All Your Questions About Premarital Therapy Answered
Premarital therapy is a type of counseling geared toward helping couples have important conversations that are useful in building a life together. But for a lot of folks, the idea of therapy before you’ve even tied the knot can feel taboo. If you’re considering premarital therapy, or even if you’ve never heard of it before, here are some answers to the questions I get asked the most to help inform your decision.
What makes this different from couples therapy?
There are a lot of similarities between premarital and couples therapy. However, premarital therapy focuses on a set of topics with the intent of getting the two of you on the same page. Secondly, while not a hard and fast rule, premarital therapy tends to be more proactive around relationship problems while couples therapy tends to be reactive, or in response to particular issues.
What kinds of things would we talk about?
During premarital therapy, a therapist will guide you through particular topics relevant to creating a life together. How will you we manage your finances? How will you divide household labor? How do you manage your free time? How is your intimacy? What are your stances on parenting? How are you impacted by your families? How are you impacted by your views on race, religion, and other aspects of culture? Along the way, you’ll also learn skills for communication and conflict resolution.
How do I know if we need premarital therapy?
Most of us can benefit from a space to talk more deeply with our partners. But if you’re unsure, here are some questions to ask yourself:
Are my partner and I on different pages about topics like finances, kids, religion, career goals, in-laws, free time, values, and expectations of marriage? Have we been able to carve out time to discuss these topics?
Do we avoid difficult conversations?
Do we get into arguments or fights often, especially around the same topics?
Does my partner have conflict with my family or friends, or do I have conflict with theirs?
Do my partner and I have different ideas about our wedding and what our next few years together will look like?
Do I have complaints about my partner or our relationship that go unaddressed?
Why do we need to have these conversations with a therapist?
It can be helpful to have a professional present to guide you through some of these topics, especially if they tend to get a little contentious. Your therapist might be trained in a particular program, like Prepare-Enrich, that uses formal assessments to guide your work together. A therapist can also help you identify unhelpful patterns of communication and will work with you to learn and strengthen your skills for having these tough conversations.
What if we’re already doing something like this with our religious leader?
Your religious community might require premarital therapy with a clergyperson or respected community member, which can be great and may serve a similar function to working with a therapist! However, if there isn’t enough focus on the secular aspects of your lives together or if you feel like that person has reached the limits of their training, it might be worth working with a therapist in addition.
We only disagree on one issue, but it’s big. Will this help us get through it?
Like with all therapy, there are no guarantees. However, premarital therapy can be useful in simply improving your conversations about tough topics. You’ll have to talk about it at some point, right? If you and your partner are truly at an impasse with regards to a certain topic, you might be able to work through it…or you might always be stuck. However, premarital counseling allows the opportunity to fully hear each other and determine if there’s a middle ground that works for both of you. And if there’s not, that’s important for you to know, too!
We just got married…do we still qualify?
Yes! Premarital therapy is just the official term, but it can be for any couple in the early stages of a committed relationship.
We don’t plan to get married…do we still qualify?
Yes! This type of therapy is still valuable for those who plan to be in a committed, long term relationship without ever formally getting married.
What if I’m interested but my partner is hesitant?
If your partner isn’t enthusiastic about premarital therapy, that’s absolutely okay! You don’t have to believe therapy will be useful, as long as you can be open to the potential that it might be. Show them this post, and use it to guide a discussion. As a reminder, nothing has to be wrong to come to premarital therapy. Consider it like a preventative check-up, but instead of being for your body, it’s for your relationship. If you have any further questions, I offer a free fifteen-minute consultation where we can determine if this is the right fit.
How do we get started?
Contact me here!
