Welcome to Family Solutions Counseling! Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

Marriage starts with a promise and a party. Developing and maintaining a healthy long-term marriage starts with Pre-Marital Counseling.

Counseling Details

Kathleen Shack is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Gottman Couples Therapist with over 20 years experience working with couples. She talks with couples about their marriage hopes and expectations, putting one another first, and how to be patient, kind and respectful even in times of conflict. This is done in couples sessions or in a group workshop format. The Prepare-Enrich Assessment is used with pre-marital couples. Research has shown the act of taking the assessment improves relationship quality and brings increased awareness across multiple aspects of the relationship.

Research has shown that taking the assessment prior to marriage reduces your risk for divorce by 30%. It helps you celebrate your strengths as a couple and use them to gain momentum in the growth areas of your relationship. The assessment primes you to have meaningful conversations as you continue to grow as a couple. Prepare-Enrich, by Dr. David Olson, assesses 20 relationship areas, strength and growth areas, includes a couples report and workbook exercises based on your inventory answers.

Using the Prepare-Enrich Assessment results, couples learn:

• Strength and growth areas of the relationship
• Assertiveness, active listening
• Stress management
• Conflict management tools
• Financial planning and budgeting
• Family of origin impacts
• Personality assessment
• Individual, couple, family goals

Workshop Details

The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work workshop is based on the internationally acclaimed research of Dr. John Gottman as presented in his New York Times bestselling book, "The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work".

This educational workshop combines lecture, video, and private couples exercises. The class is designed to help couples strengthen their friendship and conflict management skills. If your relationship is already strong, this class will provide you with proven tools and insights to make your relationship even better. If you have a distressed relationship, this class can provide a road map for repair.

You will Learn to:

• Improve and foster friendship, respect, affection and admiration
• Build and share a deeper connection with each other
• Manage conflict constructively and respectfully
• Gain skills to address perpetual and solvable conflict
• Maintain the gains in your relationship throughout a lifetime

Who Should Attend:

• Couples who have been dating long term
• Pre-engaged couples (those considering marriage)
• Engaged or Premarital couples (those taking steps towards marriage)
• Married couples, from newlyweds to senior couples
• Those who wish to enhance an already “good” marriage or relationship
• Those needing better conflict management tools
• Couples considering couples therapy
• People of all backgrounds, ages, faiths and sexual orientations