Wedding Customs & Traditions Forum

Pre-Marriage Counseling??

Not sure if this question falls into this category but here it goes! My FI and I are not getting married in a church (we were both raised Catholic but do not attend church regularly). I have seen some talk about pre-marriage counseling (similiar to the pre cana classes). We have been together 8 years, lived together for 3 and we are both so excited to get married but I was wondering anyone's thoughts on counseling before hand and whether they think it's worth it.

Thanks!

Re: Pre-Marriage Counseling??

  • We didn't do any pre-marriage counseling but there are days I wish we had.  Not because we're poor communicators or haven't discussed a lot of the big stuff, but because I'm sure there are topics we've missed.  If nothing else, it helps you open the lines of communication over things that you may not even have thought of because they aren't pressing at. this. moment.

    To use cmgr's example, we've discussed kids, jobs, and money... but I've never considered what faith we'd raise our kid.  We also have strong (and opposing) feelings on public school vs. private schools.  Communication and discussion on tough topics is always a good thing,
  • We had pre-marital counseling.  We both realy enjoyed it and were able to talk about some things that we hadn't thought of.  We also went through a book together before we got engaged called "Things I wish I knew before getting married".  It was really helpful too.
  • We bought some pre-marriage counseling books (one of them was 1001 questions to ask before you get married) and spent a few weeks reading/talking about them. If anything had come up we would have gone to an actual counselor, but we had already had talked about 95% of the stuff and the rest we were on the same page, just hadn't discussed it yet.

    But I highly suggest books or a counselor.

    Planning Bio
    Married 9/15/11

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    *This is Not Legal Advice*
  • It also depends on what state you get married in. In Florida, if you are a florida resident you have to show that you had pre-marriage counseling or you will have a 3 day waiting period. In addition your license is cheaper if you had pre-marriage counseling. So you might want to check the state you are getting married in about this.
  • Schatzi13,

    I don't know if these will help you, but here you go...
    1001 Questions
    Look before you leap

    Planning Bio
    Married 9/15/11

    image
    *This is Not Legal Advice*
  • My FI and I are currently in pre-marital counseling and LOVING it. (That sounds so cheesy...but it's true.) A good counselor will ask you questions that you haven't thought to ask yourselves or each other.  Even if you've been living together and whatnot for a long time...marriage is different.  Each of you are bringing in a whoooole long list of expectations that you might not even realize exists, and your expectations from your fiance's are going to be different. Marriage is a very big deal...divorce sucks. Nobody wants to go through it.  Going to good premarital counseling will help you identify, avoid, and work out issues that could cause major problems down the road. Do it do it do it!!
  • My fiance and I are getting married at his church, and one of the requirements before we can get married in that church is for us to attend a 6 week premarital counseling class. I'm very glad that we are because this may sound bad, but I think there are some things we need to talk about and it'll be good to do this during counseling.
    I've had married couples tell me to be sure and do the premarital counseling, so I do think it's a good idea.
  • Thanks so much for the advice everyone! You think you have talked about everything but I'm sure there are things we haven't talked about at length. @CMGr, we didn't leave the CAtholic church we just haven't attended on a regular basis. My FI wasn't raised in the church through confirmation and I was but we have discussed raising children (I just didn't want you to think we left becuase we didn't agree with the faith!)
    So my next question would be, where do you find someone who specializes in premarital counseling? Would it be someone who regularly does couples counseling??
  • You might look at your local Parish... I'm not Catholic, and I don't know how it would look if you don't plan on getting married in a church, but I do know that there are alot of priests who are also legit (i.e. college educated... this what they do for a living, beyond the general "serving God" calling) councelors and they might help you.  Any place that does marriage counceling would probably do premarial counciling.  Also think about if you'd want to try a Christian counselor.  For me and my FH our faith so intertwined with the idea of marriage that if our pastor didn't offer it, we would be looking for a Christian councelor. 
    My FH actually gave me a "couples" book before we were engaged that we really enjoyed & benifited from called, "The languague of Love and Respect".  Go to the local Library and check out their section of relationship advice books, pick up a few and check it out, worst case they are bad and it didn't cost you a dime, besides taxes and a little bit of your time. 
  • I have never heard of any couple who was ready for marriage say that premarital counselling was a waste of time and they wouldn't do it again... quite the opposite, I've heard everyone love it and recommend it to everyone.

    we've done premarital counselling and would recommend it. as long as you trust your counselor, I think it would be beneficial. It doesn't mean you have to agree with everything the counselor says (FI and I have had discussions of "oh, I don't agree with this advice or what he said about this topic because... what do you think?", which are also very valuable conversations to have)
    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • We did ours already and we're about to take a love and respect class with our church. It hits so many topics that perhaps you haven't discussed already. We had a lot of fun with ours, I really recommend it for everyone.
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