As I sit here next to Mike, sipping on some ginger ale, eating complimentary cookies and looking out the window seeing the view of God’s creation all around me on flight 355, It’s easy to say life is GOOD! I’ve never been a big flyer with my stomach which tends to hates motion, but looking at the blue sky through the plain window is pretty settling. I more often than not, get into deep thinking and really get thankful that I have another day here on this earth God created, with the Man I love. I was thinking about sharing a blog post that was wedding tips related but I wanted to touch on something very different today. Something that digs deeper and that I believes matters MOST when your engaged. In this blog you will get a little insight on something I am SO glad Mike and I went through when we were engaged because it helped us prepare for marriage like nothing else would have.
What I’m sharing isn’t to say we don’t have our moments, disagreements and arguments, because we do. Just like every other couple who is married, we’re still learning and we don’t always have it all together! I’m sharing this blog post because our society loves to paint everything out to be “perfect” Marriage is one of those things. Through social media that gives the highlights of marriages, to hollywood with the sweetest of love story films (nicholas sparks of course) to the romantic love novels these things all have something in commen.. “Perfection.” Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy all those things plus I’m a bachelor fan but I also know that it’s not always 100% honest and real! I always knew that there where ups and downs in Marriage and we’d learn to work through the good times and hard times but let me just tell you, it was taken to a whole NEW level and perspective when we attended a 8 week Pre-marriage class called Merge through a non denominational church in Dallas TX at Watermark.
If you were to ask me what was the ONE thing I was most thankful for our whole season of being engaged and even marriage, I would point it back to that pre-marriage classes we went to for 8 Wednesdays, because it was so REAL. It got Mike and I talking about things we never thought to talk about. It opened us up in a different and new way. Whether you’re religious or not, I believe learning about marriage with who you’re about to marry should be a top priority for anyone. We found out about MERGE through going to the Porch at Watermark on Tuesday nights, which is an outreach for young adults (SO GOOD!) Now that I’ve moved from Dallas to Waco, I miss Watermark but thankfully tune into the porch app and podcasts to listen in on. Even though we had met with our preacher who would marry us, I realized quickly that this type of pre-marriage class would dig even deeper and so we decided together it’s what we’d do!
To give you an idea of what’s covered in a course here it is. Trust me when I say, they keep it real!
#1 The view of Marriage
#2 Communication & Conflict
#3 Roles in Marriage
#4 Strengthening your relationship
#5 Finances
#6 Expectations & Family/ In-Laws
#7 Intimacy
#8 Understanding Your Spouse
Merge is Together in Texas Certified. Couples who complete the class will receive a premarital course certificate that, when presented to the court clerk, saves them $60 off the cost of their marriage license and waives the 72-hour waiting period!
As you’re engaged and planning a wedding things can get all wrapped up in the thousands of to-do’s that are all so exciting.. or some not so exciting. I just can’t recommend enough on making a pre-marriage class one of your TOP priorities on your todo list, because it is truly the MOST valuable out of all the little materialistic things that will fade away and don’t make a difference in the big picture of Marriage.
Below you can tap the merge icon which will take you to the details of the pre-marriage class we attended, if you’re wanting more info. We attended the 8 week which for me worked great, but for Mike was a little harder having to drive from Waco to Dallas every Wednesday after work. There is another Merge program at watermark that offers the 8 week into just a weekend for those who have further drives or for those who don’t want to spread it out in 8 weeks.
Either way find out what works for you and just do it, because trust me you won’t regret how real it is and how they don’t care about painting, “perfect” like our society does. They care about educating for lasting marriages and I am forever grateful!
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