Premarital Counseling: How It Works & What to Expect

Premarital counseling supports couples to build a healthy and solid foundation ahead of the long-term commitment of marriage.¹ It also helps couples identify areas of conflict in the relationship and provide effective tools to address those areas to prevent them from becoming serious issues in the future. Premarital counseling can help couples regardless of their gender, age, race, or religion.

What Is Premarital Counseling?

Premarital counseling is a type of couples therapy that helps partners have a healthier marriage before it begins by setting realistic expectations, improving their communication, and working on conflict resolution. It addresses issues such as finances, affection and sexuality, family of origin, strengths and issues, spiritual beliefs, and values. These conversations prepare partners for when problems emerge down the road.²

6 Reasons to Attend Premarital Counseling

Premarital counseling is a time for partners to engage on a deeper level about strategies for healthy communication, as well as issues that may come up later in their marriage.

Here are six reasons to attend pre-marriage counseling:

1. Discuss Expectations Around Marriage

It isn’t uncommon for couples to feel dissatisfaction in their marriage because of a decline in positive behavior after marriage. Setting realistic expectations about marriage means that the relationship will require frequent deposits in order to flourish and remain healthy.³

Another important expectation is the roles of partners during marriage. Will they have an egalitarian marriage? Or a traditional one? What are their expectations around work, career, and parenting? Couples need to have these crucial conversations to go into marriage with realistic expectations.

2. Practice Healthy Communication

Effective communication in a relationship calls for active listening from each partner to truly understand what the other person is saying and their inner experience. Unfortunately, many couples (especially during relationship conflict) are thinking of their response as the other person is speaking, so they are not really paying attention to the conversation. Premarital counseling teaches couples active listening skills, a key skill for healthy communication.

3. Learn Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution refers to giving couples tools for conflict management, like keeping complaints and requests specific. For example, “When X happened, I felt Y, but I wanted Z.” Listening generously, validating the other person’s feelings, and seeing things through their eyes are crucial when there is a disagreement.

Also, conflict resolution involves teaching couples to claim responsibility in conflict. As an exercise, each partner might say, “What I learn from this is ___” and take accountability for their part in the conflict. For example, a partner might say, “My part is: I didn’t tell you that I will be late coming home from work. Next time, I will give you a call so I don’t keep you waiting.”

4. Discuss Values & Needs

Couples examine their needs around freedom, autonomy in the relationship, inclusion, exclusion, self-identity, responsibility, religious beliefs, etc. With the support of a trained counselor, a discussion is focused around the issues that couples face as they enter marriage. A couple would agree or disagree to certain statements, but the main goal is to listen to the themes and needs that’re expressed behind each choice.

These statements might be something like: “It doesn’t matter which one of us makes more money since it’s all ours anyway.” Or, “Those who are paying should have the final approval for the wedding plans.” Partners would talk openly and discuss those statements.

5. Explore Family of Origin Patterns

Emotional patterns are handed down in families just as physical traits are. In other words, a person doesn’t only inherit the shape of their face from their parents, they also may inherit a debilitating anxiety or a strange obsession, which can affect important relationships in the future.

Therapists trained in family systems use a family diagram or genogram, which reveals patterns of behavior through different generations of the family. Couples identify healthy and unhealthy patterns in their families and decide which patterns they choose to keep and what they want to change.⁴

6. Address Challenging Topics

Issues like finances, sex, and children can be difficult to communicate. Sometimes partners feel that they’re going around in circles without reaching a resolution. Therefore, it is recommended to have a safe and a neutral therapist to guide the conversation and examine the feelings and underlying needs—which leads to empathy and understanding among partners.

Here are a couple challenging topics you might discuss in pre-marriage counseling:

• Financial management: couples bring into a romantic relationship a belief around how their financial life will work. Each partner’s beliefs are often created subconsciously, influenced by their families, friends, society, and gender-related expectations, but rarely are these expectations talked about.³
• Intimacy, Sexuality, & Affection: talking about sexual expectations is crucial so that couples have a realistic expectation of their sex life in the long haul. There is a lot of relevant information to cover including desire, expectations, and sex drive.^5,6

Premarital Counseling Examples

Premarital counseling is a time to explore the unique sticking points that a couple is facing. This may include working on active listening or thinking through parenting styles for a blended family.

