Premarital Counseling

When most people talk about getting premarital counseling, they are thinking about spending an hour or so with the pastor who is marrying them to get advice for their marriage. Sometimes, a very conscientious pastor will offer the newlyweds more time and advise, even several sessions. The advice is generally that of a pastor, who has been married several years themselves and performed many marriages. His advice comes from personal experience and from biblical principles.

Of course, there are many people who do not get married in a traditional church wedding with a pastor. Where do these folks go for premarital counseling? The answer is in most cases, they don’t get premarital counseling except from parents and friends – who give various antidotal suggestions…such as “don’t go to sleep mad” So, instead, you “fight all night!”

Then, there are the couples that say they don’t need any marriage counseling because “they are in love!” They are just, “naturally right for each other.” They have found their “soulmate!” All I can say, is that I meet many of these people during the following seven years that are on the brink of divorce, in light of the fact that half of all divorces happen within the first seven years. The main reason is that they have become disillusioned because their high expectations have not been met. A good marriage doesn’t just happen, because the two people are “right for each other.” They need realistic expectations and relational skill education and training.

I think everyone would agree that we are living at a time when people are having great difficulties keeping a positive, happy marriage for a lifetime. Many young couples are afraid to get married because their parents and other adults they respect have already gotten divorced. They don’t want to go through what their parents and other divorced people go through. Unfortunately, most of the people who live together without getting married, have the same problems with divorce as those who are married and in most cases the divorce rate is even higher, because it’s the radical commitment of marriage that keeps them together during particularly challenging times.

I think you would agree there is nothing more important to a couple beginning a marriage than that they get off to the right start and do the right things within the relationship to keep their marriage happy and secure.

If there ever was a good time to get quality marriage counseling, it’s before you get married. Where  do you get that kind of counseling? From a “marriage specialist,” who helps couples have strong marriages, because that’s their job description - that’s what they are trained to do as their vocation.