oh, excitement......

[smh]

I have to go to marriage classes tonight. Anyone else want to go? What do you do in marriage classes anyway?

[parksie]

Is it for both of you?

It actually sounds quite painful

[smh]

Yeah, it's for both.

All I know about them is that they are required before the pastor will marry you and we have to fill out some big questionaire about each other.

That really scares me too, because there is no way that I can tell this pastor how Mike and I met, needless to say other stuff about us!

[barrk]

Since you have a child I think the Pastor probably knows that you two "know" each other already....

I found the whole marriage class thing very enlightening. Tom and I confirmed what we already knew...that we were perfect for each other.

Don't dread the class...make the most of it. It might even be fun!

[parksie]

They don't seem to need it over here...

[barrk]

Marriage class is a church requirement only. I think it's pretty helpful actually. We have never been very religious but my family insisted that we go...even if we had no intentions of going to church...I'm glad we did.

[smh]

We had a terrible time finding someone who would marry us, beings as we already had a child. Wouldn't you think that if you already had a child and you wanted to get married, they would encourage you to get married instead of refuse to marry you? It just seems a little backwards to me...

[HarryW]

Who ever decided to invent 'marraige classes'? What a strange person, as they would say on Monty Python.

[parksie]

Katie - you don't need marriage classes in Britain...you just get married, child or no child.

Shanea - that's quite harsh, methinks

[barrk]

I don't attend church for that very reason.. Who are they to pass judgement on you...only God can do that ...they won't marry you because you have a child but you're a bad person because you're not married and have a child. Who could possibly make sense of that??

[barrk]

Think of all the people who got married, had children and then abused or neglected them....if they are Christians they're okay....and you're not...even though you're a great parent.....that is just messed up!

[parksie]

This is why I'm not Christian...or religious in any way. The whole thing seems to revolve around "you're not good enough, you need to atone for your sins".

Well, quite frankly, **** that.

[barrk]

Exactly!!!!!! However....I did enjoy the marriage class and thought it was worth-while.

[smh]

What did you do?

[barrk]

We had to fill out these questionairres, independently...they asked questions about what we valued...what we wanted from our future's together...if we wanted a family and when....where we wanted to live... they did it in a way that was really helpful. They also asked a bunch of religious tripe that just helped both of us realize how much we disliked organized religion.