S/O: Premarital Counseling Topics

lunarsongbird

What type of things do you discuss in premarital counseling?

For those that are married- Were there questions/answers that surprised you?

Are there topics that you and your SO struggle to communicate about?

DanieKA

ETA: this got way long. Sorry.

Hey there stranger! I actually haven't gone/am not married but I just wanted to say I think it's great you guys are doing it! We plan to go to a marriage counselor for a session or two before we get married (not doing it through the church b/c we aren't getting married in a church) and I've been thinking of issues/topics as well. I can't wait to hear what people ask about/were asked about. I guess the big ones are obvious:

Money: How do you guys plan to manage your finances. Which one is teh saveer and which one is the spender (if either fall into those categories) who is expected to "provide" financially and if both, what percentage or split evenly. Who handles the bills, etc?

Religion: Are both/neither of you religious. How important is that in your life. Do you accept the other person's beliefs if they don't line up with yours. How will you raise your children?

Children: How many (you'd be surprised at how big a deal this becomes. We want "2 or 3" can become a real issue when he wants 2 and you want 3 and you don't feel like your family is complete. A lot of resentment can come from this). How do you discipline them? What do you want in terms of schooling (public, private, homeschool). When to have them, etc. 

Household responsibilities: What's the expectation of each partner. If both work what chores fall on the wife/husband. Is the wife expected to have dinner on the table everyday at 7, even if she works as well. Is the husband expected to handle all of the handyman/lawn maintenance, etc?

Fighting and disagreements: Some people need to learn how to fight and how to deal with disagreements. Who should be the one to compromise and why? What issues are worth it and which ones shouldn't cause huge rifts? 

Lunar, I think in your case you guys might want to talk about friendships/relationships with members of the opposite sex. How comfortable you are/aren't with it. What are some fair compromises and boundaries that each of you can come to that respects your partner, but let's the other person feel like they have some freedom with their friendships/aren't on a leash. 

For FI and I, I know we will discuss fidelity and the future. FI as never cheated on me and doesn't have a "history of cheating" per se, but I do know he cheated on his former FI several years ago. It's always bothered me. One of my biggest fears is that he'll get bored with me after 7.8, 9 years and look for that excitement again. He's never proven to be anything but trustworthy (and totally upfront/honest) to me, but it's something I definitely want to discuss. 

These topics are hard. There's no handbook, but I think you're already ahead of the curve discussing them in depth, with a professional before you get married!

ETA Agian: I thought about something else. Not many people want to talk about the worst case scenarios. Or bring up issues that they don't think they'll be faced with (infidelity, falling out of love, difficult times...it's foolish, but some people won't want to) and like I said, you can't possibly prepare for or foresee every bad thing or strained moment in a marriage before hand, but maybe you can put a plan into place (with suggestions/help from your religious leader/secular counselor) to deal with difficult times. A plan to either go to counseling, or walk away to cool off before discussing the issue, or anything like that. Something so that when a problem or issue does arise, and it always will, you at least know how to start tackling it. i dunno, if this one even makes sense, but I hope you get the gist.

doubleSS07

We haven't gone to or discussed counseling but I just wanted to add that for me personally I know that two topis that will come up is infidelity and the consequences of it and things centered around finances.  I think that I am so hyper focused on these issues because they are exactly what caused my parents divorce.

We have also seen up close and personal the horrendous choices made by his sister and her (for lack of a better term) baby daddy financially.  He's lost everything to the economic downturn in construction and investing in a ponzi scheme.  To this day he still believes his money is going to come through and they live like there is nothing wrong.  We are horrified at this because  they have a 10 yo child to take care of and the BD wont even go out and look for a job..but I guess at 65 who'd want to right.  UGH! 

I think things like this, economic strife, bankruptcy, loss of job, etc. are things people don't think to talk about when the money is flowing.  He is shortselling his house so we've had opportunities to discuss what we would do and what we would expect our partner to do if faced with a situation like his sisters and luckily we are on the same page.  Finances is one of the top reasons for divorce so I'd like to be sure we are communicating about it the best way possible.

redheadtmk

We just started our counseling three weeks ago so there is a lot for us to discuss yet. We talked about our biggest fight. The purpose was to discuss how we fight, compromise, resolve issues, and to make sure there are no lingering issues that may come up in the future.

 Another big thing we are still talking about is expectations. What things do you expect from marriage that you may not have realized if not forced to think about it. Random things such as I expect my FI to go to the doctor when needed and take care of himself. (within reason of course) His parents did not always take him when he should have gone as a child. In high school he broke a bone in his foot and never went to the dr. I expect him to get yearly physicals and not ignore ailments that should be seen by a dr. His family also did not make a big deal of holidays. I expect him to make them a big deal for our children.

We also had to make a budget of our combined bills and income, and a chores list to decide how to divide the household duties.

Another big thing we talked about was our childhood and our families. Are our parents affectionate, how was communication in our household, how comfortable are we with talking about our feelings.

ravenray

I talked about this in the other thread but I'll sum up.

What type of things do you discuss in premarital counseling?
Family, responsibility (house hold and life in general), money, religion, relationships with the other sex and friendships. This last one I thought was important and even though some of you won't agree our priest cautioned against having close friends of the opposite sex as when times are tough in our marriage we might turn to them for comfort and that could cause big problems.  He also stressed that it is important for us to have friend on our own and spend time with those friends, especially for FI. Father said that as guys get old they sometimes lose their friends and end up feeling really lonely and he doesn’t want this to happen to FI.

For those that are married- Were there questions/answers that surprised you?
The question about who would take care of our parents surprised me.

Are there topics that you and your SO struggle to communicate about?
His family.  He is really sensitive about them because they are really irritating sometimes.  He doesn't want to hear anything bad about them most of the time. it is difficult for me because they piss me off a lot and I want to talk about it.  I still need to find someone to bitch about his family to so I don't cause him to be upset with me.
Also money.  Talking about money stresses me out for some reason.   Most likely because I am not very good with it so we work on that only doing little bits at a time.