What is premarital counseling?
You’re getting married – YAY! In the excitement of all the planning and blending of families the last thing on your mind might be to get a therapist, but chances are that if you’re on this page reading this that it probably has crossed your mind.
If you’re here because you’ve heard of premarital counseling or it was recommended to you by a friend, family member, or even your priest and you’re not sure exactly what it is, let’s just get to some basics first.
Let’s start with a simple definition and some fundamentals
Premarital counseling, also called premarital therapy or sometimes even pre-marriage counseling, is a series of counseling sessions where you and your partner learn skills and patterns that might exist in your relationship that will help guide you on how to have the best marriage possible.
This may include understanding how to overcome fights you are already having, or that may come up from the pressure of planning a wedding. If you’re in the fortunate position of not having many fights, premarital counseling can be more about making sure your vision and goals are in alignment and that you are setting yourself up for success.
Often there are questions that you don’t think to ask at the start of a marriage that can really affect things down the road. For example: if one of your parents gets sick is there an assumption that they would move in with you? Clearing things like this up early helps get on the same page and avoid explosions in your marriage down the road.
How long is premarital counseling?
Premarital counseling sessions are typically an hour long. The industry standard is for a therapy hour to be 50 minutes, but sometimes it can also take up the full hour. For me personally the deciding factor on if the session is 50 minutes or 60 minutes is whether or not there are notes to take, if a restroom break is needed, or if there’s a session coming in right after you and it’s a bit more courteous to leave a buffer of a couple minutes. I personally go the full hour myself but I’m not the norm by any means.
You might also be wondering how many sessions does premarital counseling last and how often do you meet with your counselor. While there is no hard and fast rule I try to tell people that you want to plan on meeting weekly for at least 6 sessions (with an average of 8) to make sure you have enough time to dig into some of the nuances of what is going to make your relationship thrive.
If you are experiencing some more serious issues or arguments in your relationship, that might be indicative of things being a little more acute in your relationship and that might warrant more sessions. Every couple should be assessed on a case by case basis. I’ve had some couples who came in for just 2 or 3 sessions and were in a really good place and I’ve had some couples where they came to me 6 months prior to the wedding and they stayed with me even after walking down the aisle.
How much does premarital counseling cost?
The cost for premarital counseling from someone who specializes in it is not cheap. While you may be able to find some therapists who are in-network it is my personal experience that therapists who specialize in couples work and have a reputation for being good at it left insurance a long time ago. Of course, you could get lucky and find a diamond in the rough in-network with your insurance who has availability and get away with a $10 – $20 copay.
If you’re planning on seeing someone who is known for their couples work and has been doing it for a while and they aren’t paneled with your insurance (like me), the rate is going to depend somewhat on your location but from experience you’re looking at between $200 – $300 a session. My advice is to plan around $2,000 of out of pocket expenses for premarital counseling if you want to take it seriously. If you plan for it with that in mind and it ends up being less then you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
The average cost of flowers for a wedding is $2,800 and that lasts about 4-6 hours of your life. Good premarital counseling will last you the rest of your life and costs significantly less.
When I think of the money we spent on flowers on my own wedding and the pain that could have been saved in the first couple years by some good premarital counseling, I would have personally opted for skipping the flowers in hindsight. It would have been money better spent…but don’t get me wrong. They did look great in the photos 🙂
But it is important to have a good perspective on what you’re actually paying for when it comes to premarital counseling. It’s an investment in the rest of your life and many of the skills you learn in premarital counseling are skills you can even pass down to your children.
Insurance reimbursement and alternatives for cost-savings
Some therapists do offer a superbill for partial reimbursement of your therapy expenses, but some like me do not and it really just is a hard cost. Ask your counselor if it’s a possibility and see what they say. It never hurts to ask.
Depending on the skills you are learning and your profession sometimes you can get an invoice to write it off as a business expense. Again, you should consult with both your tax professional as well as your counselor to consider this.
If finances are an issue for you, don’t give up hope. There are other avenues available to get some premarital guidance out there. Money should never be the deciding factor in getting help.
Another option might be to go to your community religious leader. Pastors, rabbis, Imams, etc. often offer classes or counseling as a community service for little to no cost. It helps if they have some training and experience in the matter and not all do, but it’s worth looking into.
And some religious organizations even offer group classes to teach skills to many engaged couples at the same time and that is often offered at a very affordable rate. Of course these options are not a one to one substitution for someone specializing in the field who gives you private attention but if it’s your only option it’s still better than nothing.
Of course, a final option is the plethora of books available on relationships. My favorite is The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work which is one of the core pillars of Dr. Gottman’s work, but there are others that are great as well. Doing a search on Amazon and reading the reviews tends to give you a good sense of what people resonate with from my experience.
Can premarital counseling be done online?
Of course. If there is one silver lining to COVID (and that’s still a hard thing to say) it would be that mental health services became somewhat normalized and receiving care virtually became viable at a large scale for the first time. Everyone has gotten somewhat accustomed to zoom and over 50% of my practice is still done virtually.
There’s absolutely no reason that premarital counseling has to be done in person. If it is your preference then by all means you should seek out someone local to you (I have an office in Calabasas and in Sherman Oaks currently), but if you’re on the fence about it, I would encourage trying virtual counseling – it’s more effective than people realize.
Can me and my partner connect from different places?
Yup. Another huge advantage of doing things virtually is that you can be on opposite sides of the world and still have an incredibly productive session. I would encourage you to just be sure that if you’re in different time zones to double and triple check the times before booking anything to make sure you don’t run into a scheduling mishap.
What if only one partner wants premarital counseling?
If one of you is resistant to counseling it’s important to understand why. Is it a financial issue? Is it because there is trauma that the person is nervous about dealing with? Is it because they fundamentally don’t believe in therapy in general? Having both people committed to the process is somewhat of a prerequisite to get the most out of it, but with some compassion and genuine curiosity you can get a better sense of why they are so resistant.
Interesting story: I once had someone resistant to premarital counseling because I’m a male counselor and his previous marriage ended with his wife running off with his couples therapist!
What to expect in your premarital counseling sessions
Usually the first session is a time where your counselor can get to know a little bit about your relationship, where you struggle, where you thrive, and even some of your own personal history on the way you were raised.
The follow up sessions that come after that should go over specific skills that address areas of concern you have while also diving deep into topics and questions that are things people either shy away from or forget to ask.
When we’re in love we often wear blinders and having someone who can remind you to ask certain questions about finances, political views, spiritual beliefs, sexual outlook can really help get to the bottom of other issues that would otherwise stay hidden under the surface until they reared their ugly head years down the line.
What is discussed during pre-marriage counseling?
Anything and everything should be on the table. There really should be nothing that is taboo to bring up with your counselor. But a list of typical topics that are discussed are:
- what makes marriage work (according to research)
- Routines and Rituals to keep your marriage strong
- The kind of affection you want to receive
- Your vision for the future
- Your attachment style
- Kids and your parenting styles
- sex
- toxic behaviors to avoid
- money
- religion
- boundaries