Espousal Retreat House and Conference Center

DH & I really enjoyed our marriage prep program at the Espousal Center in Waltham (fyi...he's Catholic, I'm Episcopalian). The one-on-one work was really the best part of the program. We filled out handouts separately then returned to each other to review our responses. We had already talked about all of the issues, but it was nice to be reassured that we had covered the important things! I found the group work to really be useless. We read two case studies, and it seemed that the only answer the priest wanted to hear was that the couple should work together to find a solution. And if that's the case, there was really no need to even bother with this exercise. He wasn't really open to any opinions other than the one he was looking for. You could definitely tell who the more independent and liberal couples were! The married couples who presented did an excellent job. The Natural Family Planning portion of the program was completely tolerable. Not too preachy, which was nice. I don't agree with all of their statistics on NFP and on living together before marriage, but that's another issue. Overall, it was an emotionally bonding experience between DH & I. We could not have asked for a better day. We really felt so much more connected after the program.