Advantages of Premarital Counseling

The term "premarital counseling" is a bit of a misnomer. The main object is to teach relationship skills and help give the couple tools to get through difficulties in their upcoming marriage. People use the term "premarital counseling", but it's not so much helping solve specific problems that a couple has, but rather, is more of a premarital education course.

These kind of premarital education classes have a high success rate, not only in reducing rates of divorce, but in helping couples become happier, more supportive partners. Before a couple gets married, rules are in flux. Both parties are very adaptable to changes and quite flexible in their ideas. Once a couple is married, though, their relationship to each other starts to solidify, and rules become more rigid. If a partner then finds out that the other person is keeping secrets from them, for instance, this revelation can be quite difficult to forgive. By talking about finances in a formal but nonjudgmental manner, for instance, engaged couples can have a clearer idea about what they're getting into.

Some aspects of marriage are flexible, but who we are as people is pretty set. If you are marrying someone who is organized and loves to plan, and you are someone who is very free-thinking and prefers to be more spontaneous, it's helpful to know these differences because they probably won't change much. Who we are as people is pretty set - what can be changed is our ways of relating to each other. These inherent personality traits are the kind of elements that are explored in a marriage preparation class.

The most common premarital education course is the PREPARE/ENRICH program, but there are several other types of non-religious courses, all focused on building relationship skills and teaching conflict resolution.