Making the Most of Christian Premarital Counseling

Every couple has their own story about how they found one another. Finding your significant other is a unique journey that starts with that first contact and progresses through a winding path (that hopefully includes Christian premarital counseling) toward committing to each other.

Some couples straightforwardly get there, while others take many detours and winding paths before they arrive at the altar. As the author Jennifer Smith wrote, “Marriage is a mosaic you build with your spouse, millions of tiny moments that create your love story.”

To get to that marriage, the couple must go through steps such as committing to get married, and then whatever preparations are needed to make things official. Among these preparations, many couples are intentional about getting premarital counseling.

Is premarital counseling necessary, or is it simply one more thing on an already crowded to-do list? To build a healthy marriage, premarital counseling is vital, and every couple can set themselves up for success by taking that step.

Defining premarital counseling

Premarital counseling is the form of counseling that a couple gets when they are serious about getting married. Most couples do premarital counseling when they’ve made a firm commitment to one another to get married, but before they’ve tied the knot.

However, some couples go for premarital counseling when they see that they are serious about the relationship but before they commit to one another by getting engaged. Either way, premarital counseling is the counseling a couple goes through before they get married.

Premarital counseling can take many forms, including online, in person, in a group with other couples, or the couple by themselves and a counselor. The people who conduct premarital counseling range from licensed marriage and family therapists, couples counselors, and spiritual leaders such as pastors. Some couples prefer to have counseling done from a Christian faith perspective, and that need can be accommodated in several counseling spaces.

The counseling sessions are typically an hour or so long, and a couple can attend sessions for six or more weeks depending on the matters they want to address in their counseling sessions. Some of the issues that can be addressed in premarital counseling include:

• How the couple will handle their finances, including saving, giving, investing, etc.
• Whether they want to have children, and how many and when they would want children.
• If they want to have children, what parenting style do they gravitate toward, and how they can work together?
• How the couple views roles in the marriage, and who will perform what roles.
• How to set goals.
• How to navigate and express faith commitments.
• Different decision-making styles.
• Conflict resolution and management. It’s important for a couple to become aware of how they handle conflict as individuals, and to be equipped to deal with issues
• Communication in marriage, including expressing needs and frustrations.
• Expectations and fears about sex, including frequency of sexual intercourse in the marriage.
• Boundaries, including how to manage time, family members, social media, and so on.

Each couple will have some specific issues they want to work through, but a counselor may focus on certain questions that the couple may not have considered but which can make for a harmonious marriage. Whatever form the counseling takes, a couple on the path to getting married will find themselves better prepared to take the next step in their relationship.

Who needs premarital counseling?

If you’re a happy couple and haven’t had a serious fight or one you couldn’t talk through in the time since you got together, should you still go for premarital counseling? Like other forms of counseling, it would be a mistake to think that premarital counseling is only for some couples and not for others – every couple moving toward marriage can benefit from premarital counseling.

Premarital counseling is about setting a strong foundation for your marriage, and it looks way beyond just your wedding day. Each couple has strengths and weaknesses, expectations and goals, past hurts, and so on – premarital counseling allows the couple to explore these areas to equip them to deal with possible conflict that might arise in these and other areas of their life together.

Dealing with issues only when you’re in crisis mode is a recipe for prolonged conflict and long-term challenges. It is better by far to nip any issues in the bud before you’re married than to wait until after you’re married and in crisis.

The value and benefits of premarital counseling

In situational comedies and dramas, one way of generating humor and suspense is by having a romantic couple discover that they have different ideas about their relationship and where it’s heading.

While it may generate laughs for the audience and dramatic tension that makes you tune in again next week, it can make for a painful reality. Relationships require investments of our time, energy, and ourselves. It’s painful to put yourself out there and then find that the person you’ve bound yourself to isn’t a person you should be bound to.

Premarital counseling has many benefits, including the following:

Making an informed decision

Premarital counseling can empower you to make an informed decision about whether you want to move toward marriage. It’s better to find out before you’re married whether you’re on the same page than to wait until you’re married.

For a Christian, particularly, marriage is a permanent covenant that isn’t entered into lightly, and divorce is not an escape hatch to deal with a bad marriage. The point of premarital counseling is to help you decide if this person is the one you want to move forward with so that you make the decisions confidently and with your eyes wide open.

Deepen self-understanding

Premarital counseling can help you build an appreciation for your relationship as well as your respective strengths and vulnerabilities. When you know yourselves better as a couple, you know how to serve each other to give your relationship a chance to flourish and succeed.

Set mutual goals

You can start your marriage with clear goals in mind that will help direct your focus and energies. When the two of you are pulling in the same direction, you can accomplish more than if you’re alone or at cross purposes.

Alleviate any lingering fears about getting married

Marriage can be scary for many reasons. You may fear commitment, or you may be uncertain whether you have the tools to handle marriage successfully. Whatever fears one has about marriage, premarital counseling can address those and position you to succeed.

Better communication and conflict resolution

Premarital counseling equips you to be better at expressing your thoughts and emotions, and it also equips you to handle conflict well. Conflict will arise in any relationship, so premarital counseling equips you with this inevitable reality of marriage.

Helps you head off issues before they become issues

It is hard to talk when you’re in crisis, polarized, and in the thick of a conflict. It is much better to communicate proactively in the environment of premarital counseling and work through conflicts before they become long-term challenges.

Get rid of unhealthy or dysfunctional behavior

Unbeknownst to you, you may have anger issues, or your conflict style escalates tempers rather than calms them. Perhaps you mask your emotions and shut down when conflict arises. Our dysfunctional behaviors can derail a relationship in myriad ways, but premarital counseling can help not only to make us aware of these dysfunctions, but it provides us with the tools to build healthier habits. These healthy habits will promote the flourishing of a marriage.

Christian premarital counseling – a firm foundation for your marriage

Christian premarital counseling approaches the questions that confront a couple through a Christian lens. Using resources such as Scripture, prayer, and a Biblical worldview, your counselor will help you understand God’s intentions for relationships and marriage.

Your counselor may help you develop healthy habits of communication, conflict resolution, and communion with the Lord to deepen your faith and relationship with one another. The aim is that you can approach your life, including your marriage, in a way that’s consistent with a profession of the Christian faith.

Counseling requires intentionality to get the most out of it. Asking the tough questions that will inevitably come up in counseling may be scary, and it’s not easy hearing one’s partner talk about the fears and reservations they may have about the relationship.

However, hard as it may be to hear, it is merely uncovering the truth so that you can meet each other where you’re really at. Being open and vulnerable can be daunting, but it’s the best thing for your marriage, which is meant to be vulnerable (Genesis 2:24-25). To get the most out of your counseling, be vulnerable and willing to listen and learn. That way promotes growth.

God’s intention for marriage is that it is a permanent, lifelong union that brings Him glory by pointing to the way Jesus is with His church (Matthew 19:1-12, Ephesians 5:31-33). This may be daunting, but God has given His people the Holy Spirit to empower them to live a godly life.

Christian premarital counseling can prepare you for this lifelong journey by asking the tough but necessary questions one ought to ask before taking such a huge step into marriage. If you and your significant other are thinking of cementing your commitment to each other, consider reaching out to a Christian counselor to set a firm foundation for your lives together.