Noreen and Kevin Marriage

In regards to what we both learned from the program, the key thing we noted was the importance in communication in ALL aspects of our lives and relationship. Even from the initial Mr & Mrs quiz, sharing expectations and couples issues, it was interesting to realise the basic misconceptions we had about each other and they were mainly from topics that we have never took a lot of time to discuss before. It was good to talk through them, find out each other’s opinions and views and iron out or clear up any kinks! There was a few home truths but it was good to hear them as now we both will be more conscious of them and how each other feels about them.

It was interesting for us to talk through what we think will happen in our married life too, for example the question of who might give up work to care for children, how will we budget for the household and what percentage of chores/cooking will each do. As we don’t live together yet, these are things we never really discussed and it was good to air our views and reasons on them, rather than it just “going without saying”. The topic of how we will manage our money together once we are married proved very insightful.

Another thing we learned more about was what causes the most arguments between us and what kind of arguers we are. We picked up good tips from the videos to help us manage any conflict in a better way, especially in not taking things personally straight away sometimes, and maybe finding out has something else happened to the other that day to make them start an argument or make a criticism.

What we found very satisfying during the course was how well we worked together as a team while doing the deserted island task. Firstly we were both on the same wavelength on most of the 10 items to pick and their order of importance and when we were doing our combined list, we very reasonably gave our opinions on which items to include and we made an amicable joint decision. We make a good team and we work well together and we hope that we can work like this for most of our married life!

Thanking you. Noreen and Kevin, Co. Carlow