Cold Feet or Call it Off

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Read Time: 5 minutes

What if I’m having doubts about getting married?

The engagement period is marked by several emotional highs: the thrill of announcements, anxiety about mounting costs, and the mad dash to get everything done. Couples will ride the roller coaster of those highs and lows all the way to the altar and even through the honeymoon.

During this time, it’s totally normal to experience conflict with your partner and even have some doubts about marriage. But how do you know whether your doubts are a normal part of making one of the biggest decisions of your life or a sign that you may be making a huge mistake?

Doubts are part of good decision-making.

Every thoughtful decision should come with an honest evaluation of the choice. You may have said yes to a proposal based on emotions that felt like 100% certainty, but that feeling can’t last. Once you start doing the work of being engaged (yes, it’s actually a lot of work), part of that work is moving closer to certainty based on facts rather than just emotion.

While you’re planning your wedding and going through the marriage preparation process at your parish, you’ll face many choices and tough questions. You may find yourselves squabbling over who to invite to the wedding, and you may be asked to talk about aspects of your past, family life, and personality that hadn’t yet surfaced in your dating relationship.

All of these situations should be opportunities for you to “try on” what married life will be like and discover how you’ll handle these things as a couple. In fact, conflict should be welcomed during engagement so you can learn how your partner responds to you when things aren’t going well and whether or not you can resolve things in a healthy way.

Conflict is an opportunity to test the relationship

The idea that healthy couples don’t fight is a myth. The opposite is actually true; couples who repress disappointment, disapproval, and disagreement to avoid conflict inhibit their ability to move into a deeper, healthier relationship.

While constant arguing certainly isn’t the goal, both partners should feel free to express their opinions and should be growing in their ability to work through disagreements in ways that make each of them feel heard, valued, and considered. Couples experiencing conflict during engagement shouldn’t be concerned that they are facing struggles. They should be concerned when those struggles reveal unhealthy patterns. Learning how to work through disagreements is a valuable skill healthy couples will use over and over again during their marriage.

How do you know you’re not ready?

When conflict arises during engagement, it can be a sign that you simply need to work through some issues, learn better methods of communication, or get to know each other better. Stress has a way of bringing things to the surface that don’t come up when everything is going well. Certain character traits and coping mechanisms are difficult to hide when we’re stressed out.

When engaged couples begin to see and experience these new sides of their partners, it presents new challenges to navigate in the relationship. How you handle those challenges can help you determine how compatible you actually are, and even if you’re really ready for marriage.

Here are a few red flags to pay attention to:

  • Inability to resolve conflict: When disagreements arise, you feel ignored, humiliated, or insulted for your desire to work things out.
  • Unhealthy coping mechanisms: You or your partner resort to substances, pornography, gambling, or work to avoid dealing with conflict or actively taking part in wedding planning and preparation.
  • Overwhelming pressure: You feel crushed by the pressure to please your partner, family, and/or spiritual leaders. You feel you have to have the perfect relationship and the perfect wedding, and you base your decisions on what others want rather than considering your own emotional, spiritual, and physical needs.
  • Secrets: You or your partner are hiding a significant incident or piece of information from one another, for fear that it would destroy the relationship. This could be anything that makes you feel shame, such as a past relationship, financial debt, or a medical issue.
  • Resistance to spiritual preparation: When you’re seeking marriage in the Catholic Church, you’re preparing to receive a sacrament. This is a deeply meaningful act that requires certain steps to fulfill. If either partner is resistant or apathetic about these responsibilities, it needs to be addressed.

How to get help with pre-wedding doubts?

If you’re dealing with any of the above red flags, or anything else that’s causing you to question whether marriage is still the right decision, the best thing to do is ask for help. As uncomfortable as it may feel, you’ll need an outside perspective.

Help can range from clergy and professional counselors to a long-time married couple in your parish, family, or friend circle. Connecting with clergy and/or a mentor couple is part of the marriage preparation process at many parishes, but it can be valuable to go to a variety of sources for a broader source of wisdom and support. In Church environments, this is called ‘discernment’, the art of separating, analyzing, and deciding the best course of action. All this is done in a prayerful state of mind with the help of a Spiritual Director or mentor.

If your marriage prep doesn’t include connecting one-on-one with clergy or a mentor couple, or you feel like you need a broader perspective, you’ll have to be proactive about seeking help.

Here are some online resources that can help you find a qualified Catholic counselor:

You can also search your local diocese website for information about counseling services from regional Catholic Charities or Catholic Human Services organizations.

Here are a few things to consider when choosing a mentor couple to connect with:

  • Have you experienced the couple in a variety of settings, and do they have a marriage you’d like to emulate?
  • Do they seem to have healthy relationships with their parish community, family, and friends?
  • Are they open and non-judgemental? Do they operate as people of grace and mercy?
  • Are you comfortable opening up to them? Do you trust they will be confidants?
  • Do they share your faith and values about marriage as a Sacrament and lifelong commitment?
  • Are they recognized as leaders in your parish or recommended as mentors by clergy? If you are unsure, ask your priest or deacon.

Friends and family are also a valuable part of your support system, but it’s okay to look beyond that circle for a bigger perspective. Dealing with serious doubts about your upcoming marriage should require as much help as you need from whatever sources you’re comfortable with.

