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Oh, the things that distract us from preparing for marriage. You know, like that itty bitty detail of planning a wedding. Honestly, choosing the gorgeous invitations, beautiful flowers, and the perfect white dress is massively time consuming! It’s absolutely mind-blowing how the list goes on and on and on and on… creating a wedding website, registering, choosing bridesmaid dresses, selecting a menu… I know, I know, I’m preaching to the choir. However, with nasty statistics on divorce growing ever more prevalent (the dreaded 50%), AND the divorce risk being highest within the first two years of marriage, numbers seem to suggest we are insufficiently prepared for “until death do us part”.
You have probably become a master at preparing for your wedding. But how do you prepare for marriage? Sure, most of us are cohabitating so we feel like we’ve given married life a test-run, but is that enough? For some maybe, for some maybe not.
How many of us enter marriage thinking we’ll be contributing to the divorce statistics? We don’t. Similarly, I’ve bought 6 giant golf umbrellas in the event it rains on my wedding day. It’s probably worthwhile to have a plan for “rainy” married days too.
A good pre-marital counseling program will acquaint couples with six common areas of conflict that often lead to divorce. In therapy, they call these “toxic subjects” because they can become toxic for couples to discuss. These issues often include:
Have you considered pre-marital counseling? Which of the big 6 are your “hot buttons”?
We def did pre-marital counseling. I was glad we did too! It was a requirement for our pastor before we got married, but I had planned on us doing it anyway. I was afraid that if we didn’t we wouldn’t know how to communicate about the “hot topics”. best.decision.ever!
We are doing pre-marital counseling. I think the biggest benefit I can attest to is giving you an opportunity to talk openly about issues you might be having, because in regular life we’re either too busy or too angry in the moment to discuss it. It seems like it might be awkward spilling your faults to a third party (especially if its someone you see every week at church), but it’s actually easier because it feels less confrontational than just telling your partner “hey you/that thing you’re doing is pissing me off” I highly recommend it. Not saying it’s a vaccine from divorce, but I think it’s a good thing to do.
My BF and I are considering pre-engagement counseling. He figured before there were deposits paid and frilly, flowery things swirling in my head (too late for that!) we should iron out some potential kinks.
He is VERY into statistics AND a divorcee so when he heard that pre-marital counseling can decrease the risk of divorce by 30-40% he was ready to go straight to a class!
Until we find one we’re reading a book of questions to ask your partner call “Don’t You Dare Get Married Until You Read This Book”. It’s hundreds of questions to discuss, and fun for creative dinner conversation!
P.S. This is coming from someone who was way against pre-marital counseling before the fact because I felt nobody had the right to judge us, our situation, or whether or not we could/should get married. It’s not like that AT ALL in our church, but I know another woman who IS dealing with that situation. It all depends on (if PMC) your particular branch of religion, church or minister, so make sure it’s a good fit, or it probably won’t work for you (same with counselors)!
Thank you for writing this post!
Last night I was reading an article that talked about divorce. It said that if one partner comes from divorced parents - their chance of divorce increases, but if BOTH partners came from divorced parents the chance of divorce VERY SIGNIFICANTLY increases!
Since both of our parents were divorced I had a bit of a meltdown that statistically we are already doomed. So depressing
We’re taking the approach similar to Miss Hot Wings of doing it ourselves, but not as hardcore. We’ll bring up one of the ‘toxic subjects’ and playy the what if game for a few minutes. I think counseling is a great idea though!
This is why I was glad we were doing the pre-cana classes and meeting with our monsignor. We walked away feeling in closer then ever and had really confirmed why we were choosing one another.
I cannot rave enough about our pastor and the premarital counseling my FI and I have received. Not only are we tackling many of the big topics with Pastor George, but we are also attending regular sessions with a third-party counselor.
We felt it was important to find a counselor we could visit throughout our marriage — one who knows us as happy, loving people. That way, if we do hit a bump in the road, our counselor might be better prepared to help us. She would know what our relationship looked like when we were happy, so she could help us get back to that state!
After every session — with George or with our counselor — we emerge feeling closer than ever. I cannot emphasize pre-marital and even marital counseling enough as a great way to maintain happiness and love in a marriage! Thank you, Miss Seashell, for a great post!
As a divorcee I’m a big fan on pre marital counseling. And like Dreamer, my bf and I have talked about having our pastor do some couples counseling/ pre-engagement counseling. I think the 6 hot button issues you listed are my top 6 hot button issues and I def think counseling (if done in an open and welcoming enviorment) fosters communication and teaches healthy ways to ‘argue’. It also lets you talk about subjects you might not know how to bring up on your own.
