In the Department of Things I Discover While Looking Up Other Things, I came across a pre-wedding checklist which listed “Attend pre-marital counseling with your fiance” as casually as hiring the caterer or photographer.
I thought pre-marital counseling was for people who knew they were already in trouble, and that possibly they were making a mistake even to be considering marriage in the first place. Now they make it sound like it’s routine. It seems that any couple that most needed counseling would be the most clueless or the most reluctant to go.
Is this necessary, or are they just making a “here’s something you might want to consider” suggestion? Are counselors trying to drum up new business and trying to get on the “Perfect Wedding” bandwagon?
This isn’t intended to be an IMHO thread, although it might wind up there.
It’s more or less required by some churches if you are going to be married there. The idea is to make sure that couples have talked about the big issues, like children and finances and so forth before they are married. Sometimes there are questionnaires to fill out and then the results are compared and discussed. We were asked to do this by the Catholic church when our marriage was “blessed.” It was harmless, but slightly annoying as we had already been married for 15 years. I can’t see how it would hurt any couple.
I had a couple of friends who were planning to get married. Since we were close, I had no qualms about asking her personal questions like, “Does he want kids? What are your financial goals? Are you sexually compatable? What do you expect out of marriage?”
She had to think hard before she could answer these questions. I was surprised to find that they had not sat down and discussed these very serious issues, assuming that because they were in love, all problems would just work themselves out.
I think the goal of pre-marital counselling is to make sure couples are on the same page-- that they don’t have unrealistic expectations, and they both want the same things. More importantly, it’s to ensure that they’ve seriously discussed them. A surprising number of couples don’t.
See, that’s what I don’t understand – how do you even get to the point where you’re discussing marriage before you know whether you want to have kids and all that sort of Major Life Choice stuff?
I guess I’m just surprised that there are couples like you describe, Lissa.
Mr. Wanna & I did the premarital counseling thing before we got hitched. We both thought that parts of it were very valuable, especially a workbook we did that showed us how much in agreement we are on many of the “issues” of marriage, like finances, goals, family relationships, etc.
When you know that you’re very compatible on the big stuff, it helps you not get your undies in a wad so much over a little tiff here & there, so I think that’s of value to us.
FWIW, Mr. Wanna had been married before, and his first wife & he were told they were completely incompatible by their premarital counselor. They went ahead anyway, of course, and had a thoroughly miserable marriage & several messed-up-for-life kids.
YMMV.
I believe it’s because people think serious conversations like that take away some of the magic of being in love. They want a Hollywood romance in which nothing else matters but their feelings for one another, and everything will work itself out in the end.
I’m consistently amazed by the number of couples who don’t communicate. It’s always been my belief that you shouldn’t marry someone unless they’re your best friend. So many couples love one another, but don’t really* like *one another. Once the passion wears off, they find they don’t really have much in common.
A friend of mine is getting divorced. He’s been married for more than 15 years, and has spent the last five in and out of martial and individual counseling.
His counselor said that many many people go through the brief counseling the church, but since they are already in the process of moving towards a wedding, the counseling isn’t adquate. He recommends 10-12 sessions, but at $100 a pop, few people want to invest that time. So they end up where my friend is - five years of counseling later, paying attorney bills.
Then again, Brainiac4 and I had no counseling and are pretty happy, but I had a previous bad marriage, so we discussed things like kids and money before we got serious.
I don’t think many people, when they are madly in love, want to think that love won’t be enough and want to go through putting their relationship under the lens of counseling (and a prenup). I’ve become jaded and have come to the conclusion that if you can’t handle and aren’t willing to invest in counseling and a prenup, that’s a bad sign going in.
Really? I’d guess that more couples than not don’t actually discuss those issues much at all. Often, each person assumes that the other wants the same things so that they don’t need to be discussed. That, or the discussions are along these lines:
“I want kids. Do you?”
“Yeah.”
Not discussed: how many kids, when they get to start arriving, how they’re going to be raised, whether mom (or dad) is going to stay home full time, and other important issues.