What if you have to call off the wedding?

If you’re trying to make things work, you’ve reached out to others, and you’re still having significant doubts, it may be time to postpone or call off the wedding. This decision will never be easy, but it could be the best one to make.

If your relationship is worth working on, taking the pressure of the impending wedding date off the calendar can free you up to grow individually and as a couple. While canceling your wedding can usher in feelings of grief, failure, and embarrassment, it may also open the door for relief, focus, and healing. Those feelings should worked through if you truly want to strengthen a relationship worth saving and let go of a relationship that needed to end.

If you find yourself in a situation where the red flags were warning signs of an unhealthy marriage, you may want to consider individual counseling to help identify areas in your own life where growth would be beneficial. This work on your personal development will make you more likely to pass over future partners who have the same issues and move toward healthier companions both platonic and romantic.

Your wedding day should be the day you commit yourself to a partner you trust, someone you can rely on, and the person you can grow closer to every day – even after conflict. If you can’t enter into that commitment freely and wholeheartedly, it’s okay to push the pause button until you know for sure.

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New Finances Production

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Read Time: 2 minutes

What do engaged couples need to know about finances during marriage prep?

This is a big question to answer. Especially considering the diversity of couples who get married in the Catholic Church.

Did you know the average age of couples taking our online Catholic marriage prep course is 30?

We also serve couples who are widowed and entering into a second marriage, some are forming blended families, and some are already retired. We also have our share of twenty-somethings who are embarking on married life straight from their parent’s homes and financial protection.

That means we’re talking to couples on a spectrum that ranges from no experience managing money all the way up to experienced and wondering, “Why are they making me learn this?”

Finances Segment in Our Online Pre-Cana Program

We believe that a good Pre-Cana course will evoke curiosity and discussion because there is no way to cover every aspect of every subject a couple will face in a life together. So, when we updated the finances segment in Living Our Faith In Love we started with the Spiritual Principles of Money Management.

The new segment starts by unpacking our value as human beings created by God, and it explains how our understanding of our value can shape the way we view and handle our finances.

As presenters in the segment, Chris and I (Jessie) have learned time and time again that the root of our money struggles and fights is often a desire to find meaning and purpose in material things rather than our standing in Christ.

When we got curious about those struggles and started to talk about them, we gained the skills to navigate our challenges in new ways. That’s what we hope to pass along to the couples taking this course, and we hope we’ve been able to do that no matter what their experience is handling finances.

The new segment also includes tips on how to talk about money, how to resolve conflict, and a few practical tools we’ve used over the years to stay organized and steward our resources responsibly.

We had a great time preparing for and presenting this segment, and we hope couples taking Living Our Faith In Love enjoy it too. Even after 27+ years of marriage, we’re still learning how to spend, save, and share what we’ve been blessed with.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’re blending established portfolios with your partner, we pray that you’ll enjoy this new edition to our online Catholic marriage prep class!

– Chris & Jessie Wiegand

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Convalidation

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Read Time: 4 minutes

“Of course we will do a Catholic marriage service. Do you want to do a Latin Mass?”

This was the first sentence from my Protestant fiancé as we sat down to figure out what our marriage ceremony would look like.

Branden and I had spent the last two days of our fresh engagement basking in the joy of this new chapter and calling our dear ones to share the good news. When we came down from the high of being newly engaged, we sat down to make a game plan for the actual wedding day.

Making Plans for the Wedding

We had secured the date December 5th (but not the 4th because that was already Jay-Z’s birthday), and we knew who we wanted to stand up with us. When I asked Branden what type of ceremony he would want, he surprised me by stating we would have our ceremony within the Catholic Church and even asked about a Latin Mass.

Read more about celebrating the Rite of Marriage here.

I felt so honored and supported, and it was really a significant moment for me in our relationship.

Branden was (and is) a Lutheran pastor. He not only serves a local church, but he is also incredibly involved in many parts of his synod (the Lutheran version of our Catholic diocese).

For him to be fully on board with a Catholic service was a big deal!

While I desired to be married in the Catholic Church, I could see the sacrifices he would be making as an ordained member of his church. Also, nearly all of my dear Catholic friends, colleagues, and connections were over 700 miles away in Minnesota.

Making Choices for Now and Later

After considering both of our strong ties to our churches and that our family and friends were miles apart, we came up with three options:

  1. We could fly to Minnesota and have our ceremony there and do marriage prep online, but then our elderly relatives from Michigan could not attend.
  2. We could have a Lutheran ceremony now to honor the connections to his church and be married in a more intimate Catholic ceremony later, but who would be invited to both?
  3. We could throw our plans to the wind and elope, but we were both pretty sure none of our relatives would support this choice, and we didn’t want to face their wrath after our big day.

We ultimately decided on option #2, and on a beautiful December day, we packed a local Lutheran church with our friends and family while we said our handwritten vows to one another. It was a joyful and prayerful time.

The day was incredibly lovely, and we were so thrilled to be surrounded by this melting pot of people who showered us in love and support.

While that ceremony was a treasured time in our relationship, I was eager to move forward with our marriage in the Catholic Church.

However, we had spent all our planning energy making sure everything was in order for our Lutheran ceremony, and we had no capacity to plan anything else because wedding planning is just A LOT!  Time slipped away from us as we transitioned from engaged to married (which is also A LOT), and planning our Catholic ceremony was placed on the back burner for the next 9 months.

