Discover & Discern Your Shared Values
Premarital Therapy and Counseling in Delray Beach, FL
“Marriage is Work.”
This famous piece of wisdom is often offered to a partner expressing frustration or despair about the difficulty of their long-term partnership. “Of course this is difficult. Marriage is work!”
Persons in love often think they might be exceptions to the “marriage is work” rule. Or maybe they trust that their emotional connection and affection alone will sustain the relationship for the long haul. Unfortunately, most folks eventually learn the hard way that it takes more than chemistry for a marriage to work. Too often, couples wait until the partnership is struggling–or on the verge of ending—before seeking professional help.
Long-term partnership is work. But while true, that advice is not instructive regarding how you can strengthen or heal your relationship when things get tough. Couples therapy can help you examine and assess your strengths and needs as a partnership and learn specific skills to help you find the best in yourself and each other.
Pre-Marriage Relationship Work Can Last a Lifetime
Especially in the past few years, most couples report wedding planning is very stressful. Even if the process of coordinating your special day is taking a toll, you are allowed and encouraged to take comfort and encouragement in the work you and your partner can do to connect and embrace each other in stepping into what’s next.
When couples experience stress, they want to rely on each other. However, as each partner grows and changes over the course of their lifetime, the relationship must adapt to accommodate these changes. When partners stop making effort to attune to each other – to get to know each other over and over again – many common problems result:
Loss of intimacy and emotional connection
Increased or new difficulties making shared decisions
Growing resentments or difficulties getting over hurtful experiences with each other
Loss of fun or fulfillment within the relationship
Good premarital couples counseling focuses on each partner’s respective values, skills, future goals, and resources to give your relationship the best chance of succeeding with harmony and satisfaction. We will help you discuss intimacy, family planning, and finances, as well as prepare for challenges within your relationship as you prepare for your journey together.
Benefits of Premarital Therapy
Premarital counseling sessions often lead to myriad benefits, such as:
Keeping romance and fun alive with each other
Bringing up disagreements or hurt feelings productively
Communicating needs and preferences proactively and ongoingly
Understanding and creating a balance of shared and separate interests and support networks
Coordinating the logistics and responsibilities of shared homekeeping
Premarital counseling sessions can foster connection, healing, and understanding through exploring questions and concerns you have for each other and your shared future. Premarital counseling can also be an opportunity to find answers to questions you might not have thought of (or were too afraid to ask!).
Get Clear Before You Commit
Getting married is a wonderful process, but it can also be an extremely stressful one. Premarital counseling is offered in a quiet, safe, comfortable space where you and your partner can take some time and attention to just focus on each other with intention, affection, and care. It’s a gift to yourselves that can set the foundation for the rest of your lives.
5 Common Questions for Pre-Weds and Newlyweds
Your relationship is in such a unique and exciting stage. You are sure enough to know you want to commit your life to one another, yet still on the precipice of several transitions that will set the course for a lifetime of intimacy. The energy and optimism are so palpable while you make preparations, as are the possible worry and stress over how it’s all going to work out. It’s all normal, no matter what you feel. That being said, a growing body of research (and near countless “I wish I would have known” editorials) show that there is serious merit to talking through a few basic points while preparing to commit to each other for the long haul.
What are your preferred communication styles?
Many people have heard of the concept “love languages,” first coined and made famous by Dr. Gary Chapman and his book on the subject. Some research has indicated that at least broadly speaking, figuring out your partner’s preferred and instinctual ways of communicating and receiving affection and connection can be helpful.
Premarital counseling can help you realize your own communication patterns, and better recognize when your partner is trying to communicate their needs in ways that do not feel natural or clear to you. Also, an immense body of research has defined a specific set of habits and approaches that tend to lead to long-term partnership satisfaction, and others that tend to predict unhappy marriages or divorce.
What are your shared values?
Imagining your shared futures together can be thrilling. But, that is not the same as recognizing your values and how you anticipate you and your partner supporting each other through your lives together. Premarital counseling can help you think both logistically and compassionately about what you each may need, what each of you is willing to fight for, and what you can expect to get from each other as intimate partners through various stages of life.
How do you handle disagreements or hurt in the relationship?
