From coaching to classes, premarital education can strengthen a marriage before it even begins.

By Mariya Manzhos

Roisin and Andrew Moranian had little doubt they were ready for marriage: They met when they were both 8 years old and dated for two years in their twenties before deciding to tie the knot. But they’re both Catholic, which meant that they had to take a premarital education course — called “Pre-Cana”— to get married in the church. At first, spending a full weekend talking about hypothetical scenarios they might encounter down the road seemed like an unnecessary and time-consuming inconvenience, Roisin Moranian admitted. But her thinking was about to shift.

The couple spent two days at their local parish, St. Eulalia’s in Winchester, Massachusetts, talking about things like how to manage finances as a couple, the specifics about raising children and how to communicate through conflict. Although the couple had already agreed they wanted to have kids, the class got them talking about the specifics of that timeline. They also went over a list of deal breakers they hadn’t considered, such as how they would react if their partner had a gambling problem. Roisin, now 30, recalls a feeling of relief when, one big question after another, the couple discovered that when it came to the big questions, they were on the same page.

“A lot of our direct conversations about how to solve certain conflicts — maybe we would have had those conversations organically or not organically right before we got married, but maybe we wouldn’t,” said Roisin, who eventually married Andrew in 2020 in a civil ceremony (due to COVID-19), followed by a church ceremony performed by a priest two years later.

In an era of declining marriage rates and increased trepidation about commitment, marriage preparation classes offer couples a chance to examine each partner’s vision of marriage and to test, albeit in theory, how this vision may play out in the day-to-day of married life: the division of labor, parenting philosophies and spending habits, to name but a few.

https://www.deseret.com/family/2024/03/15/marriage-preparation-pre-cana-premarital-counseling/