Premarital Counseling - the Best Marriage Advice

Spend some quality time with your fiancé… and a counselor. It might save your marriage down the road.

When you want to get your driver’s license, you must first take a class and learn the skills necessary to drive on the open road. When it comes to obtaining a marriage license, premarital counseling is just as essential in order to learn the skills necessary to navigate the difficult but rewarding roads of life together as one. Professionals agree that premarital counseling is the best marriage advice a young couple can receive, as it can help couples to honestly evaluate their relationship and avoid many of the pitfalls that have ruined numerous relationships over the years.

What is Premarital Counseling?

Premarital counseling, or pre-marriage counseling, occurs before the vows are exchanged and a couple is pronounced, “Man and wife.” It is a time where two individuals interested in marriage come together and discover their differences, similarities, goals and expectations.

Sometimes when two people fall in love, the emotions they feel are overwhelming to the point that they can cloud rational judgments and hinder couples from understanding the issues that may become conflicts later on in married life. The more that you know about your partner before taking the plunge into marriage, the more prepared you will be to anticipate and minimize future problems caused by differences in the life values, goals, and dispositions of your spouse.

Who Offers Premarital Counseling?

Many marriage advice specialists offer pre marital counseling services as well. These specialists can be found in a variety of places, from your local church to the yellow pages. Be sure to choose a premarital counseling service that has a proven record of accomplishment. A good service should be able to provide you with a long list of referrals from satisfied clients and should be able to outline the curriculum or techniques that will be used during your pre-marriage counseling sessions.

Who Needs Premarital Counseling?

Professionals say that virtually every couple can benefit from premarital counseling. This recommendation is supported by research, which shows that the marriage advice received in such counseling can improve couples’ chances of avoiding divorce by 30%. In addition, pre-marital counseling has been proven to improve the general health of couples’ marriages and to make the pre-wedding planning period significantly less stressful.

How Much Does Premarital Counseling Cost?

The fees for premarital counseling can range anywhere between $20 and hundreds of dollars, depending on the counseling service with which you choose to work. Most couples spend an average of $60-$100 per one-hour session, and have between three and seven sessions prior to their marriage. Many states offer a discount on the cost of a marriage license to couples that provide a certificate stating that they have successfully completed pre-marriage counseling.

How Can Premarital Counseling Prevent Divorce?

First and foremost, premarital counseling helps to prevent divorce by giving couples a safe place to resolve any conflicts that may arise, due to personality differences of diverging life goals and values. A good counselor will ask revealing questions of the couples in their care to help facilitate the conflict resolution process that occurs naturally when disagreements between couples are brought out into the open. It is perfectly normal for couples to have distinct differences between them and pre-marriage advice on how to resolve these differences is a key ingredient in staving off a painful divorce down the road.

In addition to teaching conflict resolution skills, premarital counselors often give couples further teaching on subjects such as finances, sex, children and in-laws. This information can help couples discuss and learn about situations that might otherwise bring a great deal of friction and conflict into the marriage further down the road.

How to Proceed

Now that the importance of premarital counseling has been explained, couples are encouraged to find a counseling service in your area that can meet your needs within your budget. Many couples choose to undergo pre-marriage counseling at their local church where the cost of such counseling can be close to zero. If this is not the case for you, a simple online query using your favorite search engine will provide links to several different options within your community. Talk to a few pre-marriage counselors before making your final selection. Make sure he or she is someone that both of you feel comfortable and safe with. Obtaining the proper marriage advice before saying “I do” is the best possible gift you and your future spouse can give to one another. Making an investment in your marriage is a wise decision that will reap great benefits in the years to come. With divorce as common as it is in society today, premarital counseling can serve as one of the main factors that can help you and your spouse to beat the odds and avoid becoming yet another statistic in the modern day tragedy of divorce.