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They say that you should spend as much time preparing for marriage as you do planning for your wedding. Well. I don’t know how realistic that is. We spent two hours at our venue today ironing out some details, and I think if we had followed that conversation with two hours of marriage prep talk, I would have thrown up in my mouth a little bit. Not exactly charming, but true.
I do think some degree of marriage prep is important. At first, I thought we’d just follow some formula. We’d find a therapist, we’d go to counseling, we’d get a little certificate, we’d live happily ever after. But the more I researched it, the more I realized that really wasn’t for us. Mr. Lion is a very private person, and I had a hard time imagining him opening up to a stranger!
As with many of our wedding projects, we chose to go the DIY route. We started to look at books on premarital counseling, when we stumbled upon this:
Sure, the title was a little daunting, but you know what they say about judging a book by its cover. We flipped through it to find that it was straightforward, not too religious, and interactive. It was actually part of a set that included two workbooks, one for each of us. It seemed like a good fit for us. I really liked the fact that it included workbooks, because it allowed us to sort through our answers individually and privately. Then, we could discuss it together after collecting out thoughts. Best of all, we could work through it at our own pace.
At first, it seemed like it would be a bit of a chore. But I have to say, we’ve really enjoyed it! The “questions” we’re supposed to ask are things we pretty much know the answers to. We’ve been on the same page with everything, and we’re pretty much aware of each others’ morals and values. However, it doesn’t stop with talking about what you believe. It goes into why you believe those things. It’s been interesting to dig a little deeper and figure out how our beliefs will come into play in our marriage, and eventually, how they’ll affect raising a family.
Are you and your significant other doing premarital counseling? What do you think so far?
I have to say, I’m with you on the “throwing up in my mouth” part, but let me explain.
I once heard a variation on this, “you should spend just as much or more time on your vows, than planning the wedding.” Really?? Vows take about a couple hours, or less if you’re using ‘pre-set’ ones for religious reasons, etc. Figuring out a seating chart where your divorced parents don’t sit next to their exes and etc and oh no we forgot where Aunt Bertha’s going to sit, clearly takes MORE time. It doesn’t mean your vows aren’t important, not at all, it’s just that these other things are more time-consuming by nature.
I think these sayings maybe come from generations ago, where people got married after “courting” for not a long time, still lived at their parents’ houses, etc. So this was literally their “getting to know each other” conversations.
Nowadays, couples likely (hopefully…) know each other better than that, than in the “olden days.”
I really like the workbook idea! Mr. T doesn’t sit down and read very often, so finding something he could do at his own pace–and on his own time–is really useful. Glad you and Mr. Lion are on the same page!
I also feel that some type of marriage prep is important and I wanted to go the traditional pre-marital counseling as well, but my FI is also a private person and I don’t think he’d enjoy sessions with a therapist at.all! I looked at a couple of books, but neither of us are religious and I kept finding ones that had a religious slant to them. Thank you so much for creating this post and mentioning “Saving Your Marriage …” I’m definitely going to look buying it.
We did this book (we have two more exercises to go), and I think its fantastic. The readings are pretty short, the exercises don’t take too long and spark great conversations. We’re already planning to go back through the book in a few years, because some of those conversations will be good reminders when our relationship is more established. Highly recommend!
Great rec, Miss Lioness. I’m narrowing down our “leisure wedding prep” reading on amazon and think this one could be right up Mr. O’s alley. Thank you!
I’m more likely to secretly worm pre-marital topics into conversation. If I told Mr. P we were going to sit down with a wedding prep book and discuss our feelings, I think he’d find something else to do rather quickly… like Call of Duty: Black Ops.
We did pre-marriage counseling with our officiant and I am so happy that we did. It was a great way to dig a little deeper about our lives and what we want for our future together.
So glad to see another option than just meeting with the officiant. FH would have a lot of trouble meeting with a reverend and verbalizing his thoughts, but the workbooks would help with him writing everything down. Thanks, Miss L!
Great rec! I think I might pick this up even though we are already married!
Nice post! What you wrote is very interesting… If I think back, I’ve spent countless hours on preparing for the wedding. But for the marriage? As in, actively doing activities that will help me and my FI prepare for being married? None. As we are already living together and often talk about our values I never thought we might need to, but perhaps it would be a good idea to do what you did!
We didn’t do traditional marriage counseling, but had a lot of these types of books that we worked through together.
We did this study as part of our counseling and we enjoyed it so much. We had fairly good communication before we started but this took it to a new level, especially the parts that talk about expectations, there are some things you just don’t always think to talk about on your own. I was somewhat unsure of the counseling thing at first but now I’m so glad we did and highly recommend to others doing some sort of marriage prep.
Glad to see someone else feels this way. I just launched my own post on this yesterday!
We had a workbook with our Catholic marriage prep class. My man also loathes sharing, so while it was a course with 10 other couples, we only spoke to each other about private matters. Overall, we both felt the course was liberal, open, honest, helpful and definitely not too religious for us. (We are Christmas/Easter Catholics!) Anyway… I’m really happy we did it. I like the workbook method and doing most of it between the couple. No reason to share why your FI doesn’t replace the toilet paper roll or how he wants to do allowance for kids if you don’t want to share that!!
We had a class with our church and it had the book and the workbooks. it turned into an eight week 2hour courseand let me just say we loved it! our class instructors were a married couple and we had little bags where weekly we would write things we loved about each other and what we appreciate about little things we do. It was hard to share personal things (because there were 3 other couples) but seriously we loved those activites and it really prepared us for dealing with starting our own traditions etc….doing something to work on the marriage is really worth getting your fiance to do. I initially thought my fiance would try to duck it but he enjoyed it more than I thought…I reccomend the workbooks and good luck!!!
I think it’s so cool that so many of you tried out so many different kinds of premarital counseling! I’m glad there are a wide variety of options out there…every relationship is different 
I took a class in college from Les and Leslie Parrott! I love them both They also recommended reading the book “Why Marriages Succeed or Fail” by John Gottman… it was really good too!
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Mrs. Lioness, Atlanta Age and Occupation: 25, Physical Therapist Fiance's Age and Occupation: 25, Attorney Engagement Date: August 29, 2009 Wedding Date: April 2011 Venue: Anthony’s Fine Dining About Me: I’m a Southern girl with New England roots. I say "wicked" and "y’all" in the same sentence and I like to drink sweet tea with my lobster. Mr. Lion and I are both former Floridians now living in Atlanta, which fortunately is still SEC country...Go Gators! We both love baseball, coffee, traveling, cooking, and playing Words with Friends with each other on our iPhones all day long. I’m very passionate about the things and the people I love, and I tend to plan things with all of my heart...our wedding, of course, is no different! Oh, and also Mr. Lion is a first generation American of Cuban descent. I may look more like Lucy than Ricky, but I’m doing my best to incorporate some Latin elements into our vintage-garden-Southern wedding!
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