to and move on, there is no need to have a war about it. I have friends that fight all the time like throwing things fight, okay grow up! So they took some class and then came to tell us how we should talk to each other. We were just having dinner and there was nothing being discussed. They were at war and trying to become marriage counselors. I laughed and told her to save it for her house not mine. Yep they have not spoke to us since, oh well.

I like the I feel statements. I was at the counselor with the x and said I am pissed off, they said that is not a feeling. I said bet me, she says you have to redo your statement. I said I feel pissed enough to leave and I did. I am a believer in saying what is on your mind.