Pre-marital Counseling: A Mandatory First Step in Your New Life Together

Congratulations! You got engaged and have decided to spend the rest of your lives together. It is a wonderful, magical time in your relationship and planning that wedding will be one of the most joyous and possibly challenging waters you navigate in the next few months.

But what about the challenging times you both will traverse in your actual marriage? Have you, the lovely couple, thought about how your relationship will weather the bumps down the road? Couples getting married in Central Texas spend an average of $27,743 on their weddings and just looking at that amazing amount tells you that these couples are most definitely putting a lot of thought into the event. But how many couple’s put that amount of thought into their life-long relationship? This is precisely why pre-marital counseling is so vitally important to your future and ability to “go the distance” with your partner.

What to expect: When a couple comes in for pre-marital counseling, the vibe is usually a little giddy, a little nervous and very inquisitive. After all, you are basking in the glow of your engagement, you may not have encountered some of the issues you could potentially face in your marriage (or maybe you’ve seen some inkling of what those issues are poking out in your couplehood). A therapist’s role in these “preparation” sessions is to get you both, as a couple thinking about what these potential pitfalls may be.

Now, don’t get us wrong. We are not trying to bring you down or kill that effervescent “buzz” of love that is in the air. In fact, quite the opposite. We couple’s therapists take our jobs very seriously and our job is to help you, the happy couple, insulate your marriage from the things that can damage it so you stay happy. Therefore, we are going to bring up a plethora of topics that could be sources of conflict in the future and we’re gonna get ‘em out in the open, right here and now, so you are thinking about this stuff before you even knew it was a problem. In effect, we are helping you think about and solve the issue before it is even an issue! BOOM! After all, we are rooting you on, we want you to grow old and wrinkly together.

Some of the many topics that come up for couple’s entering pre-marital counseling may include: children, alcohol/drug use, finances, friends, hobbies, technology/internet use, in-laws, jealousy, sex and intimacy, religion, cultural differences, etc. As you can see, there is no shortage of subjects to review. Being able to do so in the room together with a caring therapist to guide you, you will know just where your partner stands on these really important issues. And trust me, you need to know!

So, when you are planning that big sparkly wedding, I caution you to not forget an integral part of planning your life together: your marriage. A few sessions of pre-marital counseling is a small price to pay up front that pays big dividends in your future.