Pre -Marriage Counseling: TO DO or NOT to DO?

[YoursTruly]

So I think even though it has a negative connotation, counseling can be an enabler towards a great marriage. Are any other BDW brides going to pre-marital counseling or any past brides participated and found it helpful and want to chime in??

[katken]

We're doing pre-marital through a private counseling service that my church suggested. Although we don't have to go through it, we decided to do it.

 

So far we have taken an extensive assessment and our next session we're going to go over how each of answered the questions and see if there are things we need to talk about. The name of the assessment is PREPARE. It covered a lot of topics. I think it's a good starting point. I'll let you know how the next session goes!

[samanthag]

Very interesting!

I was thinking about this very thing and feel that it's excellent idea.

In fact I plan to ask FI what he thinks about it...

 

I'm curious to hear from others who have been through pre-marriage counseling.

[ameliamae]

I am definitely doing premarital counseling. I figure, I've never been married before, so I might as well do what I can to start it off right. My fiance isn't too thrilled, thinks we don't need it, but hes going anyway I think that there are things we don't think about, and we need to make sure all our ducks are in a row before we take the plunge. There's my two sense.

[luckygirl]

I know of friends that have done it and thought it was great. They were also people that should be doing the counseling before hand kwim? We have not gone through counseling but have talked extensively about how things can go wrong and what to look out for and what is important in a relationship. We've both been married before to people we should not have been with and we both took the time out to reflect on what happened and how to avoid repeating past mistakes. We also both had marriage counseling during previous marriages and were able to take that information and make sure we were proceeding in the right direction in our relationship. However, if you have not had such experience I feel counseling is a wonderful tool to focus on what it takes to have a positive relationship. Communication is the key in any relationship.

[Hartyt509]

I know people who have done it and it worked out great for them but they ended up marrying other people lol

 

I'm not doing it I've already said to FI this is me, we've lived together long enough lol I'm not going to change so if thats a prob the door is just behind you lmao He's the same we both know its going to be difficult, nothing worth it isn't but I'm a firm believer in if its meant to be it will be.

[KatyKo]

I believe that FI and I are going to participate in some counseling. FI's parents go to a wonderful church and their Preacher has offered to work with us. I am actually not looking forward to it, but FI and I both feel like we want nothing more than to be happy together forever, so if this is something that will help that, we are all for it.

 

I have talked to quite a few couples who have gone through it and although some of it was not fun, they are glad they did it. Good luck!

[klopez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by YoursTruly So I think even though it has a negative connotation, counseling can be an enabler towards a great marriage. Are any other BDW brides going to pre-marital counseling or any past brides participated and found it helpful and want to chime in??

What a coincidence..my fiance and I just did a weekend marriage prep retreat this weekend. It's not exactly counselling as there were 30 other couples present but it does help to discuss things you haven't talked about in a long time or perhaps never thought about. It really helps reinforce whether or not you are on the same page.

Basically how it worked was like this...there were a bunch of topics. The priest would talk about each one individually and then there were "team couples" who would talk about personal events in their married life to demonstrate the topic (couples who have been married for years and attended that same retreat previously.) At the end of each topic there was a questionnaire that you and your fiance fill out separately...all containing the same questions. When you're done you exchange papers to see what the other wrote in private and then you talk about it.

We were forced to do this in order to get our marriage blessed through the catholic church when we return, and although Saturday was an extremely LONG day I think it was worth it. Alot of the stuff we discussed privately we had already talked about throughout our relationship, however, I did find that there were some things we never thought to address and it helped to get the ball rolling. All in all, it was a good experience and I would recommend it

[Jess]

We just decided we are going to do this through the Catholic Church even though we may not get married in a Church by a Priest. My parents told us how great it was and how much you truly learn about eachother. They did have couples leave the main retreat though which is kind of scary. I guess they talk about a lot of subjects that couples may not talk about without the counseling.

[YoursTruly]

U girls are the bestest!!!