Pre-Marriage Counseling: Establishing a Firm Foundation

You have met the man/woman of your dreams; this is the one. There is anticipation and excitement for planning the wedding, the honeymoon, and starting a life together. Sure, there are moments in the process when you don’t see eye to eye, but it is a stressful time with so much to do. Once all the planning and preparation is complete, it will be better.

This is a familiar story and was that of Sam and Susan, who got caught up in the excitement- putting all their time and energy into preparing for the wedding “day.” But what about preparing for the marriage of a “lifetime”?

Many people underestimate or do not consider how challenging marriage is, not taking the time to get to know and understand one another. Marriage is the joining of a man and a woman from two different backgrounds, each with a unique story in a fallen, broken world. Often, couples enter marriage unprepared for the struggles and trials they will face. Frequently, they do not have examples of what a healthy marriage looks like.

Pre-marriage counseling helps establish a firm foundation by providing opportunities to understand, discover, explore, learn, and grow. Understand the meaning of marriage. Discover more about yourself and your future spouse. Explore your issues and concerns, your goals and dreams. Learn about expectations and your roles. Grow by developing communication skills.

Understand through pre-marriage counseling

With marriage, couples are not boarding a cruise ship but a battleship. Cruise ships are carefree environments where you can relax and enjoy with limited or no responsibilities. On a battleship, people come together with like hearts and like minds with a purpose and common goal to defend against an enemy. Marriage has many cruise ship moments of love and joy. Still, we must have a battleship mentality in marriage to be prepared and equipped for future trials.

What is marriage? Marriage is a covenant that creates one flesh. “And the two shall become one flesh. So, they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” Mark 10: 8-9 (ESV). God is invited into a marriage with a covenant, and breaking that covenant has more implications than a contract.

A legally binding contract can be broken if restitution is made with no moral consequences. Marriage should not be approached as a contract but should be entered with prayerful, thoughtful consideration and commitment, not one foot out the door “just in case” things don’t work out. That attitude will set your marriage up for failure and make it too easy to divorce. Couples should eliminate divorce from their vocabulary, which is not an option.

Have you ever tried to separate two pieces of paper glued together, forming a bond? When you attempt to separate the paper, it is impossible to do so without destroying both pieces. The same goes for divorce; it tears apart the bond of a husband and a wife with heartbreaking results. Pre-marriage counseling offers couples an opportunity to equip and prepare themselves as they embark on the journey of marriage.

Discover

Through pre-marriage counseling, couples will discover more about each other and themselves by exposing weaknesses and understanding strengths.

Coming together as husband and wife, you complete one another by filling in the gaps for one another. Where one is weak, the other is strong (and if you are both weak, you will work together to figure it out!) Understanding your spouse’s needs and being willing to compromise or sacrifice allows for individual and family growth.

Sam and Susan each have a passion, his for order and cleanliness, hers for cooking elaborate meals. Susan is an amazing cook with a tendency to make a huge mess and is not fond of the daunting task of cleaning. Sam enjoys cleaning up messes and loves a tidy kitchen. Together, they make a good team.

When couples genuinely understand how their differences complement one another, they can become a good team by helping, providing support and encouragement, and capitalizing on each other’s strengths.

Sam thought he would keep track of the finances once they were married because he enjoyed it. Still, he realized that Susan is more organized and has a natural ability to deal with money matters. While Sam was still a part of the process, they used Susan’s capabilities to organize and maintain their expenses.

A counselor will guide clients to discover more about themselves and their future spouses by asking questions and exploring topics not yet contemplated.

Explore

Through exploration, couples will deal with issues, concerns, hopes, and dreams. Couples have the opportunity to truly get to know the other person – what makes them who they are, who God created them to be. Consideration will be given to a variety of topics, such as careers, kids, travel, hobbies, etc. Remember that life has seasons; shifts may occur as God leads you on new paths.

Sam and Susan have fulfilling careers that allow them to live comfortably. However, after Susan becomes pregnant and as the time draws near to welcome their first child, she desires to stay home. While believing herself to be career-centered, she always appreciated her mom, who stayed home with her and her siblings when they were young. Sam and Susan now must discuss their options and decide together what to do.

