Marrige Encounter Weekend

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My dh and I are on the road to having our marrige convalidated (sp?)!!!

My priest has asked that as part of the proecess we attend a marrige encounter weekend.

Has anyone gone to one of these? What did you think? I am very excited for the alone time with dh, but am afraid we will have to put it off because I have a nursling and can’t be away from him for an entire weekend at this point. What do you think?

I can assume that marrige encounter may be very personal, so I’m not asking you to share anything that isn’t my business, but I am just wondering what your impression of the experience was. 👍
 
Kanda said:
My dh and I are on the road to having our marrige convalidated (sp?)!!!

My priest has asked that as part of the proecess we attend a marrige encounter weekend.

Has anyone gone to one of these? What did you think? I am very excited for the alone time with dh, but am afraid we will have to put it off because I have a nursling and can’t be away from him for an entire weekend at this point. What do you think?

I can assume that marrige encounter may be very personal, so I’m not asking you to share anything that isn’t my business, but I am just wondering what your impression of the experience was. 👍
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DH and my experience was very positive, though I hear it can vary depending on who’s running the marriage encounter. It also depends on how much the couple is willing to put into the experience…whether they’re there because it’s a “requirement” or whether they’re there to deepen their relationship and faith (sounds like you two fall into this group :)). God bless!!
 
Went to marriage encounter several years ago. It was an awesome experience.👍
 
My parents were a team couple for M.E. for 10 years (70s/80s). They talk about great experiences with it. They will soon celebrate their 42nd wedding anniversary. From what they have said, the M.E. weekend is for couples looking to strengthen marriage not for those in serious trouble so it sounds like it would be perfect for you.

I wonder if they still sing “There’s a New World Somewhere” after the weekend. It was the first song I ever learned. Anyway, I have fond memories of all of the people, priests, and children I met.
 
My dh and I made a week end about 6 years ago. It was a very positive experience for us. There was time for us to share our feelings and really listen to each other.It is not a touchy feelly weekend where you share with a group (as my husband feared) . My parents were very involved in Marriage Encounter in the 70’s and I believe it gave me a very good example of how good, good marriages are.
 
My husband and I did a weekend in 1999 (I think). I felt RAW for weeks after it. It’s not for everyone.
 
We did it and we had a “nursling” too. My wife had the same reservations about leaving her, too. Happily, our children’s God parents came to the rescue, as did the breast pump. It turned out that baby was just fine, and we left M.E. communicating better than we had in years. DW thought she would just die being away from our child for a whole weekend, but she ended up enjoying the little break. If you wait 'til you can find the time, you may end up waiting forever. I say, do it now.

M.E. is a great opportunity to improve your communication skills and re-light your fires for each other. As another poster mentioned, it’s not a big group-hug kind of thing…you don’t have to discuss all of your private stuff with everyone, or anyone. I can recommend it for everyone. I personally guarantee you will not regret it. Also, at the end, they told us to tell those who don’t have anyone to watch the kids for them, they’ll watch the kids for you.
 
We went 3 years ago. I was 7 months pregnant with our 6th child, maybe that had something to do with it, but I did not do well with it. One of the problems I had was we were couped up in a hotel room for a weekend at the end of a Pennsylvania winter and I had been couped up in a Pennsylvania house with 5 children for a whole winter before that… hence my name “House Arrest”. I was probably not open to the experience enough at that time to make it work. Also I was feeling pressure from my husband to “do it right” - according to him I wasn’t “dialoguing” the way I was “supposed to”. They did have all these suggestions and he was interpreting them as hard rules. I was more of the opinion that they had a process by which you learn to communicate better with each other and we could take from it what we wanted and move on but he wanted to follow it exactly. I don’t know what the point is of going on and on and on with your feelings. You’re supposed to describe them over and over with all these words.

This probably makes no sense to someone who has not gone to the weekend, so bear with me. I also don’t want to discourage anyone but I felt awful for awhile afterwards because I was under the impression that “everyone” thought the Marriage Encounter was soooo great I must be extremely weird. After I finally figured out I wasn’t the only one who didn’t love it I felt better, so I suppose this is why I’m posting this in the first place.

We did, however, LOVE our Engaged Encounter weekend.
 
Joan_M said:
My husband and I did a weekend in 1999 (I think). I felt RAW for weeks after it. It’s not for everyone.
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Joan, I don’t want to pry, but I cannot understand by what you mean by raw. :confused: Open and exposed, or worn out? Was it a good experience for you and your husband. If you do not wish to expound, I respectfully understand.
 
cargopilot said:
We did it and we had a “nursling” too. My wife had the same reservations about leaving her, too. Happily, our children’s God parents came to the rescue, as did the breast pump. It turned out that baby was just fine, and we left M.E. communicating better than we had in years. DW thought she would just die being away from our child for a whole weekend, but she ended up enjoying the little break. If you wait 'til you can find the time, you may end up waiting forever. I say, do it now.

M.E. is a great opportunity to improve your communication skills and re-light your fires for each other. As another poster mentioned, it’s not a big group-hug kind of thing…you don’t have to discuss all of your private stuff with everyone, or anyone. I can recommend it for everyone. I personally guarantee you will not regret it. Also, at the end, they told us to tell those who don’t have anyone to watch the kids for them, they’ll watch the kids for you.
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I am glad to hear that it can be done while having a nursling. I am just concerned that I won’t leave enough milk for him. I know there is always formula, but he hasn’t had any yet and I don’t want to have to start him on it. Once my others had formula it ruined our bf relationship and they weaned early. 😦 I would definitly enjoy the break though! 😉

I am glad that it is not a big group openness thing. Dh would not go for that. He is not a practicing Catholic, but is willing to go to Marrige Encounter so we can have our marrige convalidated. I am hoping for a few things out of the experience.

I hope to open channels of communication. We don’t really have any troubles, but I would like our communication to be more meaningful. Having 3 small children and each working full time, sometimes it feels like we are strangers passing in the night. :rolleyes:

I also pray that this will be an opportunity for the Holy Spirit to work within my husband and welcome him home to the Church. I don’t push him because I am afraid that I will push him away. I think the fact that he will willing to go to the weekend and is open to whatever it will bring is a good sign. :gopray2:
 
Kanda said:
Joan, I don’t want to pry, but I cannot understand by what you mean by raw. :confused: Open and exposed, or worn out? Was it a good experience for you and your husband. If you do not wish to expound, I respectfully understand.
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Did you ever have a tightly stuck sticking plaster (not a band-aid) ripped from your flesh? Well, I felt like that. No, it was not physical, but the exact feeling was there - as if my soul was abraded, raw and sore!

Some parts of it were good. Perhaps it was too much of a change in ways to communicate for me. The way they teach you to write letters to each other was not for me or my husband and we both quit that within a couple of weeks.

While openness is good for any relationship, total openness is not. Sometimes it is better to keep quiet.
 
Kanda, all people are different. Don’t take Joan’s opinion as your deciding factor. Joan sounds like she went through a horrid event. I have no idea who she is or how the weekend really was. No one will force you to share your darkest secrets. For the most part, marriages could use communication skills at any level. I think you might be surprised. From the feedback my parents gave me, they said most people enjoyed it. There were exceptions. I say give it a try.
 
We will certainly give it a try. Actually, we don’t have a choice. My priest wants us to do this as part of the steps to convalidate our marrige, so there you go. 👍
 
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