Five lessons from PreCana
My fiance and I went to PreCana yesterday. It's an eight-hour marriage prep class sponsored by the Catholic church for couples who plan to be married in the Catholic church. Basically, it's required. So on a lovely Saturday morning, my fiance and I sleepily made our way to St. Walter on the far South side to sit in a non-air conditioned room and talk about major marital issues.
It wasn't quite as bad as it sounds.
Actually, the couple teaching the class was pretty entertaining. They were extremely open about their own marriage and the struggles along the way. Here are a few of the things we learned:
1. Fighting is healthy, if you do it the right way. It seems like a no brainer that the key to good fighting is open communication, but it's a lot harder than it sounds. And it means avoiding dragging up the past, name-calling and yelling. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I don't know anyone who doesn't do at least one of those things when they fight.
2. It doesn't matter how hard you try, you will not please everyone in either family at the holidays. Remember, they want you around because they love you, not because they are trying to make your life difficult, even though it really seems like that sometimes.
3. Major purchases should be cleared through your spouse. Most people know this. What we didn't know is that we have very different definitions of a major purchase. One more thing to add to the "discuss before the wedding" list.
4. Getting married doesn't mean you have to stop dating. Really? Awesome! Oh, you mean to not stop dating your spouse? Oh, well that's okay too.
5. Fifty percent of couples who lived together before getting married divorce. That doesn't count couples who moved in together during their engagement. interesting.
