Table of Contents hide

1 Premarital Counselling Services For Couples

1.1 Pre-Wedding Counselling Programs For Couples

1.2 Premarital Counselling Services For Engaged Couples

1.3 Relationship Preparation Counselling For Soon-To-Be-Married Couples

1.4 Pre-Marriage Counselling Options For Couples

1.5 Couple Counselling Before Marriage

1.6 Premarital Counselling Services For Couples Conclusion

1.7 FURTHER READING

Premarital Counselling Services For Couples

Premarital counselling services for couples. Premarital counselling is a type of counselling that helps couples take the next step in their relationship, and resolve issues in their relationship before they commit to marriage, or set relationship goals.

This type of counselling is often provided by licensed marriage and family counsellors or religious leaders who act as counsellors. Many couples seek premarital counselling as a preventative measure, almost like going to see your primary care physician for an annual checkup.

Instead of waiting until there is a problem, couples engage in premarital counselling to get ahead of any issues brewing below the surface. Think of premarital counselling as a resource to help couples prevent marriage counselling later on down the road.

Premarital counselling services for couples: There are myriad reasons why a couple might want to seek premarital counselling. It’s a way to address a specific problem, for example, if you and your partner keep getting into the same fight about each other’s spending patterns.

But it is also a time to talk about sensitive topics with a neutral third party, to carve out dedicated time to discuss any fears and uncertainties about your future together and improve the communication between you and your partner.

From conflict resolution to setting realistic expectations for married life, a premarital counsellor helps couples build and maintain healthy relationships.

Premarital counselling services for couples: If you and your partner are getting serious and you’re thinking that this person is the one you want to be with forever, you’re likely spending some time talking about your future together. Or, if you’re not having those big conversations yet, maybe you need some guidance to begin.

There are things you may know for sure: You care deeply about one another, you have a great time together, and you can’t wait to see what your future holds.

But are you on the same page about how you want to build a life together not just now but in the future? And do you feel certain that you both have what it takes to make each other feel safe, secure and loved decades from now?

A great way to dive even deeper into your relationship is by signing up together for premarital counselling. This is a special form of couples counselling that helps partners grow more connected, identify any problem areas or blind spots, and have serious conversations before tying the knot.

Premarital counselling services for couples: Premarital counselling is also a great way for couples to familiarise themselves with the therapeutic process, making them more likely to seek out support in the future through marriage counselling should issues arise later on. Also, you don’t have to be engaged to opt for premarital counselling.

Some couples can leverage this counselling to explore and talk openly about the idea of marriage. Premarital counselling helps couples understand their hopes, fears, and expectations around a healthy marriage, allowing them to make an informed decision about the future of their relationship and whether marriage is the right step.

Premarital counselling services for couples: The primary focus of going to a licensed counsellor for premarital counselling is to help couples get on the same page about certain topics and to better understand themselves, each other, and their partnership.

Therefore, one of the first exercises of premarital counselling is usually for each partner to answer a written questionnaire, or series of questions, about how they feel about each other and their relationship.

Your answers can help pinpoint strengths, uncover potential problems, and identify personality traits that will be useful for your counsellor to facilitate a productive conversation. Then, you will interpret your answers together with your couples counsellor and discuss any commonalities or differences in your responses.

This exercise will serve to set appropriate goals based on what challenges you wish to overcome with your future spouse.

Premarital counselling services for couples: Premarital counselling can stir up a lot of intense, uncomfortable emotions – there may even be some crying. It is completely normal and okay to express your emotions freely in premarital counselling.

There’s a lot of value to having a safe space to share some of the feelings that aren’t out in the open and be vulnerable with your partner, so utilise the space to show emotions that are difficult for you and your partner to otherwise express.

Premarital counselling is a type of couples counselling that helps partners have a healthier marriage before it begins by setting realistic expectations, improving their communication, and working on conflict resolution.

