"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.

Thankful

It's an appropriate post for the season :)

I'm finally getting the waves of MustReadWeddingBlogs out of my system, getting chilled out about the whole wedding planning process. It's really a wonderful feeling. There's a ton of other stuff going on in life right now that I've got my mind turned to - big stuff like moving and the holidays, little stuff like getting geared the upcoming Cataclysm release and trying to bang out my NaNoWriMo. I still get a few minutes every now and again to surf ye olde wedding blogs. And sometimes, even my sanest of resources give me reasons to be thankful in that "thank you God that that isn't me" sense.
Many of these blogs have venting/ranting sections or boards for commenters, and I read some today. Reading those posts really made me feel thankful -- thankful that I'm not in some of those ladies' circumstances, and thankful that I don't react to some things in ways that, to me, look like they just aggravate bad situations. So...

I am so thankful that:

• My fiance is a mature man who, even though he isn't perfect, always tries his best at everything -- from work to friendships to taking care of me. One of the reasons I feel that we're such amazing partners is that I never find myself questioning his love and respect for me or our capability to take on challenges together.
• My future in-laws (who are now calling themselves the "Outlaws," which is spot on...) are absolutely fantastic. I couldn't imagine a better second-family, and I'm so grateful for how they've taken me in and been wonderful to me ever since Johnny invited me over for apple butter day, the first time I met them.
• My own family loves Johnny to death, too. Mom thinks he hung the moon, Dad has a ton of respect for him in his own Dad-ly way (oh, my unique and eccentric father...), and Granny likes him better than she would like most men in the world (Granny is special, too).
• We have relatively little drama in all our relationships with others. Sure, sometimes bits of tension rise up in friendships and family relationships, but there's nothing big and earth-shaking -- it's all stuff that we handle in a pretty grounded fashion, at least so far.
• I love his friends. All of them -- they are simply the best. They all have great personalities, good hearts, and are fun to be around.
• Johnny is sensitive to the girl-friendships I have that are long-distance. I should make more time to keep in touch with my distance-friends, and he's usually the one encouraging me to make sure to do that.
• Neither of us are hung up on money. If we were, we'd be in a heap of trouble :P It makes it simpler when you just try to have enough money for what you need and think of everything else as extra. It makes wedding planning simpler, too, in a way :P We don't need to spend a lot of money to have fun with each other, and we both love just being at home snuggling and watching movies or reading or gaming -- we're both cheap dates!
• We both have the same values and speak the same "religious language." Some of our best conversations, the ones we learn the most about each other through, are about how we each understand God and how to do the right thing in situations and that sort of thing. I love that I feel like I can go to him when I'm struggling with something spiritually, and I'm so grateful that we both want to grow in faith together, with each other.
• We do fight sometimes, but I'm thankful that we've learned (and are still learning) how to disagree and work things out while doing as little hurt to the other as possible. We'll be doing some premarital counseling, and I'm pretty excited to do even more work on our communication skills. Mostly because I know I'm the one who tends to freak out and cry while J keeps his feet on the ground about stuff :P
• We both tend to have happy and thankful personalities. Well... "contented" fits J better than outright "happy" (maybe it's a man thing), but I love that we both are naturally geared toward making sure the other knows how much they're appreciated and loved. We both tell each other those sorts of things at least a couple of times each morning, each night, and in between -- it makes a HUGE difference, from my past relationships, just hearing a reminder of how the other one feels deep down. It doesn't cheapen it at all, to me, to hear "I love you" -- it just makes it stronger.

So, it's a little early, but there it is, since it was on my mind -- Happy Thanksgiving, relationship edition!