Preparing for Convalidation

In August of that year, I began working as a youth minister at a local Catholic parish. Through various conversations, it came up organically that I wasn’t married in the Catholic Church, and a co-worker lovingly approached me and asked, “Would you prayerfully consider having your marriage convalidated?”

Having an external force bring up my (now buried) desire was exactly what I needed to start planning again.

I brought it up to Branden (who still hadn’t fully recovered from wedding planning), and the idea of planning a second wedding seemed insurmountable to him. I reassured him that this would be a more intimate affair and that the real significance was having our marriage valid in the eyes of my church, the universal Church.

Convalidation is when a civil marriage becomes licit under the Code of Canon law of the Catholic Church.

It’s what brings the sacramental graces into the marriage and fully brings it under the authority of Jesus Christ. These were all factors I knew I wanted and needed for our marriage.

Branden and I both agreed that a healthy marriage needed to be under God’s grace to thrive. However, this was challenging for my Protestant husband.

Why was his church not “valid enough”? I explained it wasn’t a matter of “good enough”, but that these were the instructions of the Catholic Church, a church to which I belonged, and wanted to honor as the church instituted by Christ (this led to a fascinating debate about Luther, Constantine, St. Peter, and various translations of the word “rock”).

Ultimately, we decided to move forward, and we picked a date in May for our marriage to be convalidated.

Experiencing Convalidation

To prepare fully for convalidation, we met several times with our deacon and went through some questions together. We also took the online course Living Our Faith in Love through The Marriage Group. Although we had gone through something similar with the Lutheran church, we felt ourselves encountering new material and addressing some topics with greater depth.

Once the education portion was complete, we had to track down the certificates we received after baptism and confirmation, along with our civil marriage certificate, verifying that neither of us had been previously married. These certificates were inspected by our deacon and then sent to the canon lawyer for our diocese. It took about 4 weeks to have our paperwork processed and approved. Once we got that approval, we were good to go!

On May 27th, we had 8 people gather around us as we met in an Eucharistic chapel with stunning stained glass. Our daughters got to be flower girls again which was the absolute highlight of their day. We read through scripture, our deacon gave a moving homily, and we said our traditional vows as the deacon directed us. Our rings were blessed, and we sealed our marriage with a kiss!

When compared to our Lutheran ceremony, the Catholic wedding was peacefully reverent. While it happened with much less fanfare, I felt the same amount of joy. Being connected and celebrated in the Church brought a fullness to our marriage. Both of our faith traditions were honored, and I got to wear TWO wedding dresses. All in all, we agree that it was a very good decision to have our marriage convalidated.

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Looking for a Parish Community

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Read Time: 2 minutes

A Message to Newlyweds

Congratulations on your wedding!

The two of you have entered a lifetime covenant by joining your lives in the sacred union of marriage. Even though this may sound very scary and challenging, you are not alone on this journey! You have so many people praying for you. Family and friends can be great support, but you also need the support of a parish community!

A parish community can be a great source of companionship on the journey you have just begun as a family. The beauty of joining a parish community and finding other like-minded families, is that you and your whole family can develop friendships that may last a lifetime.

Maybe you don’t have a parish community yet, and the church where you celebrated your wedding is not your parish. These are the things you need to consider before joining a parish community:

  • Worship style: Different parishes offer different styles of music, prayer, etc. Find the parish that offers what you like in terms of liturgy, prayer, and music.
  • Number of parishioners: Some parishes are huge in numbers, and they have several Masses throughout the weekend. Other parishes are very small, ‘everyone knows everyone’. Where do you feel more comfortable?
  • Ministries/groups: Look at that parish’s bulletin or website, and see if they offer ministries, groups, or activities for families or young couples.

Once you have reflected and prayed about these aspects, the following steps will help you find the right parish community:

  1. First and foremost, look at what’s nearby, look at where you live, and identify the parishes that are nearby.
  2. Visit those parishes by going to Sunday Mass. After you have visited a few parishes in your area, identify where you felt most welcomed and which one offered a more supportive environment for your family.
  3. Pick up the parish bulletin, visit their website. Introduce yourself to the pastor and/or the Family Life Minister.
  4. Walk around the church after Mass, see if they have coffee and donuts or breakfast, or a place where the community gathers before/after Mass. This is a great way to get to know other families in the area.
  5. Join a Bible study group, prayer group, couples’ group, etc. Become active in your parish!

Finding the right parish community is important for a newlywed couple because it will provide a place where you do more than worship on Sundays. Your parish should be the place where your faith as a newly established family will grow and flourish.

Peace and Blessings as you begin your journey!

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What do you do at Pre-Cana?

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Read Time: 3 minutes

Now that you’ve made the big decision and you’re beginning the marriage prep process, you may have heard about “Pre-Cana” from your priest or others in your parish.

What is Pre-Cana?

Simply put, Pre-Cana is a marriage preparation course, class, or consultation for couples who will be married in a Catholic Church.

Let’s take a look at the first miracle Jesus performed; it actually happened at a wedding. Cana was the town where the wedding was celebrated, and Jesus, his mother, and his friends were guests.

This is where the word Cana comes from; the town where Jesus performed his first miracle. For this reason, the preparation offered by the Church to engaged couples is called Pre-Cana. In other words, “before the wedding.”

