Who's doing premarital counseling?

[lisabrookeskift]

Obviously, as a Marriage and Family Therapist, I'm a huge supporter of premarital counseling as a way to strengthen your relationship foundation and provide tools for a lasting marriage.

Any of you brides to be planning to do any type of counseling - whether through your church, relationship therapist, book or other method?

[Kim&Bob2004]

We did, through our pastor. I think everyone should go through some sort of premarital counseling.

[NovemberGal]

We did it through our church as well. I don't remember if it's required for the Episcopal service, or if it was our priest who required it, but it was a really worthwhile experience.

[lisabrookeskift]

It's great to hear that a few of you so far have found premarital counseling to be beneficial. I'm wondering what were the highlights for you - or things that you think have helped you and your husband?

[Kim&Bob2004]

Discussing beliefs as far as having children, religious ideologies, etc were helpful. I think more information could have been helpful had it covered differences in families, but we were the first couple our young pastor had ever married and counseled. I also think it's important to cover how you were raised and how it might be different from the soon to be spouse, and even birth order plays a role. I am oldest and my husband is an only.

As I have mentioned before my husband was raised as a pampered only child, I was the oldest of three. We had chores growing up, my husband did not. I often am upset that he didn't as most of our issues have stemmed from the fact that he doesn't always notice things needing to be done and doing them. Discussing things like those difference would have been nice (among other growing up differences).

[lisabrookeskift]

Originally Posted by Kim&Bob2004

As I have mentioned before my husband was raised as a pampered only child, I was the oldest of three. We had chores growing up, my husband did not. I often am upset that he didn't as most of our issues have stemmed from the fact that he doesn't always notice things needing to be done and doing them. Discussing things like those difference would have been nice (among other growing up differences).

Thanks for sharing that - understanding the family of origin influences is a very important piece of my premarital work as we are all shaped by our experiences growing up! Think about it - where do we all learn how to "do a relationship?" Most of us learn from our parents or primary caregivers - then learn additional lessons from other influential people (extended family, friends) as we grow older.

Not only that - we learn about what families do, what roles people have and all of that. I highly encourage engaged couples to at least have an understanding of the other's experiences growing up and how they might impact the marriage. For some people who've had really dysfunctional experiences (trauma, critical or disengaged parents, etc) it can be a struggle to know how to be emotionally present in a relationship.

It's not about "right vs wrong," but rather a better understanding and awareness of how it might be helpful to do things differently if needed.

[NovemberGal]

One thing that our priest had us do that we enjoyed was essentially a family tree. We plotted it on graph paper 4 or 5 generations back. The idea was to note trends of marriage, death (including by illness), divorce, numbers of kids, etc. We both come from families that include large numbers of siblings within a generation or two, so it actually was a pretty involved process, but very interesting. It also showed us how many divorces there were in our parents' and older siblings' generations, and why we both wanted to "be really sure" (one reason we lived together before marriage).

Like Kim, we also appreciated talking through some of our formative childhood experiences and talking about kids and parenting. I wasn't sure I wanted kids at that time (how did that work out? check the ticker. ) and we had actually talked through A LOT on our own (our priest was impressed with how much discussing of key issues--money, family, etc--we'd already done), but it was still helpful to have another person trained to listen and guide, etc.

[lisabrookeskift]

I love to hear these kinds of stories - where couples have benefitted from whatever type of premarital work they've done. Funny, I too thought I didn't want kids (my own family of origin "stuff") but here I am with a year and a half year old boy. Most amazing and most challenging thing I've ever done. He's amazing and I can't imagine my life without him now.

Thankfully, I worked through my "stuff" enough to realize it would be ok - and it has been!

[sarah+tim060609]

Tim & I go to couples counseling, I guess it is premarital because we aren't married yet. And after we get married I don't think we plan on stop the meetings, although I'm sure we will eventually cut down, we go every week right now. Anyway, we love going even on the days when we hate going and I would rather strangle him then talk to him. The doctor that we found is great, she is a little loopy sometimes but she is very helpful. We talk about everything, lots of the times she helps us slow down so that we can listen. Tim and I have had some big problems in the past but the one thing that never went away was how we were both so sure that we were meant to be together. So that part was always easy, it is the learning to be with each other that is hard. Also learning that the past doesn't run the future has been another big lesson that has been hard to grasp for both of us.

[lisabrookeskift]

I'm glad to hear you and your fiance have found benefit in couples counseling together. It sounds like you're learning some helpful skills such as "slowing down to listen" to each other. This is a big part of my couples work - helping people truly hear each other and to watch for misunderstandings that can easily occur from NOT hearing each other.

You're right in that "the past doesn't ruin the future." A lot of people get caught up in the thinking that it does. The ultimate goal is always to be able to move on from those things. Though the road there might be bumpy, there's a sweet reward at the end!

Good job by you guys!