Premarital Counseling
Counseling for a couple prior to marriage can deepen and strengthen a relationship in a way that provides benefits for years to come. This kind of focused attention before marriage can help to examine a relationship’s strengths and potential issues of conflict – as well as how to negotiate solutions. Premarital counseling often isn’t about whether a couple should marry, but rather, how to learn to communicate in a way that promotes growth and understanding.
Premarital counseling can be a way to talk about a host of issues that do not necessarily come up in day-to-day conversation, or that may not seem important, including:
- Finances
- Expectations of life as a married couple
- Dealing with irresolvable conflicts
- Communication styles
- Values and beliefs
- Roles of the couple in marriage
- Sexuality and affection
- Parenting styles and thoughts about raising children
- Negotiating relationships with extended family and in-laws
- Expressing anger, frustration, and other emotions
- Balancing time spent together and time spent apart
Premarital counseling can be an invaluable experience to set healthy dynamics in place for appropriate expectations and communication techniques. Therapy as a couple before marriage provides a safe environment to bring up potentially uncomfortable but important topics with a trained therapist. Starting a relationship with these issues brought up can make entering into a long-term relationship more positive and with a better chance of being resilient enough to survive greater difficulties that arise in the future.
Many newly married couples are surprised to learn that their partners had different expectations about what marriage would really be like. The risk of divorce is high early in a marriage; learning how to best support your partner’s expression of emotion and seeking resolution is critical. Skills learned at this stage in a relationship’s growth can last a lifetime.
One of the real gifts a marriage offers is the opportunity to see ourselves through our partner’s eyes; much of the time the things that so frustrate us about our partner are in fact parts of ourselves that we have disowned. Premarital counseling and individual therapy offer ways to learn more about ourselves and ways we can grow through our relationships, rather than growing out of them.
