What to talk about when preparing for marriage?
Thirty years of conducting weddings has been a delightful experience. Each couple has been helped to prepare for their great day and, a little, for married life. Neither the Minister nor the couple has time for more than a couple of meetings. The couple, though, can be provided with questions to work through together. These questions are below.
In each section of ‘Wedding Words and You’, you read words from the Church of England Wedding Service and related questions about important aspects of marriage. The aim is that you will talk together about every aspect.
If you are being married in a Church of England Church, you will also have made a connection between the church words and your own relationship. When you hear or say ‘All that I have I share with you,’ you may think ‘You can keep your collection of beer mats!’ or ‘Please be careful with my car.’ If you are using other words, you will probably find that the aspects covered connect in a slightly different way.
Take time to talk. Communisation is key to a good marriage. Jordan Peterson highlights the importance of resolving differences through negotiation: Here is a thought, a terrifying and dispiriting thought, to motivate improvement in your marriage – to scare you into the appalling difficulties of true negotiation. Every little problem you have every morning, afternoon, or evening with your spouse will be repeated for each of the fifteen thousand days that will make up a forty-year marriage. Every trivial but chronic disagreement about cooking, dishes, housecleaning, responsibility for finances, or frequency of intimate contact will be duplicated, over and over, unless you successfully address it…1 You see from the Wedding Word questions that Jordan’s list is far from complete.
Best to start now and to give each other the time to work through as much as much as you can.
You start working quickly, each on your own, through each section.
If you think ‘We’ve talked about this enough. I know what he thinks. She knows what I think,’ put a tick in the margin.
If you think ‘It would be good to talk about this more,’ or ‘It’s a while since we had that discussion and a revisit would be good.’ put a question mark in the margin.
If you think ‘We haven’t really talked about this yet. I think I sort of know but we haven’t had the full discussion,’ put a cross in the margin.
You will probably find that you have many ticks, a few question marks and the odd cross.
After each of you has filled in the margin, you compare your ticks and question marks and crosses. You may be a little surprised. Accept how the other has scored an aspect without challenging.
The next question is ‘When will we talk about our question marks and crosses?’ Agree an evening or part of a weekend when you have time and energy to talk. You may need more than one session. Enjoy the conversations.
Further explanation of each area for discussion is in our Further Material.
Wedding Words and You: