If you are engaged, you may be questioning if premarital counseling is worth it. Maybe you are simply thinking of getting engaged or a bit farther down the road, already booking a venue and inviting your friends and family to share your special day with you. Whatever the case is for you, you have undoubtedly invested a lot into your proposal and/or wedding, including your time, money, and energy. It is easy to primarily focus on the ideal proposal or ceremony while overlooking the amount of work it takes to create an ideal partnership.
In preparation for a wedding, there are many tasks to complete, and it may seem like your to-do list is never-ending. While you are caught up in the hustle and bustle of planning a wedding, do not forget the most important thing- building a secure foundation to build upon with your partner. Your wedding is an amazing and life-changing moment in your life, but it is one day. It will come and go while your relationship will last a lifetime. Premarital counseling will give you and your partner the chance to come together and prepare for the life and family you will be creating together.
Anchor Therapy is a counseling center in Hoboken, NJ with mental health therapists specialized in helping children, teens, adults, and couples with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, trauma, life transitions, and more. Anchor Therapy is accepting new clients and is now providing in-person sessions and teletherapy sessions to residents of New Jersey, New York, Florida, North Carolina, and Utah.
Is premarital therapy effective?
Absolutely. There have been dozens of studies demonstrating the effectiveness of premarital counseling for long-term marriage success, and general happiness and relationship satisfaction. Studies have shown again and again how pre-marriage therapy is an effective way to begin a life-long partnership.
Premarital counseling can:
Help improve communication
Help you both build upon conflict management skills
Increase the quality of your relationship
Increase overall relationship satisfaction
Create a more realistic view of marriage
Foster a deeper level of commitment to one another
For couples who have engaged in premarital counseling, they have reported having an easier adjustment to married life in comparison to couples who did not attend couples counseling.
Isn’t premarital counseling just for couples who have major problems?
Nope! Contrary to popular belief, every couple can benefit from couples therapy. There does not have to be a pressing issue, like infidelity or blending families, to trigger a couple to begin counseling. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by attending premarital therapy.
Premarital counseling has a particular advantage and that is its timing. When you learn how to properly communicate and work through issues earlier rather than later, you are saving yourself a headache, sorrow, and anger down the road.
If you choose not to proceed with pre marriage counseling, you may find that once you and your partner are married, you have certain unspoken expectations for one another, including unrealistic ideas about what marriage should look like. This will inevitably cause issues at some point.
Before your marriage, you and your partner are in the construction stage. You have certain expectations for your relationship, but you are open to talk them through and open up about certain challenges or difficulties you are facing in the partnership. When you learn how to talk through the differences, you will form a good habit and a great basis for communication in your relationship that will follow you throughout the years.
How can pre marriage therapy help my relationship succeed?
During the dating stage, you may not have felt completely comfortable to talk about major life questions and plans with your partner. As you know, that is a reality of being married and pre marriage counseling is a great chance to let it all out in the open.
In premarital therapy, you are seeing your partner for exactly who they are so you can be sure you are making the right choice to take the next step and get married to them. If you have been telling yourself that “I can change my partner” or “time will take care of it”, there may be some denial issues that you want to bring up in counseling. When you are in a relationship, especially in the early stages, it can be easy to ignore the red flags. Pre marriage counseling is the last attempt to confront them head-on and decide if this is a relationship worth your time and energy.
There are other couples who are absolutely sure about their partner, and these are couples that can benefit from pre marriage therapy as well.
A marriage therapist can help guide conversations about:
Finances
Raising children
Sex
Religion
Careers
Maintaining and running a household
And more!
Both you and your partner will be able to discuss your view on the subjects while making sure you are on the same page so there are no surprises later down the line. Premarital counseling is a roadmap that shows you how to confront issues and tackle obstacles together as a team.
Some benefits of pre marriage counseling are as follows:
Create a shared sense of meaning
Marriage is not simply living together, swapping off household chores and responsibilities, and having children. It is a commitment to yourself and one another. You are branching out and creating a family unit on your own with someone who has seen you at your highest and your lowest. When you start pre marriage counseling, you and your partner are setting yourselves up for success since you will be fostering a deep sense and understanding of what you want your marriage and, ultimately life, to look like.
2. Enhance communication styles and needs
Everyone reacts differently to certain life transitions. When your partner is going through a stressful time, they may prefer to talk it out instead of sweeping it under the rug. When you are going through some bumps in the road, you may prefer to have some alone time to process your thoughts. When you ignore each other’s needs and ways of processing, it can lead to resentment. These different methods of coping can understandably make you both feel like you are speaking two different languages. This is why it is important to learn more about your partner’s communication styles and needs.
Some examples of this include your partner’s attachment style.
