Why you should consider premarital counseling.
Premarital counseling has been shown to reduce the likelihood of divorce and increase marriage satisfaction.
If you consider the emotional pain and financial cost of divorce, then that is a very worthwhile investment.
We often jump into marriage, presuming it will all naturally work out because we are in love.
After all, Hollywood promised us that it would be enough to have a successful marriage.
Happy ever after, right?
A reality check will tell us close to 50% get divorced and even more for second and third marriages.
Of those that stay in a marriage, only slightly above half are satisfied.
So, it appears that the in-love magic does not last and is not enough.
Sorry to spoil the romantic dream, but it is better now than later when it will hurt much more.
I am looking at compatibilities such as attachment styles, love languages, communication styles, goals, and much more, as well as finding ways to bridge the gap when there are distinct differences.
When I offer Premarital counselling, the focus is on discovering the difference in habits, expectations, and learned relational behaviours so you, as a couple, can understand and navigate each other better.
The result is more intimacy, a stable and lasting marriage, and a happier life.
I will share with you some free tips for a better marriage.
Four tips to discuss in premarital counseling.
Shared goals that you want to accomplish together
Put a date in your calendar and every six months, sit down and agree on your shared goal for the next six months.
What do you want to achieve together as a couple?
At the next meeting, evaluate how far you got and if the goal was completed, set a new one.
Make the goal meaningful to both of you.
There has to be an emotional investment and buy-in for this to work.
If you’d like help with your relationship, book a video consultation and get Pre-marriage counselling with Thomas.
Or if you prefer to learn from home, then check out the Couples in Focus online course. You will learn what we do in Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy and how you can apply it to your relationship.
Safety
It sounds boring, but I have learned that this is the most important point to make in premarital counseling.
Like a plant needs soil, water, and sun, intimacy requires safety, vulnerability & responsiveness.
Safety is the foundation for a flourishing relationship.
If you build your house on land known for big earthquakes or mudslides, it will eventually crumble.
Most relationship conflicts might seem like practical disagreements, but underneath, they’re almost always caused by a lack of safety.
To navigate this, we have to learn a few skills.
Attachment Style
Attachment styles are how we learn to feel safe and valued as children.
These patterns form the foundation for how we form relationships and relate to others.
If we are unaware of our attachment style, we will keep recreating the same issues repeatedly.
Knowing your own and your partner’s attachment style will help you learn to make each other feel safe.
Find out your attachment style here.
Triggers
If you drive to a destination, you need a map.
You might use google maps or Waze like me.
Without the map, you will take wrong turns and eventually get lost.
Relationships are the same.
We all come with past and emotional wounds.
These wounds we call triggers, and when you experience an excessive emotional response to an event, then you stepped on a trigger.
If you get a map of your partner’s triggers, then you can navigate around then, and if you do get lost in the minefield, then you can get rerouted and find your way back.
This requires self-reflection and self-awareness to look back at your past and map out why you get so upset when your partner does something specific.
Regulation
As a couple, you impact each other.
You can easily trigger each other but also help calm each other down and feel safe again.
To find solutions that are win/win, you have to be calm.
Successful couples are masters at regulating their nervous system and their partners.
When your fight or flight is in play, you are outside your window of tolerance, and you must self-regulate before speaking to your partner.
Nothing production will happen when you are in fight or flight.
Your brain has been hijacked and is in survival mode and see your partner as the threat.
We are biologically designed to release this response by moving away or physically fighting.
So, move our bodies.
That’s why movement should be the first part of your self-regulation.
Run, dance, punch a pillow.
Key Moments
Key moments are when we need our partner to be there for us.
We feel vulnerable and exposed.
Perhaps it’s childbirth, loss of a job, or a sick family member.
These moments are black and white, and the trust will be broken without you.
This will continue to impact the relationship until you have had a repair conversation.
love language
Our love language is how we learn to feel loved and valued.
If we don’t know our own and our partners love language, we are likely to show them love, without them feeling loved.
It’s like an emotional bank account. You make deposits, and if you need to draw out money occasionally, you are okay with that.
If you never deposit anything, you will go into overdraft and eventually go bankrupt.
You will need that goodwill when times get tough.
Vulnerability
We all walk around with walls to protect ourselves from people seeing our vulnerable parts, or those parts we are unsure will be accepted.
As we grow up, we learn what is acceptable and expected of us.
We try to fit within these boundaries and hide away the sides of ourselves that we believe are not valued or accepted by others.
Knowing how significant feeling connected and intimate is to our well-being, it seems we are out of balance and need to restore our ability to connect on an intimate level.
Many of us have lost the ability to put our guard down, even with the people we know and trust, leaving us living very numb, cold, and disconnected lives.
We all want to be seen and accepted, and nothing is more intimate than exposing our vulnerabilities to an accepting partner.
If you want to learn more, then check out one-to-one premarital counselling.
