Many couples spend more time idealizing a relationship: talking about the future, and planning for, their wedding day than they do for what comes after… the daily grind of life and how to build a relationship that will stand the test of time.
Couples are unaware of their attachment styles, parenting styles and how heritage can play out in a long-term marriage. Couples skip the basics of how to have a good relationship: choosing to act relationally, using pro-social behavior, turning toward a partner every day small ways that help build a strong foundation and common ground. Often, they find themselves married and thinking they’ve made a mistake when it’s truly a matter of miscommunication and misunderstanding about the emotional world of their partner. Learning you and your partner don’t agree on “deal breaker” issues after you’ve been married is a very disheartening realization. One that can often lead to divorce.
Pre-marital counseling provides a space to examine relationship areas that can surprise couples like: what roles do they see themselves playing and contributing to, what role do they see for their partner? What are underlying expectations around working in and out of the home, paying bills, splitting housework? What are expectations around having children and seeing family and family rituals? How do you create your own family culture without alienating your families of origin?
I work with couples to explore these unspoken rules, wishes, and parenting styles, that can affect the marital relationship. I also work to uncover unspoken expectations and underlying dreams and look at how each person in the couple was raised to determine future problem areas. Couples’ counseling supports the understanding of each other’s inner-worlds and past relationship experiences to illuminate each person’s relationship challenges and aptitudes.
Together, we can explore your different personalities, backgrounds and communication styles in order to help you both learn better communication skills for the years ahead.
During sessions you will:
- Verbalize and explore what love means to you.
- Verbalize and explore what commitment means and where your ideas came from.
- Discover biases around gender roles of wife, husband, couple, partner expectations.
- Help couples understand their differences in values, communication and character.
- Determine each person’s “should” about of their future relationship and how relationships change with as life stages change.
- Consider crucial issues and boundaries with extended family, friends, children, money, intimacy, alone time, decision making, and responsibilities.
- Learn to express your needs assertively and with thoughtful timing.
- Learn coping skills and self-soothing skills for managing your own emotions during times of disconnection.
Is Pre-marital Counseling a Good Idea Even If You’ve Already Been Married Before?
Pre-marital counseling helps partners discover and express sensitivities gained from past failed marriages. Pinpointing these underlying fears and addressing them before marriage can increase the chances of success for your next marriage. Pre-marital counseling can also help you learn new skills to handle inevitable tricky spots in your new marriage. People tend carry the same relational patterns from one relationship to the next and marrying a different person doesn’t mean you won’t have similar issues you had in your past relationships. Pre-marital counseling can help strengthen your relationship against these pitfalls, setting you up for optimum success.
If you’ve been married before and children are part of the equation then pre-marital blended family counseling will help both partners understand the new dynamics that come with blended family relationships.
Pre-Engagement Counseling
Pre-engagement counseling and pre-marital counseling seem like the same thing and yet planning a wedding and being married are completely different entities. Considering that fact, pre-engagement counseling can provide couples insight into their relationship and confidence to move forward toward engagement and marriage.
Things to consider:
- Making it official – Engagement can skew the objectivity in a relationship. The priority shifts from relating to planning the wedding. Conflicts get swept under the rug in the excitement of the impending marriage, and couples dismiss character flaws in their partner during this time making it nearly impossible to stop and deal with any burgeoning issues and red flags that might arise. Couples often go through with the wedding even if they start to feel it’s the “wrong thing” because of the embarrassment it would cause in calling it off. To avoid this predicament, dating couples can examine all areas of their relationship with the help of a trained counselor. I am trained to ask the embarrassing and difficult questions in a way that leaves room for honest communication between partners.
- More Time – Engaged couples that have set a wedding date are under tremendous pressure. Feelings and families often get in the way of what the couple is really feeling and worrying about for the future. Small mis-steps can become big problems. Talking about and coming to an agreement on how to resolve potential problems the couple can see coming before engagement allows for space in the relationship to come together and stand together as a couple during the time of their engagement when the pressure is on.
- Clarity and confidence – A trained professional brings objectivity and provides a planned time and space to delve into each person’s beliefs, values and expectations and worries. Exploring such issues and being able to vulnerably express thoughts and feelings helps the couple gain clarity on their reasons and readiness for making the biggest commitment of your life. Who you choose as a marital partner is, by far, the most important decision of a person’s life. Taking the time before the marriage to reinforce good conflict resolution skills, and ways to communicate effectively while learning about your partner on a deeper emotional level only aids in the shared confidence to move forward with a life together.
- Establish Conviction – There is an old saying, “It takes two people to get married and only one to get divorced” so determining whether any perceived issues are deal-breakers can help avoid the pain of divorce. Finding the root of the issues and exploring whether these issues are solvable or indications of something larger is always a good idea as divorce affects everyone and not just the couple. Children are especially negatively affected by divorce along with: financial situations, living situations, extended families, and amount of time spent with children. Utilizing pre-engagement counseling doesn’t mean anything is wrong with your relationship but is a healthy, responsible investment toward your future and what possibilities lie ahead.