Pre-Cana programs are organized and/or approved by either a diocesan office or a parish, and they can be presented online or in-person in various formats.

Pre-Cana is one required part of the whole marriage prep experience, and couples must receive a Certificate of Completion from an approved Pre-Cana course before celebrating the Sacrament of Marriage.

What Happens During Pre-Cana?

In a “Pre-Cana” experience, you will prepare for the Sacrament of Marriage.

You and your future spouse will have the opportunity to discuss many important topics, including Family of Origin, Spirituality of Marriage, Money Matters, Conflict Resolution, Intimacy and Sexuality, Theology of Marriage, and more.

It’s important that you reflect with openness and honesty about these topics and share your reflections with your fiancé(e).

How Do I Earn a Certificate of Completion for Pre-Cana?

There are several options for receiving a Certificate of Completion for Pre-Cana:

  • Take an approved online course
  • Attend a series of weekly meetings with a sponsor/mentor couple, oftentimes at their home
  • Attend a weekend retreat with other engaged couples
  • Complete a series of meetings with your priest or deacon

All the organized and systematic experiences that help you and your fiancé(e) prepare for marriage are collectively called Pre-Cana. The Church offers them as a tool to help you and your fiancé(e) better prepare for marriage.

What is Online Pre-Cana?

The Marriage Group is excited to provide an online Pre-Cana experience that is flexible, on-demand, current, and fun to use! Our online courses offer the same content covered in the other Pre-Cana experiences, but it is accessible on-demand from the comfort of your own home.

Couples like our online course because they can complete it at their own pace from anywhere. It allows them privacy to discuss topics like Family of Origin and Intimacy and Sexuality, and our presenters are real people who share passionately about topics they have experience with.

Couples who take online Pre-Cana still meet with their priest or others at their parish to finalize details of their wedding ceremony and fulfill other requirements for marriage prep. Those details vary from parish to parish, but they are all in place to help you have a wonderful wedding day and a great start to a lifetime of marriage.

Talking to Your Priest About Online Pre-Cana

Many Catholic couples aren’t aware they can complete Pre-Cana online.

Their parish may have an approach to marriage prep that works great for couples who can commit to an all day seminar or a weekend retreat.

However, couples who are separated by distance, have challenging work schedules, or prefer to cover course material from the privacy of their own homes, can have a valuable Pre-Cana experience with a quality online course.

The Marriage Group’s Pre-Cana course is accepted at dioceses and parishes worldwide and promoted by the United State’s Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales. Our team will gladly share this good news with your priest or ministry leader, and they are welcome to contact us for a course demo anytime.

Blessings for a Lifetime of Marriage

If you’ve already completed our courses, we hope you’ll share your experience with others. If you’re planning to use our courses, it’s our hope that you will enter into this time of preparation and formation with your fiancé(e) with an open heart and mind.

Be assured of our prayers and support for your future marriage!

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How do you get married in the Catholic Church?

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Read Time: 4 minutes

 

Finding a partner to share the rest of your life with is a blessing. If you’ve recently been engaged and are planning to be married in the Catholic Church, there are a few steps you’ll need to take.

In the Catholic Church, marriage is a Sacrament, and taking these important steps will prepare you for a lifetime of love and commitment to each other and God.

1. Ensure You Meet Important Requirements

These are the requirements established by the Church:

  • Baptized Christian
    One or both partners should be baptized Catholics. If one of the partners is not Catholic, he or she needs to be a baptized Christian. If the non-Catholic partner wants to join the Church, they may go through the process of becoming a Catholic as an adult during the marriage prep process.
  • Not closely related
    Catholics cannot marry first cousins or anyone else in their immediate family.
  • Free to marry
    Both members of the couple should be unmarried.  If either were previously married, they must be widowed or issued an annulment from the Catholic Church.
  • Be of the opposite sex
    It is the Church’s teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman.
  • In good standing with the Church
    Being a Catholic in good standing means more than just attending Mass for 6 months previous to the wedding. It means being in a ‘state of grace’ which is to be free from sin and able to receive Communion. Mass attendance for 6 months, or some other period of time (it varies from diocese to diocese) is a part of it, but the term Catholic in good standing means more than that. It has to do with the spiritual state of the individuals celebrating the sacrament.
  • Free consent
    Both parties must freely consent to the marriage and have worked out any issues that might cause one party not to freely consent.

2. Contact your Parish

If you believe you meet the requirements above (or if you need to discuss them), you should contact your parish to discuss your wedding. You’ll need to obtain permission to be married in the Church, whether it is at your current parish or elsewhere.

Check with the diocese or the parish where the wedding will take place and make sure about registration requirements.

You will likely have an initial meeting with clergy to discuss your marriage, and you’ll be able to discuss any issues you may have with getting married in the Catholic Church.

This meeting will also be an opportunity for clergy to explain the process of getting married in the parish along with the things you’ll need to do.

3. Participate in a marriage preparation program

All parishes have a program in place to prepare couples for marriage. Most dioceses require at least 6 months of marriage prep that could include classes, mentoring, or seminars.

Marriage prep (or Pre-Cana) is mandatory so couples get a good understanding of the value the Church places on marriage and an overview of its teaching on family life.

