Premarital Counseling - Help

This is such a great question. I feel like in the midsts of wedding planning this is an important part of the process. I would also like to do pre Marraige counseling as well. Yes, I always heard of pre Marraige counseling offered through the church but the issue will arise, between my fiancé and I at least, of which church do we go to receive the counseling. While thats being figured out, we’ve at least come up with a couple of things we liked to discuss. Your opinion on finances and who (if not both) is taking care of them, upkeep of the home and who does what, are you averse to having children and if not how many is too many, which religion will you raise the child(ren) under if applicable. How will you plan to still keeping "dating" in your marraige. Your opinion on where to send your children to school (public, private, city, suburbs). It’s a lot to think about but so important!! I appreciate this post because it also got me thinking too more seriously about this.

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Thank you so much!

View Quoted Comment Best of luck to you throughout your journey & Congratulations!!!

Yes, i have heard of some friends going through premarital counseling like that, could be a close family friends, pastor and his wife, older couple in the church, or of your parents you are comfortable with... etc.

During our first session, we were tasked to come up with areas in our life that we wanted to improve upon as a couple. This was probably the hardest part because we had to admit to issues we had as individuals and as a couple. Our biggest issue was learning to communicate and listen during arguments (or prior to having an argument). We realized the importance of airing our grievances so that they didn’t come up during arguments as low blows. I would suggest sitting down and thinking about why you want to participate and what you want to improve.

I would recommend a licensed counselor, instead of random couples you don't know.

(That's partly what pre-cana was for Catholic Church, and I just ranted about that in another thread. I found it to be the *opposite* of helpful.)

Licensed counselors can guide you through your specific strengths and weaknesses, help you find tools and methods of communicating better, and tackle those tough questions in a safe space.

Random couples at different stages may have totally different circumstances, life experiences, and expectations than you do, which will color their advice/marriage. They may also not be trained counselors, and can cross some ethical boundaries. (A friend of mine got married in Quaker Meeting, and her premarital courses had her leaving in tears, every time... it was not run by licensed counselors.)

We did pre martial counseling with the pastor who was officiating the wedding. At first we didn’t care to do it but once we had the sessions we were so into it. Lol He did ask us to find a couple that’s been married for more than 10 preferably 15 years that we’re not related to mentor us. To ask them what were their initial thoughts on marriage, has their initial thoughts changed, what expectations they have going into change and how has that changed, what advice do they wish someone gave them when they first got married and who do they do to stay connected.
At first we struggled with finding a couple because we didn’t know anyone else that’s been married that long. He reached out to an old co worker who we’ve hung out with a couple of times. It was actually a nice session I understood why the pastor asked us to talk to a couple outside of our families. You can be more open with an outside party and they also don’t hold judgment as families would.
I talked about this with my best friend cause we were going to ask her and her husband but they’ve only been married for 3 yrs but she said she wish they had another couple talk with at times.

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We wouldn't be meeting with random couples it would be couples we know, my fiancée wasn't crazy about the idea of a counselor and to be honest neither am I. We both feel more comfortable opening up, sharing, with someone we know. That was why we liked the idea of speaking with my childhood pastor as my Fiancée is familiar with his teaching and counseling methods from the few holiday services he has attended. He will attend once in awhile willing, but he is not comfortable attending frequently as he is still on his spiritual journey.