What Should You Know Before You Get Married? The Makeup Of Worthwhile Premarital Therapy

Written By Ashley Gray, LCSW, MFTC

Congratulations on your engagement! I hope your wedding planning is treating you well. And congrats on the decision to engage in premarital therapy! Couples that do premarital therapy have a greater chance of staying together and experiencing greater marital satisfaction. It is like preventative care for your relationship, so that you can prepare for the future while also caring for your relationship now. With benefits like that, premarital therapy can feel like a no brainer. Now it is time to decide on what type of premarital work is right for you. What should you be considering at this time?

Key Topics To Explore In Premartial Therapy

Some places to start...

• Communication

• Hopes, needs and expectations around things like sex, housework, holidays, friendships, etc

• Practices and goals regarding finances

• Life goals

• Children and parenting

• Important stories and values from your upbringing, like traditions, communication patterns, traumas, etc

• Life philosophies like faith practices, beliefs about how the world works, how to engage in community and the like.

• Patterns of introversion or extraversion

• Where you want to live

• Relationships with in-laws

• Values

• How you each like to spend your free time

• The mental load

Approaches In Premarital Therapy

In addition to some key areas to consider in premarital therapy, there are some key approaches to consider in premarital therapy. Different therapists are trained in different types of therapy related to premarital work. The most obvious place to start is with Prepare and Enrich premarital therapy model.

Prepare and Enrich is a based on an a premarital assessment that measures relationship satisfaction, level of stress for each partner, personality types, flexibility and cohesion in your families of origin and in your current relationship, conflict resolution, financial management, roles and responsibilities in the relationship, the sexual relationship and other personality related traits. The assessment also provides a handbook with different exercises for different areas of the assessment that were marked as growth areas.

While Prepare and Enrich does have religious (Catholic, Protestant and Jewish) versions of the assessment, these are optional versions and not the default. The default version of the assessment does not incorporate religion other than briefly exploring if you two are in agreement spiritually or not. Spirituality and religion are not encouraged or discouraged in the model, it is only offered as an area to consider in the non-religious assessment.

Another model that can be great for premarital clients is Gottman Method. Gottman Method couples therapy is based on 50+ years of search that has identified seven principles that can predict whether couples will stay together or split up in the next several years. These principles include different aspects of the friendship part of the relationship, communication patterns, each partner's perspective on the relationship, conflict resolution effectiveness and individual and couple goals to name a few. The Gottman Method assessment measures couples on the seven principles plus other areas like sexual satisfaction, anxiety, depression, jealously, agreement on symbols in your life together, etc.

The Gottman Method also has several resources such as pdf's, books, free apps, tools, weekly meeting structures, and so forth, that are easily applicable and help couples change their patterns for the better. These are especially helpful for people that have a harder time approaching emotions and the process of therapy as a whole. The framework is very approachable and provides a solid foundation for deeper work.

Emotionally Focused Couples Therapy (EFCT) is a great modality for helping partners traverse emotions and vulnerability in the relationship. Vulnerability and emotions can be very scary to approach in relationships and being able to learn how to get in touch with your own emotions as well as your partners takes careful and intentional work. EFCT is the work that makes that connection possible. In EFCT, your therapist will help you two better understand the negative cycles that exist in your relationship and help you learn to change those patterns by getting in touch with your needs and emotions and your partners needs and emotions. You will learn to soothe one another in a way that feels resorative and pays emotional dividends in your relationship for years to come. This work is practiced in session while you're experiencing the difficult cycles and emotions in real time. The experience of navigating these real cycles with a trained therapist present helps create safety and foster confidence, so that you can respond to one another in a more connected way outside of sessions.

I personally use all three of these models in my work with premarital couples. I find that using all three of these models helps clients understand the basics about their individual personalities and their life together, establish good relationship habits and communication and learn to attune to one another to strengthen their bond.

Important Things To Remember While Going Through Premarital Therapy

When preparing for your future marriage, you might feel a lot of nerves. Perhaps waaaaay more than people ever let on about. I want you to know that is normal and isn't necessarily a sign that you shouldn't be togehter. However, if you find yourself on the fence and need some help figuring out if marrying your person is the right move for you check out this post, this post and this post.

It is important to note though, that premarital therapy isn't about making sure everything is perfect. Expecting perfection in your relationship is a recipe for disaster. This can show up as expecting never to fight, to always agree, to share all of the same interests, to never have to repeat yourself or explain yourself or to always be happy.

A good marriage isn't about always about being happy. It is about making sure you are with a person whose integrity you can trust when you're in a season of life where happiness isn't on the menu as often (illness, family stress, career transitions, etc). It's about co-creating a relational foundation that you can rely on when thing gets tough. Meaning, during the hard times, you feel confident bringing your emotions and your concerns to one another, so that you can weather the storm together.

What makes this possible is making sure that you and your partner are attuned to one another. Attunement is being willing and able to show up for one another's emotions and needs physically and emotionally by being fully present with your partner and showing that you understand their emotions and needs on a deeper level. Sharing an explanation of what attunement is pales in comparison to what it feels like to experience attunement. When two partners feel attuned in their relationship, they feel seen, understood, secure in their relationship, confident that their partner has their back and they are ready, even eager to show up for their partner as well. It is important to make sure that you and your partner are aligned on key issues and attuned to one another, so that you have a relationship that doesn't just see and support your daily roles in your relationship, but also sees and supports each of you as unique individuals. EFCT helps build this emotional attunement in session.

Premartial Therapy Intensives

If you're not interested in weekly therapy for several months in order to learn these skills, a couples intensive might be a better fit. A a premarital couples therapy intensive is couples therapy that is done over the course of a day or several days (usually around 3) and allows you to achieve the results that you would have achieved over several months in the duration of the intensive. Premartial intensives will allow you to build the classic communication skills, resolve past relationship issues, build emotional attunement, work on present issues and allow you to gather resources that you can use in the future when new concerns arise.

If you're interested in working with me, I offer premarital couples intensives and I use Prepare and Enrich, Gottman Method and EFCT modalities throughout our time together.

If you would like me, as your therapist, to support you in building a strong foundation for your marriage, use the contact buttons at the top of the page to send me an email or give me a call.

I'm wishing you the best on your journey! :)

This post is written by individual and couples therapist, Ashley Gray of Arvada, Colorado. Ashley works with her clients using Gottman Method Couples Therapy, EMDR Trauma Therapy, Prepare and Enrich Premarital Therapy, attachment focused therapy and trained in Emotionally Focused Therapy, Couples Intensives and EMDR Intensives. As a therapist, she is passionate about helping people build healthy relationships and supporting people with the resources they need. In her free time, Ashley hikes, paddle boards, reads, spends time with her husband and her cuddly dog. For more information about Ashley and her practice, click here.