During a marriage preparation program, you’ll learn about balancing values, managing money, the role of family, healthy sexuality and intimacy, planning a family and parenting, communication skills, and the theology of marriage.

If your schedule doesn’t allow you to participate in marriage prep classes at your parish, an online course may be a better option. There are courses approved by the Church that fulfill the requirements for marriage prep.

4. Provide your certificates to the Church

There are a number of documents that the Church will want to see before granting you permission to marry.

These include:

  • A recent copy of your baptismal certificates
  • Certification of Holy Communion and Confirmation (Sometimes a notation is made in the Baptismal registry and inscribed in the back of the recent copy of the Baptismal Certificate. That’s why the Church requires a recent (within 6 months of the wedding) copy of the Baptismal Certificate.)
  • Affidavit of Freedom to Marry
  • Civil marriage license
  • Marriage Preparation Course Completion Certificate

Collect these documents while preparing for your marriage, and store them together so you can easily present them to your priest or Family Life Director.

5. Plan the Wedding Mass

Depending on your circumstances, there are options to celebrate the Rite of Marriage.

Aside from that, you will have options about certain readings and rituals performed at your wedding along with choosing family and friends who will participate in the Mass. Your priest or Family Life Director will help you make those decisions, and they will also let you know the guidelines for decorating in your participating parish.

There are aspects of the wedding Mass that you cannot change, but these are important aspects of the Mass altogether and denote the sacredness of celebrating your marriage in the Catholic Church.

6. Get married!

There are many other details involved in planning a Catholic wedding, but this basic framework should get you off to a great start. Weddings are a wonderful celebration of the union of two people with the blessing of God in the presence of their family and friends.

As you walk through these steps to getting married in the Catholic Church, we pray that it’s a time of spiritual and personal growth for you and your future spouse.

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The 6 Most Important Tips for Newlyweds

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Read Time: 7 minutes

​Congratulations! If you’re reading this you have successfully survived engagement, marriage preparation, wedding planning, and hopefully had the best day of your life with a lovely honeymoon to boot!

When my husband, Joshua, and I got married in June 2021, it was 4 weeks after we both graduated from college. I remember finishing finals, visiting my family in Dallas for a few weeks, then returning to Lubbock, TX for two weeks of setting up our new home and finishing wedding preparations.

Our wedding went off without a hitch and we had a wonderful week in the Ozark mountains. When we were up at our cabin the Arkansas woods, we both felt like years of university stress and months of wedding strain were lifted off our shoulders. It was by far the most blissful period of our lives.

​But then we got home.

​Joshua and I had been together for 3 years and 7 months when we got married. We were best friends (and don’t worry, we still are!). We could spend every minute of every day together and never get bored of each other. We never cohabitated, but we spent plenty of time at each other’s residences while we dated through college.

We thought we knew how the other lived and that we wouldn’t find too many surprises. We had also, at the recommendation of our chaplain, conquered 10 weeks of premarital counseling in addition to completing The Marriage Group’s Pre-Cana course during engagement. To be honest, we realized marriage would be different on an intellectual and emotional level, but we apparently hadn’t fully grasped what marriage – our marriage – would look like on a practical level.

Now that we are a year into this, here are the 6 most important tips for newlyweds adjusting to the first weeks and months of marriage.

1. Allow Yourself to have High Standards

​Anyone who has lived with a roommate at any time in their life most likely may have suffered from not communicating their needs. I know I did all through college. I’m a very tidy person. I like the blankets folded and the pillows in place and the floor clear and the dishes washed and the trash emptied regularly. I never had a roommate who I was 100% happy with regarding their living habits. But, instead of just communicating my needs early on, I let my frustrations fester and build for months or even the entire school year. Why? Because this roommate was temporary. The dorm wasn’t my home.

Your spouse is not temporary, and your residence is your home.

​When Joshua and I moved in together post-honeymoon, we immediately told each other when we weren’t happy with a particular living habit.

  • I had a certain way I liked the dishwasher loaded and organized. I told him, and he did it!
  • He wanted me to communicate with him if I was going to be gone when he got home from work, and I did it!

It’s not like we had never washed dishes together or updated each other about our plans when we were dating. It’s that the little things mattered more as soon as we were married and living together in our home, not just dating or in a place we were staying for a year.

​So, allow yourself and your spouse to have high expectations, and communicate about them. This is the rest of your life we’re talking about. Don’t force yourself to settle for living less than you want to and silently build up frustration that will eventually boil over.

2. Learn How to Resolve Conflict

​You know how people say, “Don’t go to bed angry”? The idea behind it is to always resolve your conflict before the day ends.

From our experience, Joshua and I would disagree. What we learned in pre-marital counseling and what we find works in our marriage is building positivity within our conflicts. As St. Paul says in Ephesians 4:26, “Do not let the sun set on your anger” (not your conflict).

​This looks like being affectionate even and especially while you argue: holding hands while you talk or intermittently hugging and kissing when you feel the conversation making progress. This looks like setting boundaries with your spouse during heated arguments: letting them know if they’ve said something that hurt you, or that you need to take a break and calm down.

Above all, this still looks like conflict, yes, but also with the assurance that you and your spouse are both of good will toward the other.

You are not enemies or opponents. You are not trying to be right or make your spouse wrong. You are expressing your needs and desires and emotions. You are safe to give that to, and receive it from, your spouse.