The four attachment styles are as follows:
Secure attachment
Anxious-preoccupied attachment (also known as ambivalent attachment)
Avoidant-dismissive attachment
Disorganized attachment
Your partner’s attachment style can reveal a lot about them. For instance, it can explain how they cope with stress or what they need from you during a conflict. If you are interested in learning more about the four attachment styles check out our blog: “How Do The Four Attachment Styles Impact Romantic Relationships?”.
Another major indicator of your partner’s preferences is their love language. Your partner’s love language will let you know how they give and receive love.
The five love languages are as follows:
Gift giving
Physical touch
Acts of service
Words of affirmation
Quality time
When you do not understand your partner’s love language, you may feel invisible to one another. For example, let us say that your love language is quality time while your partner’s is gift giving. Your partner may buy you the new pair of shoes that you wanted, but you do not register that as “love” since you would prefer to do a fun activity together. Once you know your partner’s love language, you can begin to understand that that is how they show love. Once your partner knows your love language, they can try to make a better effort in a way where you feel appreciated and seen.
If you would like to learn more about the five love languages, check out our blog: “Understanding The Five Love Languages To Improve Your Relationship.”
3. Learn how to work together
If you want your marriage to be successful, you and your partner will have to learn how to work together as a team. When you seek out help from a marriage and family therapist before you are married, you are setting a strong precedent for your relationship which helps you manage tension in the future. When you attend premarital counseling, you are already sharing a commitment and goal together. It will assist you in having difficult conversations and help you develop the skills you need to build a strong foundation together.
4. Improve conflict management skills
Many people seek out help in their relationship or marriage due to issues in communication. Oftentimes, our natural inclination to make our voices heard or alter the emotional intensity of the fight can be counter-productive. You may raise your voice in an attempt to make your partner hear you or because you passionately believe in what you are saying, but it carries the wrong message to your partner. Premarital therapy will provide both you and your partner with the skills to hold productive conversations, even about uncomfortable topics. This will help you deal with conflict better and prevent issues from building up.
5. Understand each other’s values and differences
In many relationships, differences in each other’s characters can feel threatening and even impossible to reconcile in your partnership. Your partner may want to live in a bustling big city while you prefer the comfort of the suburbs. You may come from two different religious backgrounds and have different ideas on how you want to raise your children. You may be on opposite ends of the political spectrum. The list can go on and on!
It is important to remember that differences do not have to be detrimental to your relationship. When you know how to approach these differences with honesty, they can actually positively contribute to your partnership. Pre marriage counseling gives you both the opportunity to compromise while you are building your life together.
What can I expect in pre marriage therapy at Anchor Therapy?
It is important to take the time to invest in your marriage first before you invest in the wedding. At Anchor Therapy, our couples therapists are trained to approach each couple differently to meet them where they are at. Our couples counselors work with couples of all backgrounds, from polyamorous communities to LGBTQIA+ couples.
Some couples enter premarital therapy knowing exactly what they want to talk about. For instance, there may be a continuous communication concern that you want to address so it does not boil into something bigger. For other couples, there is no exact roadmap for counseling. It is enough just to know that you love each other, and want to prepare for your marriage and life journey together to attend pre marriage counseling.
Whatever category you fit into, there are certain topics that are almost always covered in pre marriage therapy. These topics encompass:
Spirituality and/or faith
Careers
How you interact with each other’s family and friends
How you spend your holidays/special events
Parenting
Sex
The focus of pre marriage counseling is on each other’s characters. You want to explore broad issues to make sure you are committing to the right person. Do you truly know your partner? What is their character? Are you both in a secure position to commit to one another?
Everyone’s preferences are different. You have to ensure that your partner is compatible in the way you want to be. For example, if you consider yourself to be an intelligent person, you may want someone who has a similar background and interest as you. Perhaps you both went to college, follow the news, and are able to have meaningful conversations about the world around you. For someone else, it may be important that their partner is interested in health and fitness so they can cook and go to the gym together.
Each couple is unique so there is not a one-size-fits-all approach used in pre marriage counseling.
Pre marriage counseling will help you realize where you and your partner are in the relationship. Whether you come into couples counseling knowing exactly what you want to work on or want general assistance, every couple can benefit from pre-marriage counseling. Every marriage will experience obstacles and it is communication that will help you overcome those difficulties together. By attending pre marriage counseling, you and your partner will learn to enhance your communication and conflict resolution skills while learning how to build a strong foundation.
Victoria Scala
is the Social Media Manager and Intake Coordinator at Anchor Therapy in Hoboken, New Jersey. She is a graduate of the Honors College of Rutgers University-Newark and is currently studying Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the graduate level. As a Social Media Manager at Anchor Therapy, Victoria is committed to producing content for and managing the office’s social media presence and blog.
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