I've taken a lot of classes in my life. A lot. But I am happy to say today I have taken my LAST marriage class ever. I thought I was ecstatic upon my last class at William and Mary, but even that pales in comparison. Matt and I just completed our premarital counseling. This was comprised of two parts. The first, a series of eight lectures called Spiritual Foundations of Marriage. The second, a mentoring course called Prepare Enrich. Let me begin by saying that I had no problem taking this course, or with the fact that we were required to take it in order to get married at the church we are getting married in. I thought it might even be a good thing, and I still think it could have been, but oh my goodness did those thoughts quickly turn into something else.
Before the course even started, we were the black sheep because both Matt and I put our same address on the registration form. Big mistake. The lesson learned: commit the sin of lying instead of the sin of living together. We received an email informing us that unless we decided to repent and find independent living situations we would not be allowed to participate in the mentoring portion because no married couple would be comfortable mentoring a cohabitating couple. After deciding not to send Matt to live with the Deacons we were allowed to do the mentoring part with the reverend himself. More on this soon.
The Spiritual Foundations course covered quite the array of topics including being a good Christian, taking vows, your partner's needs, sex, etc. Possibly the best things I learned (and I really hope you sense the sarcasm) about being a good wife include being submissive, and how to meet my husbands top five needs. This was the source of the most contention with me...it was so 1950's it was unfortunate. To make this a shorter post than this could potentially be I will just let you know that I should always look the way my husband wants me to look, I should never gain weight, and I should never look like a bag lady. I should also have dinner on the table, the kids well-behaved, and allow my husband to relax after work, as well as have sex with him every night, and if I don't it's no wonder he would find it elsewhere. You may think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. I have the literature to prove it if you want to borrow it.
As for the mentoring... it might say it all that during the first class our mentor told Matt that he should quit school because it's not as important as the marriage. We were supposed to also meet with him six times, but after three I'm pretty sure he gave up on us. I am far too strong a personality for him. He told us that we could be done with the mentoring today. All in all this was very frustrating. Matt and I were talking on the way home today and we both wish we could have done the class with someone else. It had a lot of potential, but I think there was some serious bias getting in the way. For now, though, I am just so glad to be done! And much to what I am sure would be our mentor's dismay we celebrated with shots. We needed them.
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