Premarital Counseling
Premarital Counseling
Planning a wedding gives you a lot to think about. Premarital counseling gives you time to talk about married life, too: how you handle disagreements, what you expect from each other, and the kind of relationship you want to have.
Premarital counseling is highly recommended for couples planning to marry. This education and marriage skills training can significantly contribute to lasting love and stability while fostering a deep, secure bond. Research shows that happily married couples tend to live longer, enjoy greater emotional well-being, and experience a more fulfilling sexual relationship. Moreover, children raised in a stable, loving, and safe family environment are less likely to encounter social problems.
What can you expect from premarital counseling?
Some couples worry that counseling will turn into a list of everything wrong with their relationship. I want to understand what is working well between you, along with the concerns you want help talking through.
It’s understandable to feel a little uneasy about premarital counseling. Some couples worry it will magnify all the cracks and flaws in their relationship at a time when they should be happy and excited about their future together—fearing that it might even cause someone to get cold feet.
I’ll help you talk honestly about your relationship and prepare for the decisions and challenges ahead.
Premarital counseling is what couples do when they care deeply about their relationship and want to make it as strong and fulfilling as possible. It’s an opportunity to learn skills and strategies that can help you prevent potential issues down the road. We’ll identify the things you already do well and look at how those strengths can help with the areas that are harder for you. Honestly, premarital counseling might be better described as “Premarital Coaching.” My goal is to help you understand each other better and develop skills you can use in married life.
We’ll practice talking through disagreements, making decisions together, and keeping affection and enjoyment in your relationship. You’ll have time to discuss the things you agree on and the expectations you may not have talked about yet.
Good, evidence-based premarital counseling generally starts with an assessment and incorporates proven therapeutic models. I use Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT), Prepare/Enrich, and Transformational Couples Therapy (TCT) to help couples get their marriage off to a great start. These approaches help us work on emotional closeness and practical skills for married life. With TCT, we pay attention to moments of warmth, affection, and care between you and explore how to have more of those experiences together.
What is Emotionally Focused Therapy?
EFT’s main goals are to expand and reorganize important emotional responses, implement and foster the creation of a secure bond between partners and help shift each partner’s position of interaction while initiating new cycles of interaction that are more beneficial. Emotionally Focused Therapy helps create secure, loving and lasting bonds between partners and strives to reinforce the positive bonds that already exist. In our work, that means noticing what happens when you feel hurt or disconnected and practicing ways to respond that help you feel closer.
What is PREPARE/ENRICH?
PREPARE/ENRICH is a customized couple assessment completed online that identifies a couple’s strength and growth areas. It is one of the most widely used programs for premarital counseling and premarital education. It is also used for marriage counseling, marriage enrichment, and dating couples considering engagement. Based on a couple’s assessment results, a trained facilitator provides 4-8 feedback sessions in which the facilitator helps the couple discuss and understand their results as they are taught proven relationship skills.
A well-established approach
PREPARE/ENRICH has been helping couples understand and strengthen their relationships since 1980. The assessment is a starting point for meaningful conversations, personalized feedback, and practical relationship skills.
What are the Major Goals of the PREPARE/ENRICH Program?
There are several goals of the PREPARE/ENRICH Program. In order to achieve these goals there are exercises designed to help couples improve their relationship skills. The program helps couples:
- Explore strength and growth areas
- Strengthen communication skills
- Identify and manage major stressors
- Resolve conflict using the Ten Step Model
- Develop a more balanced relationship
- Explore family of origin issues
- Discuss financial planning and budgeting
- Establish personal, couple and family goals
- Understand and appreciate personality differences
What relationship areas are assessed by the Inventory?
12 Relationship Scales — communication, conflict resolution, roles, sexuality, finances, spiritual beliefs and more
5 SCOPE Personality Scales
4 Couple and Family Scales — based on the Circumplex Model
4 Relationship Dynamic Scales
Is the PREPARE/ENRICH Program Valid & Reliable?
PREPARE/ENRICH has a substantial research history supporting the reliability and validity of its assessment. Its research library includes studies of premarital couples, relationship satisfaction, communication, and family dynamics.
We’ll use your results to talk about what is going well, what needs attention, and what each of you hopes for in your marriage.
For the research behind the assessment, visit the PREPARE/ENRICH Research Articles.
Who Uses PREPARE/ENRICH?
PREPARE/ENRICH is used by trained therapists, clergy, mentors, and marriage educators to help couples understand their relationship and build on its strengths.
Couples complete the assessment and explore their results with a trained facilitator, turning those insights into conversations and practical skills.
Premarital Counseling Fees
There is also a $35 fee for the PREPARE/ENRICH assessment.
Ready to prepare for your life together? Get in touch to schedule a consultation.