4 Things You Should Be Getting Out of Premarital Counseling

The topic of premarital counseling is often prefaced with comments on the disproportionate amount of time couples put into planning their wedding day compared to efforts put into preparing for their life-long marriage – and for good reason. Incredible amounts of time and effort are being put into weddings; just ask any friend who was recently married. And this is a growing trend. Special dance surprises, fantasy send-offs, looking perfect, things going perfectly, and creative rituals that involve the entire “close-friend/family” category are fun and positive; but are the couple’s hopes and dreams (and emotional reserves!) being heaped upon a single day?

Weddings cost more than just time and effort, though. Budgets with categories like “personnel” and “equipment” can be expensive! According to a study done by wedding-oriented site, theknot.com (designed to help organize said logistics), the average, modern American wedding will cost $27,800! Incredible amounts of resources are poured into weddings.

It’s Good To Be Prepared

This is not an argument against having a wonderful wedding! Wedding days are often a benefit to a relationship; they can also be a day where things going perfectly becomes more important than what is happening between the bride and groom. Most anyone would tell you that there is no correlation between wedding day success and marriage success.

This is an argument for preparing for a wonderful marriage, before saying the vows. The encouraging news is that another trend is on the rise: premarital counseling. A literature review on the topic found that couples pursuing the advantage of preparing for marriage had grown from 7% in the 1930’s and 40’s, to 44% in 1990 (Stanley et al., 2001) – and this trend has continued to grow. More than ever before, couples are taking matrimony seriously by investing into being prepared for a life-commitment. Fantastic!

It may be difficult to clinically establish, but premarital counseling is likely to be an invaluable asset for newlyweds. Actually, quantifying and measuring the effectiveness of premarital counseling is very tough – data is mostly taken from self-report impressions and post-facto scores on ‘marital satisfaction’ and occurrence of divorce. The nature of this work does not lend itself to observable, causative gains. Thus research has not been able to prove a significant, tangible benefit to premarital counseling (Stahmann & Hiebert, 1997). But like the rest of life, relationships cannot be assured success by a one-time effort, and not divorcing is a very shallow way to measure benefit. Premarital counseling can be a hallmark moment in someone’s life, but it will not run your marriage for you. Just as simply going to church is no automatic guarantee of a close relationship with your Heavenly Father, premarital counseling is not insurance against hardship or divorce, in and of itself. The success is in the intentional and renewed relationship of both!

What You Should Get From Premarital Counseling and Why It Will Help You

However, there is a vast wealth to be gained from premarital counseling. The purpose of this 5-part series is to both describe four basic pillars of what a client should expect to get out of the investment, and to convince the reader of these subjective/intangible benefits by unpacking the parts and processes of the four pillars. Someday you may well have a victory in marriage by avoiding a negative interaction or by doing something positive to your spouse saying, “Remember? We talked about this in premarital!” And perhaps that alone will make it a worthy investment – but there is much more to be gained!

The 4 Pillars

Each pillar might be summed up in an effort to “bring it up now, so you aren’t as surprised later.” There are dynamics, interaction-effects, and especially expectations (think perceived roles and rules) that individual people are unaware they bring into a romantic relationship. Premarital counseling seeks to reveal, inform, train, and to start a couple working together – in a sense, help the couple start marriage before the wedding day. As you read through these pillars, keep in mind that increased awareness is the central goal.

1)   Scope of Topics and Establishing Norm

Simply talking through the core facets of marriage, perhaps the most important aspect of premarital work – and certainly the foundation of it – does a great deal to prepare a couple to enter into marriage. The ritual of telling a young couple what marriage is like as well as what it is for is likely as old as marriage itself. The modern form of premarital counseling was born out of a desire to forewarn and explain, to equip and to normalize.

Practically speaking, this looks like establishing why the couple wants to be married (and in the case of Christian counseling, God’s intent in creating marriage), and talking through a list of common topics in marriage that typically looks like this: communication, conflict management, partner’s family-of-origin, parenting expectations, spirituality, commitment, sexual intimacy, and financial management. Talking through these topics helps each partner see the expectations of the other, as well as their own, and helps to establish a common norm for the couple.

2)   Words of Wisdom

Among the great benefits of premarital counseling are “words of wisdom” or “gold nuggets” that become the takeaway lessons and one-liners that are remembered and integrated into the marital relationship. As far as I see it, these come in two flavors: pieces of wisdom that the counselor feels are essential for any marriage, and helpful lessons that surface as a result of the therapeutic process drawing out specific and unique needs.

These may be the most tangible benefit of your premarital work: nuggets come up when you need them and form good habits. They can also be the only specific things you remember. Picture it like a good sermon. After a good sermon, we leave church feeling fed and blessed, and generally closer in your relationship to our Heavenly Dad. Yet we often remember only a single main point (if that!) which we can actually apply to our lives the next week. That’s a nugget.

3)   Skills Training and Knowledge Base

There are a number of tests, measures, tools, and processes for equipping a couple for marriage and to increase their knowledge base of who they are, who their partner is, and a fuller creation of who their “we” is. Personality tests reveal who you are, and how you will probably interact as a couple. Working through what is called a genogram will help map out relational patterns in your family of origin and can provide powerful insight into family dynamics and family-in-law dynamics. Creating a system of agreements and expectations for arguing/discussing can profoundly benefit a married couple!

Like training for a career or profession, this is the nuts and bolts of becoming a consummate artist in the work of marriage. At the least, an increased knowledge and practical ability provides a sturdy foundation for actively working on marriage; practice in this area will help you to bring up helpful topics and to analyze and synthesize your relational world.

4)   Practice with Premarital Counseling

Finally, the most subtle and perhaps the most practical benefit of good premarital counseling is the relational work you do with your partner during premarital work. Knowing common issues and main topics, getting nuggets of wisdom to guide your path, and developing knowledge and skills to help you work as a marriage professional are all very good! Yet one might find that the greatest benefit they gleaned from premarital work is the practice and experience of having good and hard conversations in the moment, in the counseling room and perhaps while doing homework/discussing the topic outside the session. For this reason, it is especially helpful to work with a Christian counselor who will both force you to interact meaningfully with your partner in session and mediate the process to help you through some of your first conversations in an unknown territory.

Check out the next four articles, which will go into depth on each of these four pillars. And while we’re on the topic, check out another article – written by my colleague – on “the fig leaf dance” of the pre-married by clicking here.