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Is Premarital Counseling or Education for You?

     The short answer is a resounding YES. Getting married without pre-marriage prep is like starting a business or any important venture without preparing. A significant number of marriages end in divorce, and half of those that endure are truly happy in the long run. Many happy engaged couples assume that they won't be contributing to these statistics. But, if you just wing it and count on your luck to make your marriage a success, your odds are only one in four. There is another way though.

     Most couples just don't realize that good, skill-based pre-marriage education or classes can reduce the risk of divorce by up to thirty percent and lead to a significantly happier marriage, according to marriage research. It can also reduce the stress of the pre-wedding period. Just a little effort now can make your odds a whole lot better over the long run. You want to do everything you can to ensure that your dreams of a great marriage and a great life are realized.

     Pre-marriage preparation is based on the reality that it's important to strengthen your relationship and prepare constructively for future challenges and conflicts that everyone will inevitably face at some point in their marriage, now while you have so much fresh positive energy in your relationship. Don't stick your head in the sand. The research shows that there is a window of opportunity during the year before the wedding and the six months or so after when couples get the optimum benefit from marriage preparation. Later, under stress, negative habits and relationship patterns may become established and be much harder to resolve.

     Premarital counseling will help a couple to identify and communicate about their fears, desires, beliefs, values, dreams, needs, and other issues and baggage that was previously avoided or denied, never discussed before.

     Couples now face more demands and have fewer supports than ever before. The typical complex marriage - managing two careers while rearing children - really requires that couples have very strong, well-established abilities to communicate, resolve issues, maintain mutuality and set goals. Without this foundation, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by stress and time pressures. Problems can intrude much more easily than most couples realize. As much as it's important to come to terms with unrealistically positive expectations, those who grew up with divorced or unhappily married parents may find that they have unacknowledged and unexplored expectations that their marriage, too, may become unhappy. Marriage preparation functions as an immunization that boosts your capacity to handle potential difficulties. Couples need every advantage to succeed in today's marriages.

What Is Pre-Marriage Preparation and Education?

     Most commonly, those couples who do receive some premarital counseling get it from their Peers or Elders. Professional premarital counseling can range from one or two meetings to an extended series of sessions. Sometimes an assessment inventory and skills training are included, often they are not. The content and amount of service depends on the orientation of the counselor and what you ask for. Often it doesn't cover all the preparation that couples need.

     Marriage preparation classes or workshops are an alternative or supplementary approach to educating engaged couples and newlyweds in the skills, habits, attitudes, and enrichment techniques that research shows lead to happy, enduring marriages. Such marriage preparation programs are education, not therapy. You might consider them in many ways analogous to career counseling. They address the normal issues and challenges that all couples face in the course of their marriage. Some people think that marriage preparation is well on the way to becoming as commonplace as driver's training or test preparation.

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