​If you need sleep and let the conversation rest for a bit, get to a place where you feel safe with your spouse and then cuddle up for the night. Don’t make your mission: do not go to bed angry. Make your mission: go to bed secure.

3. Accept Influence from your Spouse

​While having high standards and communicating them to your partner, also allow yourself to adjust for your partner. When I first told Joshua I wanted the dishwasher loaded a certain way, I was so particular that I wanted him to load the forks on the right, the spoons in the middle, and the knives on the left. He tried to remember my particular order but struggled. The end result was he always loads the silverware into individual pockets (he keeps the forks together and the spoons together, etc.) but not necessarily from right to left. And guess what — I don’t care! I just wanted the dishwasher to be organized and slightly easier to unload.

​Psychology researchers have actually seen, from observing married couples, a direct correlation between accepting influence from your spouse and marital happiness.

If spouses are stubborn and refuse to hear their partner’s needs or desires and are unwilling to change up their own schedules or habits to accommodate the person they have vowed to spend the rest of their life with, it leads to nothing but trouble down the road.

  • If you’re the type of man to stay up until 3 AM playing video games and your wife would prefer you come to bed with her by midnight, you may want to consider rearranging your hobbies.
  • If you’re the type of woman to watch reality dating shows with your girlfriends when they air on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights and your husband would like you to pick just one of those three nights to continue your routine with, you may want to consider setting up some boundaries with your friends.

These things change when you get married, and that’s okay.

4. Make a Bill Calendar

​Review the section on Finances from your Pre-Cana course if you need to — because finances are a top source of stress for newlyweds. Every couple needs to work out the particulars of their spending expectations, habits, bank account and tax preferences, and any other details related to money on an individual and household level.

Joshua and I are a year into marriage and have our first kiddo, and we’ve had more than one conversation lately about how we want to handle finances and bills. We certainly don’t regret opening a joint account and completely sharing our money, but not everyone likes that idea. We don’t put “spending limits” on each other, but some people prefer to have that structure. It’s okay to not have all the answers right when you get married!

​But, if there is one piece of advice I think is safe to give across the board, it’s make a bill calendar. We have a full-month calendar in our kitchen with all our monthly bills: what they are, how much they cost, when they’re due, and how they need to be paid (auto or manual).

The reason I encourage this is because (1) it’s an easy way to organize your bills and not lose track of anything, and (2) it allows you and your spouse to have healthy communication regarding our finances every single month.

We sit down together every month, go through the bills, and put them on the calendar. We maintain open communication about our money. We both have full access to our joint account. Neither of us are ever blind-sided by where our money is going.

Every couple needs to evaluate their needs on an individual level, and every couple also needs to keep open and honest communication regarding their household finances.

5. Adjusting to Sex and NFP is Difficult and Awkward — and that’s Okay!

​Speaking of communicating with our spouse every month, let’s talk about Natural Family Planning for a minute. To go from abstinence to full intimacy is a physical adjustment. To go from sex being a mortal sin to a beautiful and holy unity can be a mental struggle. And, let’s face it, NFP can be a little scary.

All of a sudden you are engaging with your partner in a completely new way AND you could unexpectedly have a kid on the way? Whew.

​Practicing Natural Family Planning and saying no to contraception means putting a lot of trust in God and in your spouse. It requires regular communication about your desires and needs for having children and for intimacy. Adjusting to having sex also takes a lot of vulnerability and honesty about your needs and desires, too.

Also, adding sex into the equation changes your relationship.

Physically and hormonally bonding yourself to your spouse changes how you relate to each other in every other way (a good reason that abstinence before marriage makes sense).

​This will be expanded on in future content, but for now, know that it’s okay to struggle, to be scared even, and to need some time to make these adjustments. The good news is that frequent communication about this topic will help mitigate a lot of the awkwardness.

6. Give Yourself — and your Spouse — A Whole Lotta Grace

​Finally, marriage is hard!

Yes, you are still with the same person you’ve been with for X amount of time. But no, you are not in the same relationship. Marriage isn’t just dating but living together. Marriage is a full-on blending of not only your lives, but yourselves.

Marital intimacy binds people together in ways that change the relationship entirely: psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

It’s not going to be a seamless transition. You and your spouse will struggle individually and as a team with any number of challenges. Don’t worry — we will cover a lot of those topics as tome goes on. We’re right here with you as you navigate through these uncharted waters.

​You have a new, wonderful, lifelong vocation and commitment to someone you clearly love. Embrace everything: the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful. You’ve got your whole life together. Let us help you start figuring out how to live it fully.

Marriage is hard, yes, but it is also rewarding.

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I believe in you. I cherish you.

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Read Time: 2 minutes

What phrases do you need to hear from your spouse?

This video excerpt is from our Pre-Cana segment: Communication and Conflict Resolution. In that segment, Jay and Laura discuss the four phrases that each man needs to hear from their wife, and each wife needs to hear from their husband (based on surveying several couples).

For those of you who haven’t completed our Pre-Cana program yet, don’t worry, this won’t spoil anything for you. In fact, it’s important to begin discussing right away what you both need to hear from each other in order to truly become a more unified couple.

