5 Reasons To Say I Do To Premarital Counseling

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If you're expecting wedding bells in your future, you owe it to yourself to take a break from visions of lace and buttercream to focus on your relationship with your future spouse. While it may seem that seeking relationship counseling before you are even married is jumping the gun, the truth is that premarital counseling can actually help you prevent problems in your marriage before they occur. According to Health Research Funding, couples who participated in counseling before they got married were 30% more likely to have a successful marriage. Here are five reasons why premarital counseling will make your marriage stronger. 

Discover Problem Areas

You're still in the honeymoon stages of your relationship, so it might come as quite a shock when conflict suddenly arises. Premarital counseling can help you prepare for that by identifying areas of potential conflict before you unexpectedly find them yourself. 

Your relationship counseling may give you a written worksheet or have a conversation about your feelings on certain topics. These may include politics, religion, expectations for your relationship, money handling strategies, sexual expectations, and even opinions on parenting. You and your partner will then have the opportunity to express your opinions to each other and talk about the areas where you might disagree. 

Learn How to Fight

You and your partner are going to experience conflict at some point in your relationship, so it's important to know how to handle it. You may be surprised to learn that there is a right way and a wrong way to fight with your spouse. 

Your relationship counselor will teach you the guidelines for expressing disagreement without doing emotional damage to your partner. You'll learn how to talk about your differences while continuing to respect the other person, and you'll learn rules for fighting like no name calling. 

Every couple fights, but some do it intelligently and others do it in a way that can fatally damage a relationship. Premarital counseling can put you in the group that does it right. 

Know Each Other's Minds

You've probably talked a lot about your future, but do you fully understand each other's expectations for your life together? For example, are you expecting to live in the same house throughout your married life? Do you think you'll stay in the same town? 

What are your career aspirations, and how much stress will they put on the relationship? Are you expecting to work 60 hours a week until you've reached your career goals, or are you planning to put a cap on work hours to give time to your marriage? 

Do you want children? How many and how soon?

You should know these things about yourself and each other before you commit to marriage. 

Learn to Express Love

Chances are that you and your intended spouse give and receive love in different ways. You may see pitching in to help with a big project as the deepest expression of love while your partner wants to get little gifts now and then to show that you care. 

Some people feel it's important to express love verbally, while others believe that physical closeness shows love. 

You and your partner need to understand each other's feelings about love so you can adequately give each other what you need.

Solidify Your Commitment

Premarital counseling is not always easy. Sometimes it can be very difficult as you admit your faults and learn where you and your partner feel differently about certain topics. However, once you've put in the effort to truly understand the step you are taking by pledging your lives to each other, your commitment will seem even more real and even more important. 

Relationship counseling before marriage makes a lot of sense. It will help you to prepare for struggles and challenges in your future, and it will give you the tools you need to make your marriage a success. 

1 November 2016