Engaged Encounter -- Recap

Hi Everyone! I hope that you all had a fabulous weekend!

I want to do a quick re-cap on our Saturday spent at “Engaged Encounter.” Let me first say -- the FOCCUS test is very interesting and really does get you thinking about the many different sides to every issue that can arise in a marriage. The test is really only an “agree, disagree, uncertain” fill in the bubble test, but the questions that they ask are pretty in depth and I think will really help M. and me cover some important issues that we may need to talk more about. Even though we have talked about every topic that was brought up on the test, our scores will show where we agree the most and where we differ the most which will be very interesting to see.

The number of couples in attendance was A LOT more than I thought there would be. I was picturing maybe 20 couples, but it turned out that there were more than 50 couples!! After taking the FOCCUS test we started in on the presentations…Myths, The Sacraments, Family of Origin, Conflict Resolution, Natural Family Planning and finally Managing Finances. All of the presentations were followed by private couple discussions. I really enjoyed getting to know my fiancée better and also learning more about the way that I work.

I must say, the section on Natural Family Planning was verrrrry interesting. At one point the presenter (who clearly is a fan of the NFP method) made a comment about how God gives some couples the gift of having four or more children because they are naturally meant for motherhood and then sometimes God gives couples the gift of three or more so that those couples have more time to give to the church and its teachings, and then finally God sometimes doesn’t give couple any children and that He means to do this because those couples are meant to do something other than raise children. When I heard this I thought to myself

….”so what you’re saying is, couples that have four or more children are clearly too busy “raising their kids” to be bothered with giving their time to the church, but couples who have three or fewer children have WAY more time on their hands and that they are called to work more with the church and teaching God’s message to others.”

It just struck me as odd – my mom raised three kids and so did M.’s mother…I don’t think that they were bored at home with nothing to do. I’m pretty sure they often had their hands full. Maybe an overreaction, but I was kind of offended by the comment.

The whole “Engaged Encounter” experience was really amazing. I feel much more connected to M. and I am looking forward to our counseling sessions with the priest who will be marrying us. I also really enjoyed meeting the other couples at our table (one even had our same wedding date!). We got each couple's email addresses and we are certainly going to keep in touch.

If you’re engaged (even if you’re not Catholic) you should definitely check out attending some type of pre-marriage counseling/pre-marriage workshop with your fiancée. It’s fun and you really learn a lot about yourself and your partner!!

Happy Monday!