"Building a Better Marriage"

I think my favorite pre-wedding-related experience so far doesn't have anything to do with the "stuff" that goes with weddings -- it's been the seminar we attended this weekend at HCC.
Heaton Christian Church is the wonderful church family Johnny grew up in, and it's been my pleasure to get to know the folks there as I've grown in my faith since attending with him. I think my favorite thing about HCC is that the church members really do make people feel welcome -- even though there are strong family roots that have been part of the church's history, I love that members' attitudes and the type of messages preached there by Jason are focused on the wide reach of Jesus' love. I think part of that comes from the fact that it's a non-denominational church -- this is my first experience attending a church over a long period of time that isn't a Baptist church, and it's been a very different experience than my childhood church experiences. I won't go into a long talk about my spiritual past here, but I do want to express my gratitude to the church family that's welcomed me in.
This weekend, Jim and Glenda Buckley, parents of one of the church members, presented a two-day seminar on "Building a Better Marriage" -- a course they've expanded into a whole curriculum at their home church in California and that they've taught overseas in Eastern Europe and in other areas. About fifteen couples from the church attended. Johnny and I were the only engaged couple, but we really didn't feel out of place. I brought red velvet cheesecake brownies to the Saturday evening session, when we were introduced to the Buckleys and went over the topics they planned to talk about.

The seminar was split into five topics, which the Buckleys had identified from their own pastoral conversations with couples as the five biggest challenges in marriages (five topics also identified as challenges by psychologists and counselors): money, communication, children, sex, and life's struggles and sorrows. We covered money in the Saturday night session, communication and children during the Sunday School hour the next morning, and sex and life's struggles on Sunday afternoon.
I took notes on the handout packet we were given, and a lot of things stuck with me that the Buckleys talked about. I haven't really "gelled" my thoughts into a cohesive big-picture statement, but I came away with a lot of little nuggets of memorable things that spoke to me. A lot of these bits and bobs came from books and research that the Buckleys quoted, and I wasn't quick on the draw enough to write down the citations (which stinks, because they mentioned a lot of books I'd love to read!) so forgive my lack of sources... and a lot of things they said are gender generalizations, which I don't always believe are true, but if I'm mentioning them here, it's because they're true for me and J at least :) Some of this is stuff that I've heard said other ways before, but discussing them in seminar format made them stick!

• Waffle brain vs. spaghetti brain -- men's brains are like waffles, compartmentalized, and women tend to have thoughts that cross and intertwine. Which explains why J is a lot better about zoning out while doing any one thing in particular (and won't hear what I say unless I know I have his attention), and why something totally unrelated to what I'm actually upset about can set that upset off.
• One of those waffle boxes for guys can be a "nothing box." When Johnny says he's thinking about nothing, he really isn't thinking about anything. Me on the other hand... I'm totally thinking about something but don't want to talk about it when I say "nothing."
• We talked about different personality types when it comes to money. Johnny is a spender, and I'm a saver/security-seeker -- fortunately, we've known this about each other since shortly after we started dating, and we've already been talking about this a lot. The most interesting thing I got out of this part is realizing that I'm not just a saver -- I tend to save and spend with a mindset of seeking security. I don't tend to spend a lot of money on unplanned things unless I have some sort of monetary security buffer in place.
• One of the most memorable things I took away from the sessions wasn't a particular piece of information -- it was the experience of watching a committed couple of forty years talk about the struggles they've gone through together. Particularly, they each talked about the loss of a child through a stillbirth and the experience of losing a grandchild only hours after he was born -- they mentioned that 80% of couples who lose a child get divorced, but the other 20% of couples become much, much closer than before. Seeing that closeness between two partners who have made it through such a horrible experience with each other and with God was unbelievably inspiring -- Johnny said afterward that that was the most meaningful part of the seminar to him, too.
• That whole sex section? Yeah... guess what I didn't know: men don't exactly have a sex "drive" so much as a sex "need" -- as in, pretty much every 72 hours, their bodies physically need that kind of release. As simple as that sounds, it puts my understanding of men and how they think about intimacy in a whole different light, and that's food for thought for me for the future.

It was fun and insightful to listen to the Buckleys, but another great part of the experience was being one couple out of the number of couples that I've met at the church (including a number of Johnny's older relatives) and feeling like we're not the only ones who are or will be dealing with these challenges, feeling like we're in a good company of people we know. There's a feeling of support that comes with that, and it makes me feel closer to the church family and helps me understand the larger functions of church family in general.