How many times have you heard a friend that has gone through a divorce say that the person they were married to completely changed after the wedding? Often this is accompanied by complaints about how they become uncommunicative, distant or impossible to deal with on a daily basis.
The reality is that people typically do not just randomly change in a relationship. The more likely cause of the issue is that the couple really didn’t know each other prior to the wedding. Only after living together with all the pressure and expectations of being married did this become apparent and the real issues began to surface.
The role of premarital counselors can be instrumental in preventing these types of problems after the wedding day. With better communication, great skills in handling conflict and even more awareness of themselves and the other person there is a much better chance of a lasting marriage.
Diving In
One of the very important roles that premarital counselors provide is the ability to start conversations that couples may intentionally be avoiding for fear of conflict. For example, a couple may know that they have very different expectations of when they want to have children. Rather than addressing this, they may simply avoid the subject.
The same could be true for how to save or budget, how to prioritize their work and their relationship or even where they will live. If these conversations don’t occur before the wedding, there is a very real chance they will become immediate and ongoing issues during the marriage.
Is this Right?
One very uncomfortable fact is that people do often feel that the relationship is not “right” even during the engagement period. However, they may feel pressure, expectations or even a responsibility to go through with the marriage.
If one person is already having doubts about the viability of the marriage, talking about this issue through the help of premarital counselors can help in either making that person comfortable or deciding this isn’t the right time for this step.
Deeper Knowledge of Yourself and Your Expectations
People tend to view marriages through the lens of their own experiences in past relationships and even with the relationship of their parents. Often people have expectations for the marriage they may not even understand are influencing how they think, act and behavior towards their partner.
Through discussions, exercises and activities the therapist will help you to discover these sometimes hidden expectations and beliefs. By talking about them with each other, you can identify where they may cause conflict with the other person and work through the issues proactively before they become a threat to the relationship.
