What is Pre-Marital Counselling?

Congratulations! You’ve made the decision to tie the knot. Your wedding plans already underway. While you're planning your wedding, are you also preparing for your marriage? Or maybe you are just trying to figure out if your partner is a good match for you. Either way, you’ve decided to get premarital counselling. So there you are on google, typing pre-marital counselling Edmonton.

WHAT IS PRE-MARITAL COUNSELLING?

Premarital counseling is a form of marriage counselling that happens before a couple decides to commit to a relationship— marriage or otherwise. Premarital counselling helps couples in preparing for a healthy and fulfilling marriage.

Often Pre-marital counselling is recommended for all couples before their wedding day, not just couples who feel that they are struggling. The idea is to make sure you’re both on the same page before saying “I do”.

The counselling sessions consists of weekly meetings lasting 60 minutes. Typically, this type of therapy is short term (7-10 sessions), though at times more sessions may be recommended. To get deeper insights in your relationship, at Life Collective Counselling we use a program called PREPARE/ENRICH which assess several areas of your current and past relationships.

Prepare Enrich is very reputable, and widely used. Certified Prepare Enrich facilitators (Relationship Counsellors) walk you through the program typically in the designated sessions, beginning with an in-depth online assessment, and then using the results and exercises from the program. Based on you and your partner’s unique results, there may be additional specialized exercises and counselling to make sure you are prepared for your marriage.

The full process of therapy will look different from couple to couple, but there are certain core subjects that are useful to cover. These topics include:

• Family & Friends

• Triggers/Reactivity

• Parenting

• Career & Goals

• Lifestyle/Habits

• Effective Communication

• Personal Values (incl. spiritual)

• Finances

• Roles/Responsibilities

• Sex/Intimacy

Premarital counsellors will ask couples to dig deep and revisit previous impressions they've formed about marriage before tying the knot. The process is self reflective and prompts the couple to think far ahead into issues that may arise in their marriage.

Emotionally Focused Therapy and Gottman Couples Method are additional therapeutic models used to help couples gain a deeper knowledge of their relationship's strengths and growth points. Your therapist will help create positive marriage resolutions, learn (or improve) conflict resolution skills and help you identify the "seeds" of future marital stress.

Book a session and get pre-marital counselling and be on your way to reaching your goal of developing a healthy relationship before you say “I do” and beyond.