Premarital counselling services for couples: Premarital counselling can help individuals see what is in front of them so they can make sure they are making the right choice. “What happens is when you are dating and falling in love, the brain is hijacked.

There is an excitement, so even when difficult issues or red flags come up, you don’t want to see them,” she explains. “People tell themselves, ‘Well after we get married this is going to change or I am going to change him or her or time will take care of it.’ That does not work, and it’s called denial.”

Keep in mind that couples who are sure about one another can benefit from premarital counselling. The counsellor will guide them in conversations about sex, children, religion, careers, money, and more so that both partners can discuss their views on the topic and make sure there are fewer surprises down the road. It’s all about getting on the same page.

Premarital counselling services for couples: Another benefit of premarital counselling is that it can help couples strengthen their communication skills before they get married. That means they will have a roadmap and tools for addressing any issues that arise in the future.

Premarital counselling programs assist couples in discussing important issues to pave the way for a healthy marriage.

Sometimes, couples do not live together before their wedding day, have not fully explored their sex life, or have never had another kind of long-term commitment in these cases, premarital counselling provides couples with a safe space to discuss their concerns and issues.

A couples counsellor, religious leader, and even mental health professional can lead these premarital counselling sessions; all of them aim to help the couple build a solid foundation for their eventual marriage.

Premarital counselling services for couples: Marriage counselling sessions might involve several different topics, including:

Communication skills: Married couples lead busy lives, so communication is essential in maintaining satisfaction and helping you and your partner understand each other’s points of view.

Conflict resolution: All couples experience opposite opinions or conflicts, and counselling sessions can provide couples with ways to collaboratively and compassionately work through their differences with conflict resolution methods.

Family wellness: Individuals may have distinct ideas regarding raising a family; couples counselling will help brides-to-be and grooms-to-be discuss how to raise a family as a unified front.

Financial management: Marriage often means couples combine and share finances, so discussing ways to merge finances effectively will lead to a healthy relationship. Couples can expect to field personal questions and discuss what they love about their partner in their premarital counselling sessions. Counselling sessions might include questions about:

Premarital counselling services for couples: Challenges: The counsellor will likely also ask what each partner loves about the other and what facets of their partner’s personality prove difficult. Through this, the counsellor aims to celebrate the couple’s love and identify what relationship elements may need improvement.

Expectations: The counsellor will also ask leading questions to understand what each partner expects from the marriage. How those expectations differ in terms of family planning, house buying, and financial saving will reveal what the counsellor will focus on to build a stronger relationship.

Partnership: counsellors will often want to learn how a couple met, why they chose to get engaged, and their hopes and goals for the future.

Premarital counselling is intended to help an engaged couple be well-prepared for marriage. Many pastors require couples to participate in premarital counselling before agreeing to officiate a wedding.

Premarital counselling services for couples: Usually, premarital counselling is as simple as a pastor, lay counsellor, or mature Christian couple meeting with an engaged couple over several weeks to discuss their relationship and any concerns they may have regarding marriage.

The sessions might include some instruction on marriage, but much of the time is spent on questions and conversations meant to help the engaged couple think through their relationship and learn to communicate about important things in healthy ways.

Sometimes premarital counselling is done, in part, through a workshop provided by a church. Premarital counselling is intended to help the engaged couple evaluate their relationship and have a solid foundation from which to begin their married lives.

Premarital counselling services for couples: Premarital counselling is a form of couples counselling that can help you and your partner prepare for marriage.

It is intended to help you and your partner discuss several important issues, ranging from finances to children so that you are both on the same page. It can also help identify potential conflict areas and equip you and your partner with tools to navigate them successfully.

Premarital counselling aims to help you build a strong foundation for marriage.

Premarital counselling can also involve “identifying and exploring significant life events and early childhood experiences, which impact the relationship and how each partner relates to the other,” says Romanoff.

For instance, Romanoff explains that partners often choose each other for reasons that are not fully conscious; it is only with further processing that they may understand how familiar aspects of their partner relate to unresolved conflicts in the past.

