Why is Premarital Counseling Important and How Can We Destigmatize It?

Premarital Counseling is a form of couples therapy that can help you and your partner prepare for marriage. Couple's counseling is not just for couples who need additional support in their relationship. Couple's counseling can be a place for you and your partner to connect, identify challenges in your relationship and come up with strategies to help you grow while working with a professional counselor.

Photo by Sergey Sokolov on Unsplash

Myths about Premarital Counseling

1. My relationship has to be in trouble: this is a common misconception about premarital counseling. While couple's therapy exists to help couples in times of difficulty, premarital counseling can provide you and your partner a place to come and connect and learn. It can be an enriching experience and an opportunity to learn more about your partner and your relationship.

2. Premarital counseling is only for religious couples: while premarital counseling can be for religious couples, that is not the only type of premarital counseling. Therapists can incorporate a client's personal faith into their work together, however if a couple is not religious, there are many skills that a counselor can teach their clients regarding effective ways to communicate, how best to navigate conflict as well as help identify couple's strength and growth areas.

3. It's not worth the time and money spent away from wedding planning: while wedding days are an exciting day that most couples cannot wait for, a wedding day is just the beginning. Spending time in your season of engagement to also prioritize and grow your relationship is not something clients typically ever regret.

When thinking through ways to make the most out of your premarital counseling sessions, we've identified three things that you and your partner may want to avoid.

The Top Three Mistakes Engaged Couples Make In Premarital Counseling

1. Avoiding tough issues in sessions: while it can be understandable to only share the positive aspects of your relationship, remember that therapy is a space for you and your partner to be open and honest about challenges you face. Premarital counseling is the space for you both to explore your relationship concerns with a trusted professional.

2. Delaying premarital counseling until too close to the wedding date: counseling is a process that is not one and done in two sessions. You might want to give yourself time and space to process your sessions as well as give you time to schedule your sessions out in a cadence that feels helpful to you. When some couple's wait too long to begin, it can make the process feel more rushed that it needs to.

3. Not exploring your options: while some couple's prefer to do premarital counseling with their officiant or pastor, some couple's explore working with a licensed therapist. Seeking out spiritual guidance is a valuable part of the marriage preparation process. However, it's important to note that pastoral care is different than therapy. Each professional is trained differently and has a different background. Therapists trained in marriage and family therapy are considered experts in the field of relationships and family. Rather than spiritual guidance, their focus might be on identifying red flags in your relationship that could have the potential to cause problems later.

   
   

   What To Expect in Premarital Counseling - Prepare Enrich

   When you begin premarital counseling, you and your partner can expect to cover a few topics such as: communication, household management, intimacy, conflict, finances, family of origin and values and beliefs.

   
   

   Some premarital counselors are also Certified Prepare Enrich Facilitators. Prepare Enrich is one of the most highly researched couple relationship assessment tools. With a certified facilitator, couples will take the assessment and then transition into counseling with a trained professional who can interpret the results.

   
   

   Here are a few goals of Prepare Enrich:

   • Identify and explore a couple's strength and growth areas

   • Strengthen a couple's communication skills

   • Learn a new conflict resolution model

   • Identify and manage stressors

   • Explore financial planning and budgeting

   • Understand family of origin issues

   • Establish personal, relationship, and family goals

   • Understand and appreciate relational differences

   
   

   At Steady Hope, we have several Certified Prepare Enrich Facilitators on our team: Kim, Sam and Brenley. Each of their approaches involves blending together the Prepare Enrich assessment itself while also addressing each individual couple's needs and desires for premarital counseling. Our clinicians value using evidence based research tools in the therapy room while also creating space for clients to share and address any topics that are important to them in the therapy room.

   
   

   Final Thoughts

   No matter where you are in your engagement journey, premarital counseling offers a supportive space for open conversation and discovery, helping you move forward together with confidence.

   
   

   Premarital counseling requires a commitment of time, energy, and resources. Take the time to do your research and attend a few initial sessions. No counselor is perfect, so choose the one who feels like the right fit for you both—then jump in and begin the process. Your marriage’s long-term health is absolutely worth the investment.

   
   

   So, if you're ready to take the next step and embark on this transformative adventure together, please don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our counselors at Steady Hope today! We offer free 15 minute phone consultations and would love to connect with you.