An alternative to pre-marital counseling is doing a pre-nup which I think is a good idea for anyone entering a marriage with any kind of money. It is more expensive (ha ha) but it facilitates all these discussions. Although it was not pleasant at times - I feel closer to my fiance given that we have now talked about the really hard things. I really feel like we are ready to get married (and never look at the pre-nup again!
Future hubs and I were planning on doing a little PMC during our engagement since we’re not getting married in the church (ie, no pre-cana classes for us). I’d have to say our hot topics are similar to yours: Finances, Sex, Kids, Personal Goals and Roles in the Relationship. I’ve heard nothing but good things about PMC and pre-cana, so that’s reassuring!
Ironically I’ve always heard that statistics show co-habitating increases your chances of divorce quite a bit! I wonder how low the divorce rate… or marriage rate, in fact… would go if pre-marital counseling (secular or religious) was required by law before a marriage license could be issued…
The statistics on cohabiting increasing the divorce rate are pretty outdated. More recent work suggests it has little or no impact (probably because it is now so common - it was always correlation rather than causation).
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-03-02-cohabiting02_N.htm
Actually that article says the same thing the scientist have been saying for some time. To whit, if you cohabit after getting engaged (or, in general, with a definite intent to get married within a particular time frame) there is no effect on the risk of divorce (positive or negative). However, if you cohabit without definite plans for marriage and then later get married, you are at increased risk of divorce. Serial cohabitation is a particular risk factors.
There are two main explanations offered. The first is that the typical nature of the commitment (or lack there of) in cohabitating couples is different than that of married couples. These couples are keeping the escape hatch open and some have difficulty making the mental shift after marriage. The other factor is that sometimes cohabitation contributes to sorta sliding into a marriage that might not have otherwise happened. People buy pets together, cars together, houses together, and generally entangle their lives without ever making a conscious and thought out decision to commit. In some cases they then end up marrying primarily because their lives are so entangled rather than because it is something that they have thought through and this is what they want. This particularly shows up in lower commitment levels in the men in the relationships.
I think for us money and gender roles are probably the two big elephants in the room. We are strongly considering going through premarital counseling because we both feel like some of these big issues should be discussed and out in the open, plus we could benefit from some useful comunication tools. We are cohabitating before hand (which upsets my family more than his). In some ways I love this, but in some ways, it seems like the marriage is superfilous, we are living together and are lives are so intertwined, it seems there is no other route than marriage. That sounds a little cynical, I know. I guess we are both looking at it from the perspective that our parents are all divorced at least once, so we tend to take a “realist” approach to marriage.
We’re doing pre-marriage counseling with the pastor that will be officiating our wedding. We actually go next weekend!
I personally believe the divorce rate is so high (especially in the first 2 years of marriage) because people lose sight of the purpose of marriage. They become overwhelmed with the big white dress and the frilly flowers and they forget the purpose, which is essentially making the promise to stick with your mate through high tide and low tide. Another common trend, I personally believe, is the social aspect of peer groups and expectations - people getting married to their significant others because its what “should” happen when you reach a certain age and be surrounded by married couples.
I do believe that counseling is a good idea, but I also believe that communication comes from within, and couples should inspire one another to talk, share, feel and learn from one another.
I absolutely do not believe for one moment that having divorced parents increases anyone’s chances of divorce. That’s an inflated statistic that is simply leaned upon as a cheap “explaination”. It’s as ridiculous as saying “if your parents are rich, you will be rich” - it’s all in what you do, not a genetic pre-determination.
my sister and her husband split for 4 months after being married for 2 years. they said the experience the reflection time apart gave them, the lessons they learned, and the misery they felt without one another was the best counseling they could ever ask for.
We attended the http://www.marriageprep101.com/ Workshop and highly recommend it to those seriously dating/engaged. It’s a great secular option, convenient (it takes place over one weekend) and is co-taught by two married MFTs. We found the communication techinques practical and was a good chance to reflect on what brought us together and what we want for the future.
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Mrs. Seashell, Chicago, IL / Providence, RI Age and Occupation: 28, Marriage and Family Therapist Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Electrical Engineer Engagement Date: September 3, 2009 Wedding Date: September 2010 Venue: The Glen Manor House About Me: Fonts and fashion, stationery and Sundays, photography and french toast... the beauty is in the details for this fun-loving Chicagoan who loves to plan plan plan! The soon-to-be hubs plays "Mr. Fix-It" in our new condo while I swoon over beautiful, personalized stationery and choose shades of aubergine for my bridesmaids' dresses... and thus begins my new fairy tale! Skirting to the East Coast for our September nuptials where my home state of Rhode Island awaits with fall foliage, I'm just a few dress fittings and bachelorette party away from saying "I Do" to a very happy ending!
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