What is Premarital Counseling?

Premarital counseling is a preventative form of therapy created to help couples prepare for marriage or long-term commitment by developing a repertoire of communication tools and skills, addressing potential areas of conflict before they emerge or become calcified, and exploring various marital themes before they become a reality. It is often time limited to 8-10 sessions and can occur at any juncture in a couples journey—in the early stages of a relationship, right before marriage, or right after marriage.

If I had it my way, I think ALL couples should be required to go through some form of premarital counseling, even just for 2-3 sessions, before being granted a marriage license. Divorce is  considered a major public health issue: this widespread life event has reverberating consequences for individual mental health, physical health, economic stability, and child well-being—according to the US census bureau, 1 in 3 American adults will go through a divorce in their lifetime. Though divorce is certainly necessary sometimes in order to protect the emotional and physical well-being of individuals or children, if couples can enter marriage with as many tools, maps, and a skillful guide in thinking through potential challenges, the problems that make divorce an inevitability or better option for one’s mental health could be avoided or significantly reduced.

For couples seeking premarital counseling, I often suggest utilizing the Prepare & Enrich Assessment. This self-report measure covers a wide range of areas of congruence, strengths, and growth areas measured across nine domains: communication, conflict resolution, partner style & habits, financial management, leisure activities, sexual expectations, family & friends, characters traits, and spiritual beliefs. What I also value about this assessment tool is that it zooms in on each partner’s stress profile, perception of closeness and disconnection, and individual personality traits, including assertiveness, self-confidence, avoidance, and partner dominance.

After couples complete this assessment, I use the report to generate a series of questions for each domain. As such, these sessions are more like exploratory conversations where couples can apply results and insights to various experiences and issues they’ve already encountered or are invited to imagine how they might handle future challenges. What I love about premarital counseling is the opportunity for couples to discover value differences and things they didn’t know about each other and may not know until the specific issue arises—such as how involved they want their parents to be with their future children, where they want to invest any liquid assets, or how important physical intimacy needs to be during major life transitions. Being able to have these conversations before ruptures, tension points, and arguments have already eroded the ability to properly learn and understand one another with a clear and more optimistic mindset is invaluable.