Home Pre-Marital Counseling

[megumic]

Just wondering what others experiences have been with either religious or non-religious pre-marital counseling of any sort. Since we''re about 8 months out, I''ve started thinking about it.

Did you enjoy it? Did things come out you didn''t expect? Would you recommend it? Do you wish you had done it? Is it worth it?

Any/all thoughts are appreciated and welcome!

 

[Bella_mezzo]

we enjoyed it, but it was just 4 somewhat informal 1-2 hour meetings with our pastor. We read this great book called "The Mystery of Marriage, meditations on the Miracle" it was really fantastic.

 

[Smurfysmiles]

I really liked ours a lot as well. It was very short, couple hours but we enjoyed it. I think DH and the pastor got along way better than I had thought they would. They spend a good time talking about different religious theories after we finished the marital counseling

I'd definitely recommend it!

 

[MakingTheGrade]

We did an online Catholic precana with videos and then essay questions, as well as a "quiz"

I personally didn''t find it useful since many questions were about how I saw God''s role in my marriage, and given that I''m an atheist...yeah..

Haha, but we also did the "Match quiz" which I found a lot more interesting. It''s questions about communication styles, finance decisions, and general priorities and you rate 1-5 on an agree-or-not scale. And then compare answers with your fiance. It''s supposed to flag areas of disagreement that you might want to talk through before you get married.

 

[iloveny]

Ditto Bella Mezzo- I really enjoyed it- we did a lot of question answering, and rating how important different things were to ourselves, and to each other, and I was happy to see that we passed every test with flying colors- just as I thought we would

 

[Lilac]

DH and I considered pre-marital counseling (not because of any issues we were having, we just thought it might be a good thing to do) but in the end we didn''t end up doing it. I called a great pre-marital counselor and she said she was booked solid for several months - and by the time she could see us was already after our wedding

The one thing we did do was take a class together in school. When we were engaged, DH was finishing his last semester of college and I was in the middle of college (we went to the same school). That semester we both took a class called "Marriage and Family" together - it was an incredible class - probably my favorite in school. While the class obviously wasn''t directed toward us specifically, we learned about everything from engagements, to marriages, to sex, to finances within a marriage, to having children, to coping with difficult times, and so much more. Over the course of that semester and that class, we learned so much and each day after class we went home and talked about how we felt about the topics covered in class that day. It was a really great experience and led to some really great discussions between us.

 

[Elmorton]

We had a couple of sessions with our priest - helpful, but not really earth-shattering. He identified some of our weaker areas and asked that we talk about them and helped us make a basic plan for how to overcome those differences/ideologies.

But what made the biggest difference is that I actually went to counseling (solo) starting right before we got engaged until a few weeks after we were married - I was in grad school and planning a wedding, and it was a little too much to handle. Anyway - my therapist was faith-based and every now and then gave me "homework" to do with DH. So even though it wasn''t both of us in the session, we learned several really good communication techniques, and it was good to have someone who wasn''t involved in the wedding madness or part of the family to talk to about the big transitions into marriage.

I guess what I''m saying is that I highly recommend it. I was a relatively young bride, and there were a lot of life transitions I was going through in addition to getting married. I don''t think I would have been half as successful in those transitions had I not had the help of a therapist.

 

[yssie]

Nope... I would've been open to the idea pre-rabbiA, FI was always leery..


Then rabbiA came along and told us that he wanted to meet with us at for at least six (six!!) two-hour counselling sessions to which we would be obligated to fly across the country for, to talk about how since we're an interracial and interfaith couple we'd have so many more obstacles to overcome than most couples.. didn't help that he wanted triple what the other officiants we contacted were charging.


True, we're interracial and interfaith, but we like to view those as good things, thank you very much!



I'm sure our experience was an anomaly, and it's probably very helpful for many couples, but I'm forever soured on the idea now, I'm afraid.

 

[zoebartlett]

Both my husband and I are non-practicing Catholics and we didn''t get married in the Church, so it wasn''t really an option for us. We could have gone to a regular counselor, and I actually suggested it to my husband, but he wasn''t into the idea so I never looked into it further. I do think it can be helpful to work through some things before you get married, and I know a lot of my friends who''ve gone to pre-marital counseling thought it was valuable.

 

[caribqueen]

We did (we're getting married in the Episcopalian church) and we had to have it "approved" by the local Bishop because FI was married and divorced before. The beginning of it was a struggle because FI thought he was being beat up on and felt like they were focusing in on him because of his past marital status. But they weren't.

Since we're getting married in a different state than we live, it was also pretty complicated at first because the Priest who did our counseling is not the one marrying us. But whe was extremely understanding, enlightening, we learned a lot and also got to hear from her about her own life experiences and marriage. We used the book, "The Marriage Journey." We had six one-hour sessions.

 

[megumic]

Thanks to everyone for sharing your experiences! I''m not sure how we''ll proceed, but I think a few sessions can''t hurt - especially since my family is presenting us with some challenges at the moment.