The Fine Print

Well, I just know I will be kicking myself in five hours when I have to get up to go back out to my Engaged Encounter Weekend. I just could not crash for the night without my update and opinions. Of course this weekend is one of the requirements of being married in the Catholic Church, but it is some pain in the behind fine print!

The morning started at 6 A.M. for me and the actual "encounter" began at 8:30 A.M. My fiance and my first project was to make a three generation family tree. Sounds simple enough and maybe we over simplified, but we finished in 10 minutes. Then we stared at each other for a while. Thus began the program. The presenters wanted to make perfectly clear, repeatedly, that this was a weekend about us (and the 39 other couples) and not about converting anyone into the Catholic faith. Okay, moving on. . .oh wait they are reinterating. . .

The whole day was set up with the same pattern: Presentation, couple activity, break, presentation, couple activity, break, etc. Naturally we had an hour for lunch, taco salads, and dinner, chicken and spaghetti. We never left our room! It was one giant room with lots of little tables, one couple per table, and the temp was somewhere around 70 degrees. "Brrrr, it's cold in here, there must be some Clovers in the atmosphere," this was my fiance's favorite saying all day long!

We covered our Family of Origin and what that causes us to bring to the marriage. We discussed personality traits, communication, finances, religion, family set up, drugs/alcohol addiction, love letter writing (not one of my fiance's stronger points, but the letter was so characteristically him that it was endearing), and conflict resolution. We had worksheets A-L to complete and a little green book to fill out. Tomorrow should be very exciting because we get to talk about sex and marriage! Woo-hoo!

Please do not misunderstand, I know exactly why these weekends are held. I am positive that a majority of the couples there have not even given a first thought to any of the subjects above, let alone a second or third thought. All the information was more than helpful if that was the case, but due to my fiance's logic seeking mind and my anal need to plan ahead (thank teaching for that) we have already discussed and agreed on all of this. When we would have to separate to fill out a worksheet and meet up to discuss our responses/answers, 95% of the time we had the exact same thing. It got to the point where we stopped putting serious answers and we still wrote the same humorous or sarcastic answers. For example; one worksheet asked how we would discipline our children (a very important topic if each person was raised differently) and I wrote "beat'em." Of course I was joking and I knew my fiance would get a kick out of the answer. When he returned I looked at his answer and it said, "whips." Are we a match made in Heaven or what?

By about 4:30 P.M. I started to snap and my fiance started to get delirious. In order to control my urge to run around the room screaming like I was on fire, I started thinking of all the ways I would put this thing together to make it more entertaining and efficient. I just can't escape the need to control and plan! You better believe that I will be submitting all my suggestions in writing at the end of the weekend (with or without a survey).

As I mentioned before, this is a great weekend for couples who may still be in a "romantic phase" of their relationship and have given zero thought to real life after the wedding. I think more people should have to make sure they cover all of this information before hand, but my fiance and I are so ahead of the game that it was like beating our heads against a wall, which I seriously considered doing to pass some time. By the end of today I was very thankful that I am marrying someone who can openly discuss and listen, or "dialogue" as it was called today, about these issues. It definitely reinforced my desire to be his wife and reminded me why we are meant for each other. I am no longer worried about leaving anything out or ignoring something important that we will face later.

All right, I really need to get some sleep.