Marriage is an important event in anyone’s life. For most people, it’s an untraveled road with many aspects that they haven’t experienced until they tie the knot. Men and women both have different physical, and emotional needs.

Their way of thinking and understanding life usually differ from one another. Which is why we always recommend pre-marriage counselling.

Premarital counselling services for couples: Pre-marriage counselling is a counselling practice that helps couples prepare mentally for their marriage. It is often seen as a way of addressing the conflicts and problems that a couple faces in maintaining a healthy, happy and strong relationship.

Some also call it couple’s counselling, but ultimately the point is to address a couple’s concerns about their relationship and establish boundaries while improving their communication.

There are many benefits of attending pre-marriage counselling before tieing the knot. Couples counselling is essential in improving communication, discussing past issues, learning to solve problems effectively, and getting to know one another better. Which is why we emphasise its importance.

Premarital counselling services for couples: Newly engaged couples can also take advantage of the benefits of attending couples counselling before marriage. According to Health Research Funding, engaged couples who go through premarital counselling have a marriage success rate 30% higher than couples who don’t seek professional guidance.

The research speaks volumes about the success rate of pre-marital counselling. Still, if you have doubts about it, here are some pointers to prove the importance of pre-marriage counselling.

Whether someone recommended pre-marriage counselling to you or you and your partner have been merely entertaining the idea yourselves, it is a great idea. Pre-marriage counselling can help both you and your partner a lot, especially since you’re about to enter a whole new exciting and challenging phase of your life.

Premarital counselling services for couples: Premarital counselling can help couples create a strong, happy marriage that brings happiness, health, wealth and well-being not only to the two people, but to their children, their children, and the generations after them.

It helps you get to know yourself and your partner better, teaches you about your similarities and differences, and instructs you on how to create a roadmap for your life together.

Pre-Wedding Counselling Programs For Couples

Pre-wedding counselling programs for couples. This allows couples to examine their similarities and differences, and to discuss how they might resolve any conflicts which might arise as a result of such differences.

Relationships are never easy, and seeing a pre-marriage counsellor or psychologist prior to getting married can be an excellent way to prepare you for marriage. Pre-Marriage Counselling also helps couples to examine their communication skills and the way in which they resolve conflict.

Pre-Marriage Counselling can be essential as a means to resolving a specific issue prior to committing to marriage.

Pre-wedding counselling programs for couples are also a chance for engaged couples to consider the basic principles of what marriage means to them.

In this way, couples can enter into married life with a clearer picture of their own and each other’s expectations of marriage, and better skills to help them cope with some of the inevitable compromises that come with any relationship.

Pre-marriage counselling aids couples to have these discussions because they can be undertaken in a structured and safe environment and in front of an unbiased and neutral party who can moderate the dialogue.

Preventing problems within your relationship is more effective than trying to undo deeply ingrained issues and habits, which is why many relationship counsellors and researchers advocate for couples to attend counselling before marriage or in the early years of marriage

Pre-wedding counselling programs for couples: Couples do not need to be experiencing conflict in order to benefit from pre-marriage counselling. Indeed, many couples attend simply to discuss their expectations of marriage in a structured way, and to look at what communication methods they use to connect with each other and to resolve arguments.

Pre-wedding counselling programs for couples: This can be particularly beneficial for couples where one or both members of the couple find it difficult to communicate openly about such issues.

Of course, couples with particular issues or particular conflicts will benefit from the help of a pre-marriage counsellor or psychologist who can help to resolve these issues before the couple formally ties the knot.

Communication skills and conflict management are among the top five factors that predict marriage satisfaction, so the sooner a couple builds these vital skills, the better.

Pre-wedding counselling programs for couples: Prewedding counselling has one distinct advantage: Learning how to communicate and work through problems is a lot easier before the wedding rather than many years after.

Once you’re married, you’ll both have unspoken expectations for each other, never mind sometimes unrealistic ideas from your childhood about what married life should be like. Before marriage, you’re still in a building stage the expectations are there, but it’s easier to open up about the issues that threaten difficulty.

