A couple of weekends ago, Mark and I attended an Engaged Encounter retreat in Menlo Park. What a wonderful thing, for a couple to devote an entire weekend, in an idyllic setting, working on their relationship, right? Well, honestly, we weren’t too thrilled about having to go to this retreat.
In order to be married at St. Ignatius Church, we were required to take a marriage preparation course. We had just moved to our new apartment in South City, and hadn’t even been living in our place for a week before packing up for a weekend outing. Not only that, we would each be staying in separate rooms, 1950s style. Out of deference to Catholic Church values, the genders had to sleep separately, no fooling around after hours.
We had never gone to a Church retreat and didn’t know what to expect; singing, prayer marathons, Bible quizzes? We envisioned ourselves sitting with other couples, discussing intimate and embarrassing details of our lives to total strangers. The thought of talking about nothing but our feelings for two days straight didn’t exactly appeal to us.
About twenty other couples attended the retreat with us. The presenting couples, Luis & Carol Aguilar and Joe & Maria Bonkowski, each took turns presenting a topic, partly lecturing, partly sharing their personal experiences in their marriages. They covered topics such as fighting fairly (no Robin Williams-style provocations, thankfully), decision-making, and forgiveness. After their presentations, each person spent about 20 minutes writing separately about the topics, before meeting back with their future spouses to discuss their answers.
During breaks, Mark pretended that we were at a drug rehab clinic, suffering from pseudo-withdrawal symptoms as we shuffled through the gardens. We also had to be quiet around another group that was on a silent retreat, since they couldn’t tell us if we were bothering them.
There were some cheesy, yet fun moments. We definitely sang, during a Church prayer service and at a serenade of romantic songs by the guys. The gals got silk roses from their guys before a group activity, where people revealed whether or not they agreed with certain statements (such as, “I don’t like seeing hair on soap”). One of the presenting couples, Joe and Maria, performed a hilarious skit about neglecting your wife during the Super Bowl (it was supposed to be about what NOT to do as a couple, but come on, nobody should be interrupted during the Super Bowl).
The writing and sharing exercises sparked conversations on some topics that we hadn’t thought about before. Mark and I talked openly about various issues, and while we didn’t figure out all the answers, we resolved to work with each other to strengthen our relationship. As it turns out, we are still convinced that we want to get married (whew!). The retreat turned out to be an enjoyable experience and helped affirm our commitment to each other.