It's my wedding... and I don't want to appease you all...
So… here I am. The lowly, evil, godless atheist sitting in a room with about 30 other couples… All of which are catholic. And I keep asking myself “Why am I doing this?” - and I remember, it is because I love my wife-to-be. So, I suffer through.
Pre Cana is the class that all engaged Catholics must attend if they wish to marry in a Catholic church. It is, aside from being 4 hours of inane, mind-numbing propaganda, a class that tells you… well, shit you should already know.
Things such as:
Don’t beat your spouse
Communication is key to a good marriage
Sex or “the marital embrace” is only used for procreation (which I guess rules out oral)
How to raise your kids Catholic
How to tell if your wife is ovulating (because the BC pill will cause her uterus to fall out)
It was… in a word, insulting.
At one point, the lady telling us the oh-so-tried-and-true “Natural Family Planning” method said “If we can teach this to people in India, you guys should have no problem doing it.” - so people in India are stupid?
And let’s face it, nobody wants to hear the phrase “vaginal mucus” and “Mother Theresa” in the same sentence… it was just awkward.
We’ve discussed how we want to raise kids. We’ve discussed how and when we want to have kids… IF we can even have them… We’ve discussed how we’re going to pay bills and all the other crap. That’s kind of what getting married entails doesn’t it? Knowing all the weird, crazy crap about your partner so that you won’t wake up one day and say, “wow… uh… you’re kind of an evil bitch.”
If someone can point me to the passage in the Bible where it says “And Jesus said, ‘Go to class before marriage… or else it won’t be counted and you’ll be damned for all time’.” - THEN I could understand this whole shenanigans.
Point is this: I’ve been through a lot of religious hoops in the course of this engagement. And I cannot wait until Saturday night when it is all over and people will leave us the hell alone. We’re happy. We don’t fight. We know what does and does not make the other person happy. We are apparently WAY better of a match than 90% of the people in that room today according to the paperwork. Yes, I know we may have a disagreement in the future… but I also know that we don’t need some old, single, virgin telling me how a married man should act…
So… after Saturday, my only entry to a church will be for a wedding or a funeral. I’m done with all the dogma and rules and ridiculous ideology that accompanies it all.
Pre Cana is the class that all engaged Catholics must attend if they wish to marry in a Catholic church. It is, aside from being 4 hours of inane, mind-numbing propaganda, a class that tells you… well, shit you should already know.
Things such as:
Don’t beat your spouse
Communication is key to a good marriage
Sex or “the marital embrace” is only used for procreation (which I guess rules out oral)
How to raise your kids Catholic
How to tell if your wife is ovulating (because the BC pill will cause her uterus to fall out)
It was… in a word, insulting.
At one point, the lady telling us the oh-so-tried-and-true “Natural Family Planning” method said “If we can teach this to people in India, you guys should have no problem doing it.” - so people in India are stupid?
And let’s face it, nobody wants to hear the phrase “vaginal mucus” and “Mother Theresa” in the same sentence… it was just awkward.
We’ve discussed how we want to raise kids. We’ve discussed how and when we want to have kids… IF we can even have them… We’ve discussed how we’re going to pay bills and all the other crap. That’s kind of what getting married entails doesn’t it? Knowing all the weird, crazy crap about your partner so that you won’t wake up one day and say, “wow… uh… you’re kind of an evil bitch.”
If someone can point me to the passage in the Bible where it says “And Jesus said, ‘Go to class before marriage… or else it won’t be counted and you’ll be damned for all time’.” - THEN I could understand this whole shenanigans.
Point is this: I’ve been through a lot of religious hoops in the course of this engagement. And I cannot wait until Saturday night when it is all over and people will leave us the hell alone. We’re happy. We don’t fight. We know what does and does not make the other person happy. We are apparently WAY better of a match than 90% of the people in that room today according to the paperwork. Yes, I know we may have a disagreement in the future… but I also know that we don’t need some old, single, virgin telling me how a married man should act…
So… after Saturday, my only entry to a church will be for a wedding or a funeral. I’m done with all the dogma and rules and ridiculous ideology that accompanies it all.