Premarital Counseling

Building the proper foundation improves the relationship.

Successful lifelong relationships may look like they happen naturally when two people are right for each other. Lasting relationships, however, require hard work, patience, intentionality, and relationship know-how.

People come into a marriage with different experiences, viewpoints, and conceptions about the marriage relationship. Understanding and respecting those differences opens lines of communication and mutual respect that is especially important during life’s many transitions.

If you want to learn the skills for building lifelong relationships and would rather avoid the school of hard knocks, then premarital counseling is for you.

Let’s talk about what premarital counseling IS NOT.

There are many misconceptions about premarital counseling, and before we get into what premarital counseling is, we should talk about what NOT to expect.

Premarital counseling is not a pass/fail type of test or program. There are no tests – you can’t fail. Premarital counseling is not for determining whether a couple is compatible. That’s for you to decide. Besides, even the most incompatible couple can have a successful and satisfying relationship – but it may take more work and more know-how.

Premarital counseling is not only for religious couples. You do not have to be part of any specific religion to benefit from premarital counseling.

Many couples miss out on the benefits of premarital counseling because they mistakenly believe that premarital counseling is about rigid rules and meeting standards. Effective premarital counseling is not about any of this. It’s all about getting a better understanding of what you can expect from being married to your partner and about how you can keep your relationship growing and thriving for a long, long time.

Here’s how premarital counseling works.

Premarital counseling will help you and your partner better understand yourself as you are in this relationship. It also allows you to learn more about your partner’s deep desires and needs.

These issues don’t tend to come up in general conversation, but they are essential for forming lifelong relationships. Additionally, you will learn relationship maintenance skills and relational troubleshooting skills. When future challenges arise in your marriage, you can recognize problems early and have the confidence to tackle them head-on.

A solid premarital program can help you.

The PREPARE/ENRICH premarital program is the first and one of the most widely used premarital programs today.

The program begins with a thorough research-based assessment to identify the unique patterns in the relationship.

You unpack the assessment results with a counselor over about six sessions. Each session will focus on separate relationship components such as communication, expectations, personality, and many more.

You can check out the video below to get a better feel for what the PREPARE/ENRICH program is like from couples who went through it.

PREPARE/ENRICH