While the topic may be different, situations like Sam and Susan’s arise frequently in marriage. It is impossible to predict the variety of situations that can occur in marriage, but when we know the heart of our spouse, it is easier to navigate the speed bumps of life.

Learn through pre-marriage counseling

Marriage is the joining of two people with different views and ideas based on their life experiences and family of origin. To understand our spouse better we must learn about these differences. We only know what we know and often do not think about why we do what we do, like the lady who thought that you had to cook a ham by cutting off the ends because that is how grandma instructed her to do it.

Later, she learns that the only reason grandma cut the ends off the ham was so it would fit in her pan. Cutting the ends off had nothing to do with how a ham should be cooked. We often don’t ask why – it just is what it is. Preconceived ideas carry into marriage, and expectations form about your spouse, yourself, and marriage.

Thanksgiving is over, and the Christmas season has begun. For Susan, this is the best time of the year with decorations, family gatherings, and celebrating the birth of the Savior. In her family, it was a time of joy with many boxes of decorations and family traditions. In contrast, Sam’s family had one small box of decorations and no traditions (other than the one small box).

Susan is excited to go pick out their first Christmas tree together. They find the perfect tree, albeit lacking Sam’s enthusiasm. Arriving home, Susan gets out the lights and hands them to Sam. Susan was unprepared for Sam’s response, “What do you want me to do with these?”

In Susan’s household, her dad put the lights on the tree, and she and her siblings would decorate the tree. Sam did not follow the same tradition as some years they didn’t have a tree; if they did, his mom would decorate it with no considerable fanfare.

To Sam, it may seem trivial; after all, they are only Christmas lights. For Susan, it was an expectation she had of continuing a tradition that she enjoyed with her family. Susan made a presumption, and Sam missed the importance of the moment to his wife.

Couples need to be careful not to make assumptions, communicate their expectations, and consider the needs or desires of the other person. A counselor helps you navigate and provide insights in this important area of your relationship.

Grow

Norman Wright states that “the marriage relationship is a school, a learning and growing environment in which (if everything is as it should be) both partners can grow and develop. The relationship grows along with them. If you see marriage as an opportunity for growth, you can be satisfied and can satisfy your spouse.”

A significant growth area for couples is communication. Poor communication causes misunderstandings. Knowing how to communicate effectively will save couples from stressful, hurtful interactions. Communication is not only about words. When a message is voiced, 7% is content, 38% is tone, and 55% is nonverbal.

It is important to gather your thoughts and check your heart before speaking, be aware of how your voice inflection may be construed as condescending or harsh and be mindful of facial expressions and body language.

Sam and Susan have frequently been in stressful, frustrating circumstances due to poor communication. Recently, Susan talked with Sam about something that had been bothering her. During their conversation, Sam was distracted by his phone and dismissive in his responses.

Good communication helps couples to learn to be on the same page with one another. Often, couples don’t even find themselves in the same book or even in the same library as their spouse. Listening well with empathy, clarifying with questions, and reflecting so that your spouse knows they have genuinely been heard are aspects of communication. Pre-marriage counseling helps couples gather these skills to communicate effectively in conflict or day-to-day situations.

Next steps in pre-marriage counseling

…a total commitment of two people to the person of Jesus Christ and to each other. It is a commitment in which nothing is held back. Marriage is a pledge of mutual fidelity; it is a partnership of mutual subordination. A Christian marriage is similar to a solvent, a freeing up of the man and woman to be themselves and become all that God intends for them to become. Marriage is a refining process that God will use to have us become the man or woman He wants us to become. Think about it. God will use your marriage for His purpose. He will mold and refine you for your own benefit and for His glory. – Norman Wright

Pre-marriage counseling provides tools and skills to add to your marriage toolbox, helping you understand, explore, discover, learn, and grow more about yourself, your future spouse, and your marriage. As growth is lifelong, pre-marriage counseling will not prepare you 100%. Still, it will help you develop a firm foundation for your marriage.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ. – Phil 1:9-10, ESV