Perhaps it sounds strange to compare pre-marital counseling to something you buy to protect your assets, but by talking to a therapist with the person you’re about to spend the rest of your life with, you ensure that something incredibly important is protected – your happiness within your marriage.
Planning a wedding today is no easy feat; it can be hard to carve out time to focus on what happens after the big day. Pre-marital counseling allows you the time and a safe place to really find out what your relationship might look like when your wedding day is in the past.
In counseling, you and your significant other will talk about what you’re each expecting of marriage, how you approach conflicts, and the particulars of how you feel loved and supported. Like insurance, counseling can help prepare you for the inevitable unexpected by strengthening your safety net – your relationship with each other.
Something to Think About
Evidence shows that newlyweds are more likely to divorce than couples who have been married for years. While it makes sense that people who have stayed together for a long time are more likely to continue staying together, this statistic also shows that many couples enter into marriage with misconceptions of what marriage is truly like.
We have all heard stories of couples who rush into relationships, believing the romance will last forever. The reality of marriage is not necessarily that the romance disappears, but that novelty wanes and daily life enters into the equation. For people without a solid understanding of their relationship and their partner, time can wear away at their reasons for staying together.
How Can Counseling Help?
Sharing a life with someone else is a transformative, worthwhile, yet complex endeavor. In your future together you’ll need to understand more about each other than your political opinions or religious beliefs. Talking about those values is very important, but what can be very surprising in marriage is how the small practicalities can come between two people.
You’ll need to talk about:
- Finances: How do you spend your money? What do you need to feel financially comfortable? Will you share your money or set some personal funds aside?
- How you communicate: Do you need time before discussing a conflict? When is it hard for you to read your partner? When is it hard for you express your own feelings?
- Goals: Do you want kids? A different career? Do you want to travel?
- Decision making: How will you approach big decisions in your life together?
- Intimacy: What do you want your sex life to look like? What do you appreciate about your sex life with your partner now?
- Your time: How much time would you like to spend together? How would you like to spend it? Will you need time alone? Alone with friends?
The Good News
Don’t worry, the aim of pre-marital counseling is not to show you and your partner how you’re not right for each other. Instead, you’ll focus on how you work as a team. You’ll talk about what you love about each other, how you work well together, and you’ll also talk about areas you might need to work on before those sensitive areas do any real damage to your relationship.
So maybe you’re confident you and your partner are on the same wavelength and you feel prepared. Setting aside time to talk all this through together can be a time to reaffirm your love and commitment and simply appreciate each other.
Marriage is an emotional journey; preparing for that journey with a professional helps you and your partner find a sense of clarity and peace about who you are as a team.
