Non Religious Pre Marriage Course

GalwayGunner

Hi guys,

This question has been asked before on this forum but I couldn't see any definite answers:

Can anyone recommend any non religious pre marriage courses around the Dublin area?

Thanks.

BizzyC

non-religious pre marraige course?

You dont need to do a course if you're not getting married by the church, so I think you'd be hard pressed to find a non-religious one.

smallerthanyou

We did religious one but found most elements very useful. Can be a good thing to talk about expectations of life and marriage. Maybe you could speak with a marriage counsellor for an hour? Or go to internet and print off some discussion material and fill it out separately and talk about answers. That's pretty much what course was. But never heard of a non religious marriage course.

amdublin

Are you getting married in a church? If yes you'll need a religious one.

If you don't want to do a religious one, yet are getting married in a church it begs the question why are you doing a church wedding at all????????

If you are not getting married in a church then you don't have to do a marriage prep course. But if you want to do one I'd suggest an hour or two of counselling - maybe somewhere like Relationships Ireland might be able to help.

Milly33

Maybe it is just to do a pre-marriage course for themselves.. Some people say they are quite good, granted most saying the religious ones are gas but I can see why it might be nice to do one..

Cant say I have heard of this but very good question

Mrs OBumble

I think this is a very good idea, and am delighted to hear someone asking about it: Marriage is a serious psychological and legal undertaking, and should only be entered into by people with some understanding of what they are doing.

We've all heard of couples who only discovered fundamental differences about issues like how-many-children-would-we-like (zero vs lots) or how-do-we-manage-money (totally joint accounts vs totally separate vs somewhere in between) at the pre-marriage course. It's not only religious people who face these issues, and who should have an opportunity to discover them before marriage!

Sadly, I've not heard of any non-religious offerings in Ireland.

So OP your choices are probably to do a religious one and treat the religious content with politeness but ignore it. Or to approach a counselor who specialises in working with couples, and ask them to design a suitable process for you. The latter would be expensive - and may miss out some of the material which I believe should be included (the legal responsibilities associated with being married to someone).

And if there are any relationship counselors reading this (google loves boards.ie) who want a business development idea or to work in a more preventative way, I reckon this would be a fantastic idea if you get the right input and marketing advice.

stargazer 68

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

We've all heard of couples who only discovered fundamental differences about issues like how-many-children-would-we-like (zero vs lots) or how-do-we-manage-money (totally joint accounts vs totally separate vs somewhere in between) at the pre-marriage course. It's not only religious people who face these issues, and who should have an opportunity to discover them before marriage!

Have to agree with this. My cousin did a course reluctantly however she said it was very interesting - the questions they asked and situations they described certainly threw up a lot of discussions - some fairly heated - by everyone attending. One question was if your partners mother/father become ill what do you do? Do they come and live with you or do you find a nursing home - she said that one certainly set the cat amongst the pigeons!!

ejmartin85

Hey, we are having a humanist ceremony and so aren't required to do a course but decided that we wanted to do one anyway, we are booked in (for tomorrow as it happens!) to do a secular non-religious course with Relationships Ireland located near Fitzwilliam Square I can't post a link as I'm only a new user but if you google it you should find it easy enough.

amdublin

I think a marriage prep course/counselling is a fantastic idea.

I just think it's a bit cheeky wanting to get married in a church but wanting a non religious marriage course.

But of course I don't know which scenario the op falls into.

eviltwin

I think its a great idea, its a huge decision to get married so no harm in investing a bit of time into it to make sure you are both on the same page.

bee06

Some of the religious run courses don't even have a religious element to them. The one I did had no mention of religion as part of it.

I totally agree that it's a great idea to do one even if you don't have to. Some people get so caught up with the wedding part they seem to forget about the marriage part after. We found ours great.

fits

We have been thinking of doing one also, so good to know they are available.

GalwayGunner

Thanks for the suggestions.

To clarify: we're having a civil/humanist ceremony so we're under no obligation to do a pre marriage course but as mentioned by some of the responses above we feel that there could be benefit making sure we're prepared for the marriage and not just the wedding

GalwayGunner

ejmartin85 wrote: »

Hey, we are having a humanist ceremony and so aren't required to do a course but decided that we wanted to do one anyway, we are booked in (for tomorrow as it happens!) to do a secular non-religious course with Relationships Ireland located near Fitzwilliam Square I can't post a link as I'm only a new user but if you google it you should find it easy enough.

Hi - would be really interested to hear how you both got on - can you let us know?
Thanks!

RMC10

GalwayGunner wrote: »

Hi - would be really interested to hear how you both got on - can you let us know?
Thanks!

I'm thinking about doing this course as well. Would also love to know how you got on ejmartin85???

An Bhanríon

Just spotted this.

I did the ACCORD course since that's where our priest told us to go. For those looking for something 'non-religious' I would say there's not an awful lot of religion in the course. A priest spoke to us about the ceremony, and that was really practical stuff like doing a bit of research before choosing your readings, getting family involved to help out, etc, which would be important for any ceremony. The rest of it was really practical stuff presented by lay people (communication, finances, family) and even the bit about fertility was really practical also. Maybe we were just lucky with the people who gave our course, but I found it really helpful. It's a great chance to take time out from wedding preparations and have a big long chat about your expectations of married life.

ejmartin85

Hey! Sorry for delay

Just an update re the course, Really glad we decided to go for it. No huge surprises thrown out but was definitely worth sitting down and discussing issues that may not necessarily come up in the ordinary course of things. The guy that we met with was really very nice and made us feel very comfortable.

The way it works is that you both got a questionnaire to be filled in separately and sent back a week before the course. The questionnaire is what you go through on the day. It was just the two of us and the counsellor which i felt was better than a group setting as its more focussed and personal.

At 240euro for three hours its not cheap but it its well worth it in my opinion.

We also made a bit of a day out of it and went for a nice lunch and cocktail afterwards.

Best of luck!