Marriage Encounter: An Investment In Your Marriage That You'll Never Forget

I will probably say it an annoying amount of times, but look up your local marriage encounter weekends, pick one, and GO! Going into it, I just knew that I liked retreats and that we had an incredible time at our engagement retreat a few years back. Ever since we were dating, I'd see ads for Marriage Encounter in the bulletins at church and tell Steven we were going to go some day. I felt like we should probably pass that year mark before going (although there was a couple there who had only been married 3 months!), and started looking over the summer for dates. There are 3-4 a year in our state, and I immediately picked the one at the beach because how could I not!? Now that the baby is on the way, we figured it'd be a great last weekend away together, too. And it was! Fun facts: it is held in 90 different countries and 11 faith expressions. Marriage Encounter began in the 1950's in Spain by a priest. We met couples who had been married 40 and 50 years who were back for more after attending multiple times before! 

Room with a view, or what?

I'm not going to go much into what you actually do at Marriage Encounter for a few reasons. One, I would do it a horrible disservice, I'm sure. If someone had told me the specifics beforehand, I think I would have scoffed and found it a bit cheesy. It's not, I assure you. Even the men, even the ones who had been dragged there, raved at our group meals about how amazing it was! Reason two is that I think it's just way more fun to discover it yourself! So anyways, Marriage Encounter is very couple-centric and involves learning a form of communication that I guarantee will be new to you. The only time you are really interacting with others is at meals. Other than that, you are either in presentations or directly working with your spouse. We loved that aspect of it... no pressure to socialize so we could just be together. It was exhausting mentally and emotionally but in such a perfect way. We'd get through one exercise and just hold each other in a tight embrace. It was amazing. Tears were shed, lots of hugs were given, and some powerful things were shared.

We had a little break time on Saturday (much needed since the day was 7:30am-9:30pm!) and we took a romantic walk on the beach. It was admittedly short since I start hurting after just a little bit of walking, but we put our toes in the water, took pictures, and talked. It was delightful! Other than that, we were enriching our marriage the whole time... 44 hours worth of work into this marriage I love with this man that I love. 

Writing hubs a love letter on the balcony. Poor chap was in the conference room writing his!

The priest who helped to run it (we had 1 priest and 3 presenting couples who we LOVED) said that he thinks each couple should come every 5 years. For $50, we definitely will be doing that! Yes, you heard right. The entire weekend cost us $50. We did give an anonymous donation when they handed out envelopes towards the end of the weekend, but that $50 is all that's required for lodging, food, and the retreat. They said they never turn someone away for lack of ability to pay.

One of my favorite things about Marriage Encounter is that they really push for you to not lose the skills when you get home. They give you really in depth resources, plus there are local circles of Encountered couples who meet regularly! There is one in our town so we are definitely going to attend as much as possible. And yes, we'll be back in 5 years, if we can wait that long! 

I'll share one of my favorite parts of the weekend that actually happened during Mass. During the homily, the priest had us turn our chairs to face our spouse. We were to hold hands, gazing into each other's eyes while the priest spoke on wedding vows. He spoke as if we were speaking to our spouse and when he got to the part about lovingly accepting children, I was sitting there staring into Steven's eyes, holding his hands with our knees touching, and my baby kicking. It was about one of the most powerful and emotional moments. Of course I was crying! Right after that, we got to renew our wedding vows. I never thought we'd be renewing them 1.5 years in, but it was so special!

 I swear I don't look this large in real life. At least, that's what I tell myself ;). 

Neither of us wanted to leave the weekend, but we are already really loving incorporating our new skills into our marriage at home. Seriously, go. You will be so happy you did! 

Nerdily excited about our certificate and candle!