Topic: Premarital Counselling

Let's go dancing in the minefields
  Let's go sailing in the storms
Oh, let's go dancing in the minefields
  And kicking down the doors,
Oh, let's go dancing in the minefields
  And sailing in the storms
This is harder than we dreamed
  But I believe that's what the promise if for
That's what the promise is for.

Andrew Peterson
Dancing in the Minefields

From www.StayHitched.com:

Is Premarital Counselling for you?

The short answer is a resounding YES. Getting married without pre-marriage prep is like starting a business or any important venture without preparing. Half of all marriages end in divorce and only half of those that endure are truly happy in the long run. Many happy engaged couples assume that they won't be contributing to these statistics. Some mistakenly believe that having lived together or known each other for a long time will prepare them for marriage. Surprisingly, research shows that cohabiting couples have no better chance at marriage success than others.
 
If you just wing it and count on your luck and romantic attachment to make your marriage a success, your odds are only one in four. There is another way.

I'm in the relationship preservation and restoration business.  I love what I do...there's nothing better than helping a person discover that s/he really enjoys being the person that s/he is (relationship to self), or helping a couple reconnect after a time of disconnect (interpersonal relationships), or helping someone discover their relationship to their Maker (relationship to God).  But my dream (and it is a dream, I know) is to work myself out of a job...to have people maintain and enhance their connections so that repair becomes unnecessary.

That's where premarital counselling comes in.  My tech team (ok, there's just one of him, but he's good and "team" sounds fun) just finished a video on premarital counselling.  I love the idea that couples give themselves the opportunity to build skills in areas that are helpful for them as they prepare for a lifetime together.  Premarital counselling is a great gift to give the happy couple as a gift, or to gift yourselves.

Ironically, couples will often not want to spend several hundred dollars on premarital counselling because of the number of expenses associated with getting married.  Question:  What percentage of the budget is going towards the single day of celebration?  What percentage of the budget is going towards preparing you as a couple for the rest of your lives?  Where will you invest?

The emotional health of your grandchildren may be one of the most underrated and most compelling reasons for premarital counselling. I'm not making this up. This will make sense in a minute or two. I promise.

So…how does what a child needs to feel secure relate to counselling before marriage?

Here’s the deal. People who are securely attached to each other make great parents. When husband and wife love each other, become a safe and reliable place for a child to grow. One of the best ways parents can give their kids emotional health is to be good between the two of them. Not conflict free type good. Not two peas in a pod type good. The type of good where there is the ability to work through conflict, to stay connected to each other in the presence of conflict, to have a great friendship with each other, to be a safe place for the other to land when s/he stumbles. Two real people living life, with warts and wonder; burps and beauty; chores, challenges, and cherishing.

 Two real people who are good for each other create a home where a kid feels safe. Safe and anchored. Solid and secure. Loved and loving. A nest where nestling feels safe.

When a child grows up in an environment where mom and dad have significant conflict or aren’t together, it matters. It changes the vibe in the house. Children whose parents aren’t together at all are affected. Judith Wallerstein is a research that looked at the affect of divorce on kids. Initially she found that kids do quite well…when factors such as poverty are taken out of the equation, divorced parents don’t stop a kid from finishing school, going to university, getting a good job. But she wrote a book called The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, which went back to those children as adults and found they were profoundly affected in their ability to commit to adult relationships.  In an interview, Wallerstein says:

They [kids of divorce] have a lot of trouble in believing that they can love somebody, or that somebody is going to love them, and that it's going to be a relationship that's going to last. And they're very convinced that they're going to go down the same path, and that their relationships are going to fail, and they say so very openly. One young woman says, "you can hope for love, but you can't expect it." Another: "Any relationship I'm in, I know I'm going to jinx; any relationship, any family I would be in would be a failure."

Wallerstein encourages us to rethink divorce:

Because what we all believe now in America-- and all of our resources have gone into this-- that it's the breakup that matters. And we tell parents-- attorneys tell them, mental health people tell them-- that if you can settle your problems between you with civility, if you can settle the financial affairs with some justice, and if the child will continue to have contact with both parents, the child is home free. That's what we say, and that's what we've been believing. And I have to confess, I've contributed to that, because my work has shown that it is an upset for the children at the time. But I didn't expect that the greatest upset -- I'm talking now about divorce as a cumulative experience-- that the greatest impact would be in their 20s and in their 30s; that's scary.

