What is premarital counseling?
Marriage is life’s the most important event. A life partner who stays by your side through your life, your ups and downs is the most precious part of life. However when you chose a life partner the journey may not be easy ahead if you both are not prepared to walk on the road of marriage. The first two years of marriage are very crucial and important in building the entire structure of your married life. Hence it is essential to prepare for these years and the entire life journey even before you take the vow of marriage. This is exactly what premarital counseling is about. It helps you prepare for your journey of marriage by helping the couple who will be soon married to understand the various dynamics of a marriage, to help understand each other and the expectations you have out of each other.
What to expect in a premarital counseling?
The Premarital counseling will consists of different steps which could be in general as follows
A. Assessment of both persons individually and as a couple
B. Sharing of life events and other experiences
C. Discussion of important issues that are connected to marriage like:- Finances, children, belief systems, expectations from partner, sexual relationship, roles in the marriage, responsibility sharing, family of both spouses and expectations, time spending and related expectations.
D. Conflict resolution and coping mechanisms
How does premarital counseling help?
When you meet your partner for the first few times it could be a very general and superficial understanding about him or her and their life. To avoid after marriage shocks about the partner and their personality it is essential to get a through understanding about your partner. For this premarital counseling can help in following ways
- understanding the expectations you have from each other and how far these can be complied
- setting realistic understanding about marriage and life after marriage
- planning for the future in a better way
- helping understand where conflicts can arise and how you both can deal with them together
How important and effective is premarital counseling?
Most of the couples go for therapy and counseling when they have conflicts and are not able to resolve them. Reaching this stage they have already created a crack or a dent in their relationship. The charm of the relationship is lost because of the hurt replacing the love and care for each other. This may get resolved over time with effort but valuable years of your married life are already lost. Hence it is essential to avoid these issues from arising rather than letting them happen and take effort. Also many people understand each other better only after a flow of arguments. Premarital counseling helps you to understand each other well before tying the knot or committing to each other. Even people who have fallen in love and wish to get married do not quite know about one another till they actually get married. Today premarital counseling is becoming of utmost importance because there are expectations from both sides and these expectations are changing with time. Earlier dynamics of marriage in India or even in many other countries were simple -the boy earns and supports the family and the girl takes care of the boy’s need and his family, cooking cleaning and household tasks. Today it is not so most of the time the man and women getting married are both educated and independent and have different expectations from a marriage. Hence it is essential to take premarital counseling to know each other better.
It is essential to note that the premarital counseling session aims at strengthening the bond between the couples. Getting to know the different essential expectations of your partner from you and can help you take a clear decision. It can also reveal the aspects that can impact the long term survival of your marriage. For example if your partner wants to settle abroad but you do not wish to or your partner not wanting children and you want. These type of revelations can change the whole decision of your marriage
Techniques and time frame for Premarital counseling
There are different techniques that are used by us for premarital counseling. The couple generally needs three sessions for this type of counseling. The three sessions are spread out as follows
First Session
In this session you can expect the counselor to note down certain facts about you, your work, personality and other aspects of life. This will be done on individual basis. You may be asked to fill up some sheets having some questions to be answered. The counselor will then analyze these sheets that you have filled up individually
Second Session
In this session you as a couple will be asked to discuss certain things with each other. The counselor will give you some personal time to talk and discuss with each other. After this session the counselor will address the issues you faced during the discussions.
Third Session
This session will be related to the discussions that you had in the first two sessions. This session will help you bridge gaps in the relationship if any. It will help you understand positive dynamics of your relationship, learn to have conflicts in a positive way, know the importance of intimacy in a relationship, learn to fulfill expectations you have about each other.