Pre-Marital Counseling
learn why you are good together, how you can work with your differences and to articulate to one another the dreams and goals each of you hope to reach.
Why Pre-Marital Counseling?
One of the keys to a successful marriage is preparedness. This means that you have to be able to get to know your partner well, not just in terms of simple likes and dislikes, but also personal beliefs, opinions, vulnerabilities, and strengths.
My Process
One of the keys to a successful marriage is preparedness. This means that you have to be able to get to know your partner well, not just in terms of simple likes and dislikes, but also personal beliefs, opinions, vulnerabilities, and strengths.
Using the Prepare process, I offer 3 to 5 sessions of 75 minutes each. My approach is educational, coaching, and process-oriented.
First, each partner independently takes a written inventory revealing feelings and expectations about such issues as the management of money and time, communication styles, conflict resolution skills, personality differences, sexual needs, expectations for the marriage, family of origin issues and differences, and having and raising children.
You are then asked to indicate your level of assent — from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Reviewing the results with feedback and facilitation, you’ll focus creatively on whether you’re “on the same page” about a given issue.
You may uncover strengths in the relationship that help illuminate why you’re so strongly connected. Together we will also spotlight potential danger zones of disagreement.
I’ve found that it’s often not the particular disagreement that matters most but how you communicate and manage your difference of opinion. Drawing from the skills that masters of relationships have taught us, I can help you improve your ability to communicate through conflict, deepen intimacy and your connection with your partner and overall teach you how to build and sustain a strong marriage.
I believe the most important marriage skill is listening to your partner in a way that they can’t possibly doubt that you love them.
Ten Ideas to Know for Having a Good Marriage
The ideas below are central to the teaching/learning sessions we will spend together. It’s so much better to know these ideas now, before your wedding than later!
Married people & their kids do better on all measures of health, wealth, happiness, & success.
Disagreeing doesn’t predict divorce. Avoidance, contempt, criticism, blame, and the silent treatment predict divorce.
…and it’s not limited substance. It’s a feeling and feelings ebb and flow depending on how we treat each other.
It comes and goes. That’s normal. Plan for & make time for more “flows”.
They can be clumsy or funny, even sarcastic, but the willingness to make up after an argument, is central to every happy marriage.
…no matter who you marry. The trick is to learn how to manage disagreements without hostility & put-downs.
These are ten issues they will never resolve. If we switch partners, we just get ten new issues that are likely to be even more annoying and complicated.
That’s normal. Marital satisfaction is at its lowest when there are kids in the house between 11 and 16. That’s normal. We need to know what’s normal, what to expect, appreciate our parenting partner – and hang in
Early marital sex is sex between strangers – we don’t yet know our partner or ourselves. The most passionate sex is intimate sex based on knowing our partner and letting them know us. One of the most important tasks of marriage is to develop a satisfying marital sex style. It’s not about going BACK; it’s about going FORWARD, together.
The marriage vow is a promise to stay married, not to stay the same. (Thank goodness!) Keep up-to-date with changes in your partner. Don’t fear change. Welcome it !