Most couples who decide to get married probably haven’t had to worry about excessive arguments or disagreements. But, as life progresses, it often becomes more complicated (changes in health, career moves, fertility issues and family planning/child rearing, etc.). With this, the complexities of collaborative decision making only increases. Premarital counseling will never guarantee that you won’t argue but it can help you learn skills to ensure you and your partner can approach disagreements as a team, and without sacrificing compassion and attunement with one another.
What questions feel too scary or too soon to ask?
Maybe there are things you are curious about your partner or yourself that feel “too soon” or “too risky” to discuss openly. This is normal, and not all uncertainties need to be addressed before you tie the knot.
Premarital counseling can help you discern between the questions that can wait, the ones that may not matter as much as you think, and the ones that need to be examined more closely. With foundational communication and connection skills, counseling can provide a safe and collaborative environment for you to ask and answer tough and relevant questions before any issues arise.
What’s the plan for _____?
Committing to a lifetime with someone means you share a lot of things. Sharing space, finances, and responsibilities around the home may not turn out the way each partner anticipates before marriage. Maybe you assume that you will share a bank account, but your partner wants separate accounts. Maybe you anticipate that you will never have to mow the lawn because “that’s your partner’s job,” while they assume that once married “things will be more equal.” Laying things out for the sake of transparency and collaboration can be a lot of work, but ironing out each other’s anticipations about roles and logistics can preempt a lot of hurt feelings.
Common Issues Addressed in Premarital Counseling
Here is a brief list of many issues couples bring to their therapist during premarital counseling sessions. If you see something that interests you, or you have other questions, we can help you engage and explore the issue and what lies beyond:
Enhancing meaningful communication with each other
Keeping romance and sexual excitement alive after the wedding
Managing boundaries with in-laws and other supports around the relationship
Adjusting to shared spaces and resources
Anticipating roles as spouses
Family and/or financial planning
How We Approach Premarital Counseling
Premarital counseling relies on a slightly different structure than other types of relationship counseling, due to the unique dynamics of this stage of the partnership. Our therapists specialize in meeting you in this stage using the following basic pieces, modified to fit your specific circumstances and needs:
Establish a safe space
Therapy doesn’t work unless there is solid, reliable trust between all parties. Your therapist will work to understand your individual perspectives and values, as well as determine and facilitate what you need as a team to make the best of your sessions. This means proper assessment and gathering of your shared history, and establishing clear ground rules to facilitate safe, effective communication and privacy during your treatment.
Identify shared priorities
No one knows your relationship better than you. And no one could possibly be the authority on “what works” better than you all.As therapists, we bring years of practice, experience, and education to the table. However, we never assume we understand the context of your relationship. We always begin by getting to know the unique dynamics, boundaries, and expectations you all share as a couple. Whether you have traditional values, non-traditional values, or a complex, layered mix, we want to get a sense of this so we understand your relationship on your terms.
Learn and practice what research has shown to be helpful for long-term partners
Fortunately, there is much good, accessible information about what tends to work and not work for committed couples. Unfortunately, it can be hard to sift through it all. Your provider is skilled at assessing the needs and strengths of your relationship, even when you don’t initially realize them. They will help you complement each other where you can, and learn new skills when needed.
Develop insight on problem areas in your partnership
Any long-term relationship is built on proper communication and flexible, dynamic responsiveness to each other. All premarital counseling involves the process of feedback and reflection with each other in order to better understand patterns that work and don’t work within the partnership. With this insight, partners are better able to self-govern their own behaviors and more reliably count on each other to name issues as they come up, and resolve them effectively.
Practice communicating, understanding, and relating to each other
Insights and understanding each other are a huge foundation for years of successful connection and intimacy. But nothing is more effective than the real-time, practical application of the right skills. Learn or improve your active listening, the right way to use an “I” statement, and all of the verbal and nonverbal keys to successfully communicating with and on behalf of your partner, in good times and in bad. Your therapist will focus on helping you see and implement these skills when they are most important (which, coincidentally, often is when they are hardest to access), and help you and your partner navigate complex conversations about your short- and long-term futures.
Contact Us
If you feel like you might benefit from our support, we’re here to help. Contact us for a free 15-minute phone consult.