Pre-marital counseling . . . before getting the ring?

[Glib Gurl]

A friend of mine goes to a church that requires all couples that engage in pre-marital counseling to return an engagement ring if it's already been given/accepted. The idea is that if you've already gotten engaged, you've made your decision; whereas the counseling course is designed to help you decide if you want to marry that person.

While at first blush that seems a little extra, it actually makes more sense if you think about it.

Anyone do pre-marital counseling before getting engaged?

 

[gabulldawg]

I don't know. erplexed Doesn't make much sense to me. Maybe they should call it couples counseling instead. There's no way I would participate in premarital counseling if I wasn't engaged.

 

[madamdot]

A friend of mine goes to a church that requires all couples that engage in pre-marital counseling to return an engagement ring if it's already been given/accepted. The idea is that if you've already gotten engaged, you've made your decision; whereas the counseling course is designed to help you decide if you want to marry that person.

While at first blush that seems a little extra, it actually makes more sense if you think about it.

Anyone do pre-marital counseling before getting engaged?

I think that's a simplistic and silly way of looking at it. Just because you "give back the ring" physically does not mean you have mentally given it back. In fact I would venture to say for most people you've decided to marry before the actual question and ring come into play.

 

[YankeeCandle]

What denomination is this church, Glib, and what are its demographics (e.g. mostly Euro; truly mixed or international; mostly Black American)?

I grew up with engagements being the next thing to weddings in terms of a public statement that you are almost married. Breaking an engagement was like a mini-divorce. So in such a scenario, this type of pre-engagement counseling might make sense...but for the fact that dating was not encouraged/acceptable, either, so you wouldn't have anyone to go to counseling with !

I agree with madamot that the giving back of the ring is kind of . I mean, if someone's given you a ring or if you've accepted one, they've/you've already gotten to the point that they're feeling ready for some ACTUAL pre-marital counseling...as in the traditional type that engaged couples undertake before the wedding.

 

[Glib Gurl]

What denomination is this church, Glib, and what are its demographics (e.g. mostly Euro; truly mixed or international; mostly Black American)?

Girl, you know this was a black megachurch where everyone does what Passa says

 

[mscocoface]

We did premarital counseling and couples workshops before we were engaged.

There is sooo much that people don't discuss or find out until the honeymoon phase is over.

Items like
How to pay bills
A look at each others credit rating
Anyone interested in going back to school?
How will the chidren be raised, will there be children, if so when and how many?
How will you handle step children and step family extensions?
How handles the household duties
Sex - sounds ridiculous, but you would be surprised what comes up.
Have you been married before, what worked what didn't?

There is a host of other topics to understand what you both believe or find out about each other.

It does not have to be faith based counseling, it could even be secular or both.

 

[YankeeCandle]

Ms Cocoface,

Thanks for the breakdown.IMO, everything you listed is stuff the parties should be discussing long before even considering engagement anyway, but I suppose some people find it more helpful to have an "impartial" third party moderate or oversee the discussion.

I wonder how many people actually decide NOT to marry their SO on the basis of such pre-engagement counseling. That would be really interesting to discover, wouldn't it?

 

[mscocoface]

Ms Cocoface,

Thanks for the breakdown.IMO, everything you listed is stuff the parties should be discussing long before even considering engagement anyway, but I suppose some people find it more helpful to have an "impartial" third party moderate or oversee the discussion.

I wonder how many people actually decide NOT to marry their SO on the basis of such pre-engagement counseling. That would be really interesting to discover, wouldn't it?

I asked these questions of guys I was interested in before I met hubby in a more informal manner while I was single it kept me out of trouble and it let the guys know I was not to be played with.

If you can talk to me about being my bed partner then you can talk to me about ALL the other stuff that is just as intimate.

Needless to say for me it cut down on a lot of heartache and frustration and I wasn't in a rush.

 

[SW2011]

The pre-marital counseling class that I attended said something similar. You didn't have to give back the ring or anything. They just asked that you postpone plans, but it was your decision to do so or not.

It made so much sense to me and there were quite a few people in the class who were boyfriend/girlfriend rather than fiance'/fiancee'. The class was 10 weeks and very intense. There was a lot that I learned about my fiance' and things that we just never thought about discussing (even though we've discussed so much). When you've bought the dress, the invitations, the rings, etc. it's much harder to be objective and to call things off if they need to be called off.

I stopped planning while going through the course, but didn't change my date. Some of the other couples in the class haven't called off their plans, but have changed the wedding date to a later date. They saw that there was more that they needed to work on. And my church definitely promotes marriage...but they want you to have a strong foundation before jumping in.

 

[StarFish106]

Interesting viewpoint on how to do that. See I am naturally newsy so me and my DH had talked about everything under the sun before we even got engaged. I wanted to know where his head was in general before we kept going down that road. You name it we talked about it: sex, money, family, friends, personal beliefs etc. We even exchanged credit reports (all 3 with scores) so nothing is a surprise to us now. Even the pastor that married us that did our counseling was like "y'all didn't leave me anything to talk to you about!" We did 6 weeks of pre-marital counseling and that just sealed the ends of all of our conversations.

Now we have all new ones lol! But if you are going to marry somebody (or hell even be in a long term relation ship) you have to ask the pretty and not so pretty questions at some point. Sometimes I think folks are so scared to ask stuff because they may be like what if I don't like his/her answer or what if they don't like mine and they leave? IF more people asked some of the dirty questions earlier, some folks could have saved themselves a whole world of hurt.

 

[phynestone]

Interesting viewpoint on how to do that. See I am naturally newsy so me and my DH had talked about everything under the sun before we even got engaged. I wanted to know where his head was in general before we kept going down that road. You name it we talked about it: sex, money, family, friends, personal beliefs etc. We even exchanged credit reports (all 3 with scores) so nothing is a surprise to us now. Even the pastor that married us that did our counseling was like "y'all didn't leave me anything to talk to you about!" We did 6 weeks of pre-marital counseling and that just sealed the ends of all of our conversations.

Now we have all new ones lol! But if you are going to marry somebody (or hell even be in a long term relation ship) you have to ask the pretty and not so pretty questions at some point. Sometimes I think folks are so scared to ask stuff because they may be like what if I don't like his/her answer or what if they don't like mine and they leave? IF more people asked some of the dirty questions earlier, some folks could have saved themselves a whole world of hurt.

I really wish more people would do this. In hindsight, I think people who end up in bad marriages or get divorced probably wished they did.

 

[poetist]

A friend of mine goes to a church that requires all couples that engage in pre-marital counseling to return an engagement ring if it's already been given/accepted. The idea is that if you've already gotten engaged, you've made your decision; whereas the counseling course is designed to help you decide if you want to marry that person.

While at first blush that seems a little extra, it actually makes more sense if you think about it.

Anyone do pre-marital counseling before getting engaged?

I didn't do it this way, but it makes total sense to me. While DH and I were in pre-marital counseling, our decision was already made.

It's like we had a list of "to do's" and counseling, visiting venues, making the guest list, and cake testing were all a part of it.

 

[Crackers Phinn]

A friend of mine goes to a church that requires all couples that engage in pre-marital counseling to return an engagement ring if it's already been given/accepted. The idea is that if you've already gotten engaged, you've made your decision; whereas the counseling course is designed to help you decide if you want to marry that person.

It actually sounds like the church wants to complete the pre-marital counseling so that it has in theory decided that you are ready to marry as opposed to you deciding for yourself.

I think pre-marital counseling is a good idea, but I feel some kind of way about the church "making" somebody give back a ring until they do what you want them.