Counseling forces the discussions. That said, my wife and I didn’t do pre-marital counseling, and we’re still married.
Just an anecdote:
When my husband and I went to talk to the pastor (neither of us belonged to a church back then) of the church where we got married, he asked how long we had dated. We told him 7 years, on and off (different colleges). We started dating when were 17.
His reply was, “oh, well–you know all about one another! You should be fine.”
Ha.
At 24, I didn’t think to press for counselling-and I wish I had. We most likely would never have married. We have 3 bright, healthy kids and life doesn’t suck, but it’s not like we wake up smiling. We planned on separating in March, but that might not happen.
My take on the issue: EVERY couple should do at least 3 sessions–with homework. I doubt most couples even consider premarital counselling. It’s a shame.
My brother did the whole formal wedding, and the pre-canna [premarital counseling stuff] and was divorced in 9 months.
mrAru and I wandered into town hall, got a license and list of justices of the peace, found one at home and open and got hitched. I had to borrow a ring for the ceremony because I dont wear hand jewelry [and neither does mrAru, we both have mechanical backgrounds] Only problem we have had in over 15 years of marriage was convincing the JoP to omit the obey and cleve unto only from the ceremony, and whittle it down to love and honor. OK, and the hailstorm at the SCA coronation event that was our official honeymoon, it damaged our car =(
[well, we both take our word seriously and refuse to use boilerplate if we cant absolutely promise to obey or cleve unto only. So far it has worked=)]
The pre-canna for the Catholic church is horrible (my marriage lasted 18 months). The real problem with church counseling - in my experience - is that it is brief and far too late in the process. We went through ours in the summer and were married two months later - it needs to be done months and month ahead - before the invites get printed - it can’t be completely in group (which is what ours was), there have to be several hours of just the couple and the counselor, and maybe a few hours of each individual and the counselor.
Bad premarital counseling is worthless.
When Brainiac4 and I adopted, the homestudy process to adopt a child was much more what pre-marital counseling should be - three days of group workshops and probably another four or five hours with the social worker talking about our hopes as parents, how we would discipline, etc.
I applied for a marriage license a couple of days ago. I had to sign something that said I had read this little booklet, so I skimmed over it. It was mostly about how to go about getting divorced, and what kinds of issues might come up at that time.
DeHusband and I had pre-counseling before we got married, at the insistence of the pastor. Basically it taught us how to argue without it degenerating into personal insults abounding. So, now knowing how to fight and not permanently wound each other, we’ve been together 12 years.
I’d go through it, simply because I am rather anti-divorce and I’d like to make sure there’s nothing important I’m overlooking. Like Lissa, I’m a firm believer in discussing the important issues upfront before making any wedding plans, but not everyone does.
Something which happened to a friend of the family reinforces this. She and her fiance were to be married in a few months, with invitations sent out, etc. when she broached the idea of premarital counseling to him. His reply was that he didn’t want to because if anything went wrong, it would be her fault. He wasn’t joking. As a result, far along as they were in the planning, she brought everything to a screeching halt and cancelled the wedding.
I recommend premarital counseling to anyone who tells me they’re getting married. I’m not sure if I’ve actually convinced anyone yet, though. Mr. Spry and I had known each other for about 6 years, been dating for 3 or 4, and everyone said we seemed very well suited for marriage to each other. Still, for our church it was a requirement, and I was in favor of it any way, so we went to a one-day seminar. Our church usually did the counseling in a several weeks, meet with the pastor one on one and together as a couple format. I didn’t want to do it that way, though, b/c the pastor and Mr. Spry were good friends, golf buddies even. They were both able to see my point about not wanting to do premarital counseling w/ my husband and one of his best friends…
Honestly, I found the counseling session a pretty miserable experience, but I’m glad I did it. One thing I realized is that I could NEVER have made it through a whole day of discussing that type of personal stuff with any of the guys I had dated previously. There would have been crying or fighting or both, or worse. So it did convince me I had found the right guy for me. It will be 7 happy years in April.