Pre-Marital Program
Are You In Need Of Guidance As You And Your Fiancé Prepare For The Future Together?
Are you engaged to your partner or considering marriage? Do you want to strengthen your bond before committing to a lifetime together?
Congrats on your engagement! You’re probably here because you know it’s time to have some important conversations before you commit to a marriage.
As a newly engaged couple, you’re likely in a good, exciting spot in your relationship. However, it’s important to take steps to plan both the wedding and the marriage. Although you’re feeling secure in the partnership now, you may be looking to have vital conversations with your fiancé. Issues of family planning, finances, and other big-picture topics may feel abstract at the moment, but you know that down the line, they could present real challenges.
The prospect of marriage is exciting, but it can bring up valid concerns about your future no matter how you identify. For instance, if you’re in a non-hetero or non-monogamous relationship, you may be invested in maintaining and honoring your identity through the conventions of marriage. Or perhaps this is not your first time down the aisle, and you’re a couple in need of guidance as you consider getting remarried and blending your families.
Alternatively, it’s possible that you are a religious couple or that you may have decided to wait until marriage to have sex. If this is the case, you may benefit from counseling before marriage so that you can meaningfully discuss the importance of sex and intimacy in your relationship.
During the engagement period, it’s easy to focus so much on wedding planning that you inadvertently lose sight of long-term goals for your marriage. Yet, by working with a couples therapist in premarital counseling, you can be proactive about developing realistic expectations and necessary communication skills to help your marriage thrive.
Seeking Premarital Counseling Signals A Healthy, Realistic Approach To Your Relationship
Given the high rates of divorce in this country, it’s increasingly common for couples to seek premarital counseling or coaching. Couples of all backgrounds invest in their futures by creating a strong foundation for their partnership as they communicate about their differences and shared goals, and working with a therapist in an open, neutral environment can help address critical issues before they escalate into conflict.
Not to mention, all of us have encountered unrealistic expectations of marriage in film and TV. And this façade of “a perfect marriage” is further perpetuated by the comparison culture of #couplesgoals on social media.
Strong Marriages Don’t Just Happen—They’re Created
Many of us were not given healthy models for how to behave and respond in a marriage. Whether we grew up with parents who were separated or who engaged in persistent conflict, it’s possible that we mimic their behaviors or form the belief that our own relationships are doomed to fail, too.
Therapy gives both you and your partner a chance to move away from any counterproductive patterns that could impact the relationship as you learn more about your needs, both as individuals and as a couple. By seeking counseling before marriage, you are taking the initiative to discuss important topics, learn how to have tough discussions, and navigate life together.
Premarital Counseling Allows You To Identify The Seeds Of Potential Conflicts Before They Take Root
I am thrilled that you and your partner have decided to get married! And as a nonjudgmental, nondenominational trained clinician working with couples of all backgrounds and partner orientations, I welcome you to premarital counseling. Collaborating together, I can help you and your partner shatter cultural expectations and myths of the “perfect marriage” to instead create the blueprint for your unique union.
The intake for premarital counseling at Kaleidoscope Services LLC begins with an assessment called Prepare and Enrich® that will help me tailor our sessions to meet your specific needs as a couple. This is a fun and engaging conversation catalyst that will assess your views on a wide range of topics, including family planning, finances, and life goals. Using these answers, I’ll be better able to identify strengths, relationship stressors, and unique topics for premarital counseling.
Millions of couples across the country have benefited from the Prepare and Enrich® model to help them prepare for life together. Not only can this approach help you and your partner identify strengths, but it allows you to explore essential personality traits, develop strong communication habits, understand the role of past experiences in creating expectations for marriage, and reduce overall stress.
My Approach To Premarital Couples Counseling
In addition to the Prepare and Enrich® model, I use my extensive background as a couples therapist to help you foster the empathy needed to build a sustainable foundation for marriage. I will guide you in understanding where your standards for marriage originated and help you unlearn counterproductive expectations and behaviors so that you can communicate effectively.
I also find that extra time must be spent in premarital counseling to address issues of sex and intimacy. Because these conversations can sometimes be awkward or uncomfortable, I aim to facilitate an open, playful dialogue that will nurture a healthy sex life with your partner. Doing this will allow your erotic needs to be met and prevent affairs and other extramarital behaviors from occurring within the relationship.
Premarital counseling is an awesome way to get on the same page as your partner. Wherever you are on your path to marriage, I am here to help you get proactive and intentional about setting realistic expectations for your partnership. By providing you with the tools you need to sustain a happy, healthy union, you can walk down the aisle with confidence.
Perhaps You’re Considering Premarital Counseling, But You Still Have Questions…
My partner and I experience ongoing conflict but are interested in getting married—can premarital counseling help us?
If you and your partner struggle to resolve ongoing issues, then you may want to consider couples therapy before attending premarital counseling. Premarital counseling is not therapy in that it does not examine past wounds or heal trauma. Instead, it’s meant for couples who feel stable and secure in the partnership, looking to bolster communication skills and mitigate the possibility of future conflict.
I invite you and your partner to contact me for a consultation that will help us determine if premarital counseling is right for you.
My partner and I are in a good place—why should we participate in premarital counseling?
If you and your partner are considering marriage—no matter how stable and secure your relationship might feel—conflict is bound to arise down the line. When you’re caught up in the excitement of planning a wedding, you might overlook potential issues or make assumptions about how your partner thinks and feels.
Premarital counseling focuses on the future of your relationship so that you can feel prepared to navigate inevitable stressors as they come up.
How long can we expect to be in premarital counseling?
My approach to premarital counseling pairs evidence-based techniques with the Prepare and Enrich® model to help couples feel prepared for their future together. After taking the Prepare and Enrich® assessment, I will review your answers and tailor six to eight counseling sessions to meet your needs.
Premarital counseling is meant to be time-limited, though many couples schedule sporadic checkups with me down the line.
Learn The Don’ts Of Marriage Before Exchanging I Do’s
If you’re engaged or considering marriage, premarital counseling can help you get on the same page to prepare for the future.
To find out more information about how I can help, you can schedule a consultation session by calling 1-480-800-2527 or emailing me.
To learn more about Prepare and Enrich®, you can visit https://www.prepare-enrich.com/about/.