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We got ourselves Catholicized this weekend.
Well, not really. Just sorta.
To get married in the Catholic Church, you have to go through a program called pre-Cana first. Basically, the idea is this - Catholics aren't allowed to divorce. So if they're going to marry you, they want to make really, really sure you've thought this all through.
So we (and, like, 100 other couples) spent all day Saturday listening to a marriage counselor and doing activities in a workbook.
All right, that sounds really cheesy. It wasn't. It was actually pretty cool. A lot of the activities were things like filling out forms on various topics - your own family history, your favorite things, your strengths and weaknesses, your fighting styles, your feelings on children, your financial history, how you wanted chores to get done - both with your answers and also with what you thought your partner's answers would be. Then you compared with your partner to see whether your own image of yourself was different from your partner's image of yourself, and vice versa. For us, there weren't a lot of surprises - we'd talked about most of this stuff before and we know each other really well. But even so, there were some things that were a little surprising. Just little things where one of us didn't realize how they were coming off to the other, or where one of us was totally beating themselves up over a "failing" that the other hadn't actually even noticed. And there were a couple topics we hadn't ever talked about - whether we'd want to adopt if we couldn't have kids of our own, for example.
And while we were pretty unsurprised by a lot of the stuff, I suspect there were a lot of people there who probably hadn't thought of some of it. I kind of wish there was a way to make this kind of program mandatory for anyone trying to get married. People definitely got out of it what they put in, but it's at least worth an effort.
It's also an impressively practical little program. It started with a prayer and ended with a mass, but it's not really about religion at all, except in the context of what role you each expect it to play in your marriage. This wasn't preaching - it's run by lay people, and it's really entirely about communication and making sure that you think and talk about all the issues that make or break a marriage. There were exercises on planning out a full budget for your first year of marriage, or exactly how many hours per week you ideally want to spend on every activity in your life. On how you fight, and how you make up, and how you choose where you're going on vacation. On warning signs and how to know that you should stop right now and put the wedding on hold. On what you expect out of sex and how you want to deal with your parents and in-laws. Really frank, blunt stuff.
Anyway, good program. Really interesting. Wish more people had to do it.
Well, not really. Just sorta.
To get married in the Catholic Church, you have to go through a program called pre-Cana first. Basically, the idea is this - Catholics aren't allowed to divorce. So if they're going to marry you, they want to make really, really sure you've thought this all through.
So we (and, like, 100 other couples) spent all day Saturday listening to a marriage counselor and doing activities in a workbook.
All right, that sounds really cheesy. It wasn't. It was actually pretty cool. A lot of the activities were things like filling out forms on various topics - your own family history, your favorite things, your strengths and weaknesses, your fighting styles, your feelings on children, your financial history, how you wanted chores to get done - both with your answers and also with what you thought your partner's answers would be. Then you compared with your partner to see whether your own image of yourself was different from your partner's image of yourself, and vice versa. For us, there weren't a lot of surprises - we'd talked about most of this stuff before and we know each other really well. But even so, there were some things that were a little surprising. Just little things where one of us didn't realize how they were coming off to the other, or where one of us was totally beating themselves up over a "failing" that the other hadn't actually even noticed. And there were a couple topics we hadn't ever talked about - whether we'd want to adopt if we couldn't have kids of our own, for example.
And while we were pretty unsurprised by a lot of the stuff, I suspect there were a lot of people there who probably hadn't thought of some of it. I kind of wish there was a way to make this kind of program mandatory for anyone trying to get married. People definitely got out of it what they put in, but it's at least worth an effort.
It's also an impressively practical little program. It started with a prayer and ended with a mass, but it's not really about religion at all, except in the context of what role you each expect it to play in your marriage. This wasn't preaching - it's run by lay people, and it's really entirely about communication and making sure that you think and talk about all the issues that make or break a marriage. There were exercises on planning out a full budget for your first year of marriage, or exactly how many hours per week you ideally want to spend on every activity in your life. On how you fight, and how you make up, and how you choose where you're going on vacation. On warning signs and how to know that you should stop right now and put the wedding on hold. On what you expect out of sex and how you want to deal with your parents and in-laws. Really frank, blunt stuff.
Anyway, good program. Really interesting. Wish more people had to do it.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 07:32 pm (UTC)From:It's an interesting thought experiment... but I don't think it should be done. I think this really just turns into, "The world would be a lot better if people were like me and my friends... can we require that?" Unfortunately, no. =)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 07:40 pm (UTC)From:I also think there's a middle ground to tread on the "required" front. After all, there's no test, no promises, and little required reading. All you have to do it show up for six hours, and talk to the person you want to marry. And frankly, if someone has a problem with talking to the person they plan to marry, I'd like to hit them with my shoe.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 07:47 pm (UTC)From:Trying to think of parallels with other state-organized things... is there any program that you're required to only show up to? Like you said, no tests or anything (which I had for my driving course). I guess you're required to show up if you're drafted, but I feel like that's not really a parallel...
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 07:51 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 08:01 pm (UTC)From:- Judges can require alcohol or drug counseling as part of a sentence or settlement. Anger management can also be included.
- If you want to adopt or act as a guardian in some other way, the state requires you to go through some amount of counseling.
- A lot of discrimination laws require you to go to mediation before taking the case to court, but you don't have to make a serious effort.
- There are lots of requirements that apply to state officials and employees like that.
On the other hand, marriage is considered a right rather than a privilege, so most of the above (including driving licenses) don't apply.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 08:51 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 07:59 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 08:50 pm (UTC)From:Similarly, I think no matter what you do to try to keep couples who shouldn't be married from getting married, you're not going to keep people determined to elope from getting married without severely inconveniencing couples who know what they're doing.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-12 09:44 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2006-06-13 02:39 am (UTC)From: