• Pre-Marriage Counselling gives you and your fiance a formal environment in which to discuss your expectations of married life.
• Pre-Marriage Counselling is also an opportunity to assess and improve your communication skills.
• Pre-Marriage Counselling with a professional relationship counsellor or psychologist will give your marriage the best possible start.
The decision to get married is a momentous one and any couple embarking on the road to marriage can benefit from Pre-Marriage Counselling. In particular, Pre-Marriage Counselling with a qualified professional psychologist or relationship counsellor offers you and your fiancé a safe and considered environment in which to:
– discuss your expectations of married life
– reach practical decisions about how you will live your married lives
– explore your similarities and your differences
– strengthen your capacity to communicate and problem solve
These points are discussed in further detail below.
Your expectations of married life: These can be both practical expectations (Do you want a family? Where will you live? What are your spending and saving habits?) as well as emotional expectations (What emotional support do you expect from each other as you start your lives together?).
An open discussion about your expectations will help you:
–   acknowledge your partner’s expectations and needs,
–Â Â Â acknowledge your own expectations and needs,
–Â Â Â allow you an opportunity to consider how you might address or resolve any differences in expectation.
Reach practical decisions about how you will live your married lives: Following on from the above point, married life comes with legal, financial and practical implications. When your opinions align, these practical decisions can be easily made and agreed upon. But this is not always the case – because being in love doesn’t mean you will necessarily agree on all the practical aspects of living together. Pre-marriage counselling provides a calm and contained environment in which to address these issues.
Explore your similarities and differences: As couples embark on a married life together, they tend to focus on what they have in common – what they both like doing, what they dislike doing, how similar they are. But there will always be differences in personality, desire and approach, and pre-marriage counselling can help you understand those differences and give some thought to how you might resolve any conflict which might arise from such differences. Don’t worry, you are not going to discover a difference so big that it seems unresolvable. But being cognizant of your differences before marriage will help you build a strong and lasting life together.
Strengthen your capacity to communicate: One of the primary benefits of pre-marriage counselling is the skills that you can learn in communication, listening and conflict resolution. Your pre-marriage counsellor can help you assess your communication styles and refine your capacity to repair arguments and resolve conflict. These will be invaluable tools for your future life together.
Sometimes, the decision to get married comes with specific concerns or issues which might impact your relationship, or which have maybe even given you pause to reconsider your decision to marry at all.
Counselling with a professional pre-marriage counsellor or psychologist can help you resolve concerns such as:
– how to deal with a blended family (step-families)
– differences in cultural or religious background
– deciding whether to have children
– reaching compromise on financial matters
– making a decision about where to live
– fraught or difficult relationships with in-laws.
Whilst Pre-Marriage Counselling can be of particular benefit to couples who find it difficult to communicate openly with each other, you do not need to be in conflict to benefit from pre-marriage counselling. Indeed, coming together to review your relationship in a structured and caring way can be an essential ingredient for a fulfilling future together.
Marriage inevitably involves some level of compromise, despite the feelings of love and connectedness from which it is born. Why not give your marriage the very best beginning – invest in your relationship now to ensure a happier marriage in the future.