And by learning how to talk through differences, you will form good habits that will carry you through the years.

Premarital Counselling Services For Engaged Couples

Premarital counselling services for engaged couples. If you want a healthy, happy marriage that lasts a lifetime, premarital counselling for engaged couples is not optional. Trust me.

I’ve been a Denver marriage counsellor now for a decade, and I have worked with countless couples who struggled enormously as a result of not addressing some problems prior to getting married.

Make premarital counselling a priority as you’re planning for your wedding. You can either do private premarital counselling one-on-one with a marriage counsellor, do online premarital counselling, or take a premarital course.

Premarital counselling services for engaged couples: Your relationship will be much more resilient. Couples who go through good marriage counselling together have stronger marriages.

It’s easier for couples who’ve done premarital counselling to weather inevitable hardships together. Because they’ve talked openly and honestly, in advance, about the areas of friction they’ll encounter in married life, they will be better equipped with communication strategies and tools to know how to handle them.

Knowing about the possible vulnerabilities of your relationship and planning in advance for how to address them together, will make it much more likely that you will be able to handle them effectively as a couple when they arise.

Think of premarital counselling as being kind of like a fire drill for inevitable marriage issues you will have. You’ll both know exactly where the fire extinguisher is, what to do, and be able to put the fire out before it burns down your house.

Premarital counselling services for engaged couples You’ll learn practical skills that will make being married easier, It can take a long time with lots of yelling and smashed plates for couples to work out fairly basic life skills together.

Relational skills, like how to talk to each other, manage finances, or delegate who is in charge of what is around the house can require intentional conversations and compromise.

Furthermore, discussions on how to handle boundaries with families of origin, getting on the same page with parenting styles or navigating religion once kids are in the picture, or even how a couple spends their time on the weekends can either help create connection or frustration.

Even the simplest things can turn into fights when someone starts using “that tone” and constructive conversations about how to solve problems can start to feel very difficult.

It simply does not need to be that hard. Premarital counselling is all about teaching you skills you need to solve problems when they first start to come up. Better yet, it allows you to come to agreements before they even become problems — allowing you to head off yucky feeling fights at the pass.

For example, couples who meet with us for premarital counselling do hands-on activities together. These activities include things like creating budgets, negotiating household responsibilities, learning about boundaries, and most importantly how to talk to each other, particularly in emotionally charged situations.

Having these concrete skills in place before you get married will allow you to spend a lot more of your time in the few years of your marriage enjoying each other, and less time spent screaming at each other about whose turn it is to take out the trash.

Premarital counselling services for engaged couples: It will prevent you from having the “You’ve Changed” conversation five years from now. Great relationships allow partners to grow and celebrate the unique differences that each individual brings into the relationship.

Neither of you is perfect, and you both have hopes and dreams, opinions and preferences, habits and expectations that may be very different from each other. It’s not important that you are in exact alignment about every aspect of your life — you’re different people, and that’s a good thing.

What is important is that you have a full picture of who it is that you’re marrying so that you can decide in advance if the things they are bringing to the table are going to be okay with you in the long run.

Before you get married, it’s important to understand what those differences are, and whether the positive aspects of your relationship outweigh the negatives. You need to know before you get married what things about your beloved that are probably NOT going to change, and whether you can live with them for the next 50 years.

Premarital counselling services for engaged couples: Getting Married is a Big Deal. Do it Right. Make premarital counselling a priority as you plan for the big day.

Five years from now you won’t remember the flowers or what was in the clever gift bags, but if you do premarital counselling, you will likely be drawing upon the skills that you learned about how to have a happy and healthy relationship with each other.

Growing Self Counselling and Life Coaching offers private premarital counselling sessions with one of our expert marriage counselling. We’re very pleased to be presenting our Premarital counselling Class, “A Lifetime of Love.