For those of you who already have completed our Pre-Cana program, this is always a great reminder on becoming more and and more intentional with speaking into each other’s lives as your marriage grows.

As I watched this segment again myself, I found it very empowering to go through the exercise of determining what I and my beautiful bride need to hear from each other. We usually have our time of uninterrupted conversation after we put the kiddos to bed. We sat at our dinner table, played cards, and talked about this very topic.

This video isn’t intended to be the “be-all, end-all” regarding this topic. It is intended to help be a launching point for conversation between the two of you. You may have different answers than they indicate. In fact, I’d venture to say that all of us need to hear “I believe in you” and “I cherish you.” So, make it your own! God has put a special thumbprint on your relationship — uniquely beautiful to your story together.

So your homework?

I encourage you and your companion to do exactly as I did with my wife — schedule an intentional, uninterrupted moment with each other to discuss the phrases that the two of you need to hear from each other. Once you establish those phrases, then you start saying those phrases to each other — simple as that!

It may seem awkward at first, but if your heart is in the right place as you say them, you don’t have to worry about coming across as disingenuous. Have faith that your beloved has your best interest in mind, and wouldn’t, in a million years, take advantage or disparage your vulnerability.

When you operate out of a genuine heart, this exercise becomes a beautiful thread within the tapestry of your life together.

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Three Types of Premarital Assessments: Which one should you take?

Read Time: 4 minutes

So, your priest or marriage mentor said you need to do a premarital assessment. You’re here reading this article, so you’re likely a high achiever who wants to get this right. There are three popular premarital assessments that help couples get their marriages off to a great start. Let’s take a look at the FOCCUS, RELATE, and PREPARE/ENRICH premarital assessments to help determine which is right for you.

FOCCUS Pre-Marriage Inventory

Facilitating Open Couple Communication, Understanding and Study

The FOCCUS Pre-Marriage Inventory is administered through a certified FOCCUS facilitator who has the couple take the assessment on paper or online and then scores the results. Originally developed by the Archdiocese of Omaha, this pre-marriage inventory has been around since 1985, and it has been taken by over 1 million couples.

A certified FOCCUS Facilitator could be a priest or another religious leader, but they must be a licensed professional who belongs to an approved organization to provide facilitator services. Facilitators are trained to help couples use the information provided in their inventory report to strengthen their relationship and talk about their differences.

For a cost of $20 per couple, the FOCCUS Pre-marriage Inventory evaluates nineteen areas of a couple’s life. It’s great for helping couples determine challenges they may face and providing trained facilitators to help couples understand their results and discuss their potential challenges.

RELATE Relationship Assessment

The RELATE Relationship Assessment is available online without the help of a facilitator. Couples can easily register, take the assessment, and have their results in about 30 minutes. The assessment was developed by the Relate Institute at Brigham Young University, and the cost is currently $40 per couple.

The report produced by the RELATE Relationship Assessment details ten areas and how couples view themselves and their partner in each area. They can see areas of personal strength and challenge along with identifying areas that need improvement. The report includes brief descriptions of behaviors that may be demonstrated in each area, and it also has discussion questions for personal and couple growth.

The strength of the RELATE Relationship Assessment is its user-friendly online format and easy to understand report. The RELATE website offers additional tools for couples after taking the assessment including online classes, an app, and the ability to connect with a registered therapist.

PREPARE/ENRICH

The PREPARE/ENRICH Assessment was developed in the 1980s by Dr. David Olson, a University of Minnesota researcher in the field of family science, and his wife, Karen Olson. There are two versions of the PREPARE/ENRICH Assessment available to engaged couples: the regular version, taken under the direction of a PREPARE/ENRICH facilitator), and the Catholic Couple Checkup which is a lighter version of the original assessment that couples can take on their own.

PREPARE/ENRICH explores twenty relationship areas and provides a report that can be talked through with a facilitator or discussed as a couple using the free, downloadable discussion guide. The cost for either version of PREPARE/ENRICH is $35 per couple.

The couple report from the PREPARE/ENRICH Assessment focuses on twenty areas of a couple’s life and each partner’s personality. It takes around 20 – 30 minutes to complete the online assessment, and the report is available as soon as each partner completes their part. Results are first summarized and then detailed in the report by category, and it includes a personality scale for each partner along with discussion questions throughout.

On a personal note:

While researching for this article, I took the RELATE assessment, and my husband and I took the Couple Checkup from PREPARE/ENRICH. 

The main difference we noted was that RELATE structures the report by showing graphs that measure how you view yourself and how your partner views you. They also use percentages to note the level of strength in each category. The graphs and percentages correlate to three categories: strength, needs improvement, and challenge.

PREPARE/ENRICH Couple Checkup measures satisfaction in each area along with couple agreement. These graphs show satisfaction as either high, average, or low and couple agreement as strength, possible strength, and growth area. The report also includes a couple map that shows where the couple falls on a grid that measures flexibility and closeness. At the end of the report, a SCOPE personality scale shows where each of you fall from low to high in the five dimensions of personality: social, change, organized, pleasing, and emotionally steady.

When we compared our results, my husband said the report from RELATE made him feel like he was being graded in each category and that the percentages reminded him of school. Any “score” of less than 80% made him feel like he didn’t measure up in that particular category. The RELATE assessment’s use of the terms “needs improvement” and “challenge” reinforced those feelings. 