Here are three premarital counseling examples:

1. Active Listening, Creating a Couple’s Wish List

A couple in their late twenties comes for premarital counseling. They are given a worksheet and asked to write a wish list of the things that they need from each other, then they are asked to state how they would feel if this need is met by their partner.

She says that she wishes he would be more social by joining her when she goes out with her family or friends. He says he wishes she could be more organized around the house. He would feel calmer if she worked on her organization.⁷

The therapist asks them to do a three-step exercise:

• State their wish clearly and calmly to their partner and make eye contact
• Say how they would feel if this need is met by their partner
• Each partner repeats what they heard from the other

The therapist explains that couples who are more assertive and say what they want have a better and a stronger relationship. Additionally, active listening is a skill that helps couples feel heard and more connected to each other over time.⁷

2. Premarital Counseling For Step Families

A couple who both have children from previous marriages seek premarital counseling to address their new blended family. Even though the couple is harmonious and have healthy communication skills, they are concerned that their “couple-ness” will not translate into “family-ness.” They seek premarital counseling to work out how to approach parenting decisions.⁷

When the therapist meets with them, he explains that getting married for the second time can be a huge strength. He says that they both have realistic expectations around what marriage is actually like versus wearing rose-colored glasses that idealize marriage. He also highlights their strong commitment to make it work and apply the wisdom they acquired from their previous experience.

The therapist asks them how they make joint decisions regarding their parenting. They do not see eye to eye when it comes to their children attending church activities. The therapist asks them, “What is your ideal scenario, and what are the motivations behind it?”

Partners reflect on their different views, then the male partner sees that the meaning beyond his wife’s desire to attend church activities is a need for everyone to be together. This creates empathy and understanding around their differences.⁷

3. Premarital Counseling For Conflicted Couples

A couple in their early forties came to the session seeking premarital counseling. She reports that she would like him to help more with house chores. Her partner wasn’t looking at her when she was speaking. Therapist pointed out his non-verbal communication and asked him to tune into her visually, too.

The therapist asks the male partner to summarize what he heard her say. He starts defending himself by saying: “I hear I don’t help around the house, but I do.” The therapist stops him and explains that the exercise is to listen, even if we don’t agree. The therapist asks the male partner to say what he heard and re-assures him that he’ll get a chance to express himself.⁷

The therapist highlights that the goal of active listening is to tune in to what each partner is saying and not rush to respond. He emphasizes that it’s hard, but it is a useful skill. The therapist coaches the couple to practice active listening, then he moves on to praise their commitment to the relationship by seeking counseling and listening and not reacting to one another.⁷

Types of Premarital Counseling/Therapy

There are many different types of premarital counseling with different modalities. It is important to talk about your goals of therapy and issues with your premarital counselor to learn together what modality may be a good fit for your relationship.

Gottman Method

The Gottman Method focuses on building friendship, resolving conflict, intention setting, and minimizing the frequency of criticism, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt. The emphasis of the Gottman Method is on building love maps and connections as a partnership.

Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT)

EFT is based on attachment theory and building healthy adult attachment by dismantling intense negative emotions. Couples learn healthy ways to manage conflict and difficult emotions in their marriage.

Psychodynamic Couples Therapy

Psychodynamic couples therapy helps couples understand their own and their partner’s fears, hopes and dreams that motivate them to behave the way they do. This is helpful to know going into a marriage so the couple can learn ways to complement these differences and find ways to stay connected in the face of disagreement.

For Further Reading

• Best Books for a Healthy Marriage
• Best Books About Self Improvement
• Podcasts all about couples counseling and relationships
• Lasting App – A self-guided couples counseling tool to use alongside marriage & couples counseling

Premarital Counseling Infographics