” It meets on Sundays via online Zoom video. The class is 6 hours long and covers all the major foundational topics of creating a happy, healthy marriage.

Relationship Preparation Counselling For Soon-To-Be-Married Couples

Relationship preparation counselling for soon-to-be-married couples. Discuss Your Privacy Expectations. Some couples are open about therapy and share their work with everyone in their lives. Others want to be more discreet.

No matter what you decide, aim to be united about who you choose to tell (or not tell). You don’t want to discover an unexpected surprise after finding out your partner divulged the contents of your therapy with their best friend.

Remember that your therapist is obligated to maintain your confidentiality. That means, barring an extreme emergency like suicidal intent or the presence of child abuse, they will keep your information private.

Relationship preparation counselling for soon-to-be-married couples: Prioritise the Appointments. Therapy needs to be a non-negotiable priority if you want it to work. Make sure that you can both make the time, date, and location. If needed, arrange for childcare in advance. Some couples choose to go to sessions together.

Others meet there between work hours. There isn’t a right or wrong method. Do what fits best within your schedule.

Most therapists have cancellation policies, meaning you are responsible for paying for late or missed sessions. This fee can help you stay accountable for your work. Additionally, therapists agree that motivated clients tend to have far better outcomes than clients with less fortitude. Remember that this is an investment in your present and future.

Relationship preparation counselling for soon-to-be-married couples: Discuss Your Goals Together. This is one of the most important steps you can take for your marriage counselling to work well. Considering your couples counselling goals and objectives ahead of time allows you to make the most of the time you spend with your counsellor.

If you’re not sure about your goals, ask yourself if you’re facing these common struggles:

Difficulties with healthy communication
Sex or intimacy problems
Parenting disagreements
Financial stress
Significant life transitions (new job, marriage, baby, relocation, etc.)
Grief and loss
Infidelity

Any of these struggles can profoundly affect the safety and comfort needed in a supportive relationship. Think about your goals and write one or two of them down. It’s okay if you disagree on what you need to prioritise your counsellor will collaborate with both of you to determine an appropriate treatment plan.

Relationship preparation counselling for soon-to-be-married couples: Don’t Assume You Need to Be at Rock-Bottom. Unfortunately, many couples wait until it’s too late to reach out for help.

At that point, they may already be filing for divorce or reeling with a permanent sense of resentment in their marriage. While counselling might be able to reverse some of this damage, most professionals agree that you shouldn’t wait until things feel completely hopeless before starting treatment.

It’s perfectly reasonable to reach out at any point during your relationship. For example, maybe you’re both struggling to support one another during a transitional period. Or, perhaps, you don’t like the way you two argue when faced with conflict.

Furthermore, you don’t need to be married for a certain amount of years (or married at all!) to ask for help. In fact, many new couples seek counselling to learn how to build a healthy relationship foundation.

Relationship preparation counselling for soon-to-be-married couples: Go In With an Open Mind. Although people are becoming more open about their mental health, you may notice yourself shaming or stigmatising counselling or the marriage counselling process. Often, this happens when you hold onto rigid misconceptions.

Stigmas people can have about going to counselling include:

You and your partner should be able to work everything out on your own
Couples counselling is only for couples on the brink of divorce (that’s what divorce counselling is for)
Couples counselling is about deciding who is right or wrong
Only “crazy” people go to counselling.

Try to be conscious of these misconceptions they can be insidious and detrimental to your process. Instead, remind yourself that counselling is about growth, learning, and self-awareness. In many ways, it’s a gift for both you and your partner.

Keep in mind that you may not agree with all of your counsellor’s suggestions. That’s very normal, and that doesn’t mean the work isn’t worth it.

Pre-Marriage Counselling Options For Couples

Pre-marriage counselling options for couples. Premarital counselling also provides a great opportunity for couples to confront issues that could lead to divorce before they become serious. By talking with a counsellor, couples may be able to settle money disagreements or talk about their plans to have children.