We both agreed that we like the PREPARE/ENRICH Couple Checkup report much better and felt more open while working through it. In the area where we had the lowest “Couple Agreement”, the report noted the areas where we both felt positive and listed several discussion items that helped us talk about the results. The SCOPE personality scale demonstrated how strong our traits were in each category without making us feel like we failed or were in competition with one another.

The entire Couple Checkup report felt more encouraging, and the discussion guide and included talking points facilitated deeper conversations about our results. 

Which premarital assessment should you take?

All three of the premarital assessments discussed are research-based, have been used successfully by many couples, and provide feedback in a detailed report. When deciding which one is best for you, use of a facilitator seems to be the most important factor as FOCCUS is only available through a facilitator, and the full version of PREPARE/ENRICH is similar. If you are already working with a marriage mentor or clergy member for marriage prep, whatever assessment tool they recommend will be valuable if you are open, honest, and thoughtful with your answers.

If you are looking for a tool that you and your partner can use without a facilitator, RELATE and the Couple Checkup from PREPARE/ENRICH are similar in price and both offer a printable report. However, the reports approach the way you view your relationship and your personality styles very differently, and the Couple Checkup offers a few additional reports (the couple map and the SCOPE personality scale) that couples may find helpful.

Couples who take a premarital assessment can reduce the chance that their marriage will end in divorce (link to last article What is a Relationship Inventory/Premarital Assessment) because assessments help couples understand their strengths and identify growth areas. If you took a facilitator-led assessment other than PREPARE/ENRICH, taking advantage of the RELATE Assessment or the PREPARE/ENRICH Couple Checkup can offer a fresh perspective on your relationship and give your marriage a great start.

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What is a Relationship Inventory or Premarital Assessment?

Read Time: 3 minutes

Taking a relationship assessment or doing a premarital relationship inventory during premarital preparation or premarital counseling can feel intimidating.

How much time will this take?

How much do I have to tell the priest about my personal life and my past?

What if we fail?

Some people love personality tests and assessments, but when it comes to taking one as a couple, and sharing it with a priest or marriage mentor, it may bring up feelings of vulnerability, anxiety, or fear. Although those emotions may be warranted (you are doing something new and unfamiliar), approaching the premarital assessment with an open mind and a little courage can yield wonderful benefits for your future relationship.

What is a Premarital Assessment?

The kind of assessment you take (and there are many!) isn’t as important at the core purpose of a premarital assessment. The core purpose of the assessment is to reveal talking points that your priest or mentors can use to guide helpful discussions about your relationship.

A premarital assessment is not a tool used to grade your relationship; you cannot fail a premarital assessment. 

Learning the areas you and your future spouse are more and less compatible can facilitate helpful dialog between you and your partner as a couple and with your priest or marriage mentors. Premarital assessments are filled with research-based questions that provide helpful data about who you and your partner are as individuals and as a couple.

The results of your premarital assessment will reveal your personal and relationship strengths and help you identify areas of growth.

If you want to pursue deeper connections and have a healthy relationship, the premarital assessment is integral to your life as a married couple. 

How honest do I have to be in my premarital assessment?

We all have a tendency to protect our vulnerable parts, and the thought of doing a premarital assessment and then talking it over with your partner and priest or marriage mentor may tempt you to hide some parts of yourself.

Being honest about yourself and your relationship will provide the best results on your premarital assessment.

If you want your premarital assessment to yield helpful results, you shouldn’t hold back when answering questions. Even though a good premarital assessment will detect inconsistencies, your honesty will honor you, your future spouse, and the entire marriage preparation process.

Taking the time needed to complete the assessment honestly, discuss it with your marriage preparation partners, and reflect on the results yourself will strengthen the foundation of your future marriage. Although the premarital assessment will not magically fix any serious issues it may reveal, it will provide a starting point for a healthy dialog moving forward.

What are the benefits of doing a premarital assessment?

It is no secret that marriage is difficult, and throwing yourself wholeheartedly into the marriage preparation process won’t make you immune to its challenges. However, research has proven that couples who engage in premarital counseling are happier and more realistic about their relationships, and those who take certain premarital assessments have a reduced rate of divorce.

Premarital counseling and premarital assessments can improve your relationship and reduce the chance that your marriage will end in divorce.

Think of all the ways you make your partner a priority and work hard to have a good relationship. The premarital assessment is just one more tool that will help you better understand yourself and your partner,  and taking it seriously will point your future marriage in the right direction.

On a personal note:

My husband and I went through premarital counseling in the Catholic Church over 25 years ago. We thought it was fun to spend time together learning about our differences and figuring out how to talk about things that we hadn’t yet discussed – like divorce, life insurance, and the spiritual principles we would teach our future children. We both had previous relationships – some good and some bad – and it was embarrassing to talk them over with our priest. However, we pushed through the awkwardness and got honest with our mentors and each other. We’ve looked back at the conversations that resulted from our premarital assessment and counseling several times over the years, and we are always grateful for the foundation of honesty and openness that it laid for our future.

Any time we’re faced with a “test” it can bring up a slew of emotions, but the premarital assessment is simply a tool used to get your marriage off to a great start. Understanding its purpose, committing to honesty, and recognizing the value of the premarital assessment will position you and your partner for a successful beginning to a lifetime as a couple.

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