The Best Planning Decision, Pt.2

In my other pre-cana post, I wrote about why we went through pre-cana and generally why we enjoyed it.

Mr. Newport and I tend to be opposites in every way. Especially in our methods of communication. I tend to talk and plan for the future, while he tends to live in the moment. We, scratch that, I had done a lot of talk about the future. I felt like we had many conversations, but in reality they were more one sided. When we went into pre-cana we went into it thinking it would be super preachy. Instead, our few classes were filled with skits on marriage, group discussions and activities. Many things were just conversation starters.

We ended up having the best conversations during our week of pre-cana. Mr. Newport opened up to me on a lot of issues we had skimmed the surface on, but hadn't really dealt with. I learned so much about him and our future from our classes.

For example, we have talked about kids many times. We talked about kids before we even started dating. We both knew what the other wanted, but we never knew why and had never come to an agreement on how many or when we would like them. During a class we were asked if we had already talked about kids. If so, who wants how many and when. Our responses were me: sooner, he: later, me: more, he: less (we didn't get into details of most things in the group, they were more things to think about and discuss when we get home). This was a conversation starter for sure. When we drove home we started talking about why he wanted less (that's what his parents did and he'd like to afford to give them a good life), why I want more (I come from a big family and want our kids to have a similar upbringing). We went deeper into things and it turned out he wanted less mainly because it's what he knew and felt he could offer more financially to a smaller amount of children. It ended up being a great conversation and we were really seeing where we were both coming from other than I want x amount, you want y amount.

This was one of our breakthroughs from pre-cana, but we actually left with a much better understaning of each other and learned how to better communicate- without them actully telling us how. I tried explaing it to others, but it's more something you have to go through yourself.

If you attended pre-cana or another type of marriage prep, did it have a positive effect on your relationship?