Addressing issues before marriage is the best way to ensure a solid foundation for the future and avoid serious conflicts after the big day. Of course, it’s important for couples to be candid when they attend premarital counselling.

That’s the only way to realise the benefits of this time-honoured tradition.

Pre-marriage counselling options for couples: When couples go to counselling, they talk together with a counsellor or religious leader who has the training needed to help them better understand one another.

Couples who go through this type of counselling inevitably build better communication skills because they have a neutral party there to help them understand one another.

No doubt this is one of the biggest benefits of premarital counselling. In addition to learning how to better communicate individual needs and desires, couples also learn how to better understand each other. They gain compassion and communication skills that will get them through the tough times.

Pre-marriage counselling options for couples: Much premarital counselling does more than just help couples talk through their current issues. They also help them plan activities for the future.

A counsellor can help couples set financial or family planning goals and can help them find ways to accomplish those goals.

Premarital counselling is the perfect place for couples to talk about the expectations that they have for married life and what they want personally in the future too. Premarital counselling helps clients focus on healthy goals and relationship changes.

Pre-marriage counselling options for couples: counselling asks a lot of questions when they’re working with engaged couples. Listening carefully to your partner’s answers is a great way to learn more about that individual. Yes, many couples perceive that no one knows their partners better than they do.

However, counselling can help bring out important information that a partner might have been reluctant to share. This offers great growth opportunities while helping couples learn more about each other. It’s also a safe space for individuals to share things that they are nervous about or upset about with their partners.

It can be particularly helpful if one individual in the couple has been in a failed relationship before. Remember that premarital counselling is for all couples.

If you’re a marriage and family therapist, offering premarital counselling is a great way to help others and build your client base. Of course, it’s also a great way to share the wisdom that you’ve gained in your own marriage.

Pre-marriage counselling options for couples: It Lets Couples Absorb Wisdom. Talking with someone who has been married for a long time is another big benefit of seeking premarital counselling. When you talk to a counsellor, you benefit from a voice of wisdom on the subject of marriage.

It’s more than just someone sharing what they’ve learned from a book. It’s someone sharing what they’ve learned from real life. In fact, much premarital counselling has struggled with the trust, intimacy and financial issues that tend to plague young couples. They can provide tested advice and essential encouragement.

Couple Counselling Before Marriage

Couple counselling before marriage. To Learn How to Fight Constructively. Once you are married, you will inevitably fight with your spouse. Learning how to fight constructively is important to avoid destroying the relationship.

It is also important to learn conflict resolution strategies to solve problems quickly and prevent them from escalating.

Couple counselling before marriage: To Learn or Improve Communication Skills. There are very few people who can communicate well, especially when they are upset. Being able to communicate with your spouse is essential to having a strong bond and relationship.

Understanding how each other communicates and learning how to communicate properly with each other will allow you to tackle a variety of challenges in the future.

Couple counselling before marriage: To Get an Outside Perspective. Couples therapy also allows for an outside and professional perspective on your relationship. Oftentimes, if you are too close to the situation, there are things that you can miss.

Marriage counsellors or marriage therapists can help you see the things you missed and can even offer couples different perspectives on their concerns in order to help them overcome or solve problems.

Couple counselling before marriage: To Establish Expectations. Couples therapy is a great place to discuss what you expect of each other as husband and wife.

Even if you have been dating for a while, the dynamics of your relationship can change with marriage and it is important to both know what the expectations are. Things like finances, kids, living situations, and work-life balance are examples of things to discuss in terms of expectations.

Couple counselling before marriage: To Leave Old Problems Out of the Marriage. Since no relationship is perfect, there may be old problems that affect the relationship. Reconciling these allows the couple to move forward and focus on their future together, rather than the problems of the past.

Premarital Counselling Services For Couples Conclusion

Premarital counselling services for couples conclusion. Premarital counselling is a form of couples therapy that can help you and your partner prepare for marriage. It is intended to help you and your partner discuss several important issues, ranging from finances to children so that you are both on the same page.

FURTHER READING

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