Now, I get that “staying together for the sake of the kids” when you’ve got your hands at each other’s throats wears thin, is stressful on everyone, and can even be dangerous. But do you see how, very unintentionally, you set your kids up to have problems in their adult intimate relationships should your marriage fail? Kids don't do as well when their parents aren't creating a stable base for them together--that's the research. We don’t like to face the fact that the facts are very clear that divorce is hard on children’s ability to commit in adult relationships, but dem’s da facts. And as they have difficulty in their relationships their ability to provide that stable base for their children is decreased. And the cycle continues in a downward fashion.

The cycle needs to be broken.

This is where premarriage counselling comes in. In a study done by Scott Stanley and his colleagues in Denver in 2006, 3300 couples were surveyed. Premarital education programs reduced the liklihood of divorce by 30%. That’s significant.  Not perfect, but that’s a big deal.

See where I’m goin’ here? Premarital counselling can be one place to intervene in the cycle. If you’re engaged, counselling before you get married can help point out the dangerous trouble spots in your relationship, and help you develop some strategies for effectively dealing with those. You can develop a point of contact for a resource in the community—your therapist—who you can call when you hit a rough patch that doesn’t resolve. (And in marriage, as in sewing, “A stitch in time saves nine”). You commit to a way of creating and maintaining a stable loving relationship with your partner.

That stable loving relationship will be one of the greatest gifts you can give to your children. So a couple is married, in it for the long haul, committed to each other in life’s ups and downs—and stays together because they want to be together…and the children benefit from this stable base.

And it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

As your children grow up with a secure parental base, they will be primed to be able to commit to a loving partner and create a secure parental base for their children. And so you will be helping your grandchildren and their children when you seek out and implement ways to create a solid loving partnership with your fiancé.

 I’m not saying this to be self-serving. Yes, we have a premarital program, and I’d love it if you would give us a call and sign up. I think we have a great program that produces some great outcomes. But I’d be thrilled if you go to your parish priest or your rabbi for instruction, sign out a series of videos from the library, read books…please…invest in your relationship—in the marriage, not just the day—the wedding. As part of creating a culture that gives its kids the best possible opportunities, we have an ethical obligation to do what we can in our society to create as many happy, quality marriages as we can.

• Doctors, recommend premarital counselling to your patients.
• Wedding planners, suggest premarital counselling to your clients.
• Parents, give premarital counselling to your kids as a wedding present.

You get my drift.  We all need to do our part to get couples to create wonderful marriages, not only for their benefit, but for the benefit of the next generation. What better place to start helping the next generation of children by creating solid foundation well before they are conceived? If we as a society can do what we can to make marriages the best they can be, our children will reap the benefits in powerful emotional ways. And who doesn’t want that?

One of the advantages of loving books is that I've read so many interesting and riveting stories that come to me months or years later...however, as a result of being such a prolific reader, I can't always remember where the story came from.  As I was driving along today, for some reason, I remembered a story but  without the details.  So, I apologize for the lack of specificity, but the point remains riveting.

During a time of extreme political difficulty, and racial oppression, in a country that was being run by corrupt officials, people were disappearing at a rapid rate--I'm thinking Stalinist Russia.  Various people would be called by the officials and asked to report to the local office in the local village.  A young woman was called to report into the officials in a few day's time...she was told that they would be going on a short trip and expect to be away for a while.  Her father told her to wear her winter boots--the heavy, ultilitarian boots.  It didn't make any sense--if she was to be walking all day long in the sweltering weather of June, it seemed like she was asking for trouble.  However, it was a scary time, and she heeded her father's advice and wore those clunkers when she reported.  The group she was in walked, and walked and walked...all of June, through the summer and fall, and into the winter.  Little food was given, and people walked until they dropped...literally.  Many dropped out and were left to die at the side of the road (or were shot).  This woman made it to their final destination, the "labor camp", and eventually made it out safely after the war.  She credits the boots for saving her life...many had light summer shoes that were walked to shreds long before they arrived, providing little protection against the brutal weather and difficult terrain. 

Who would think to wear winter shoes in June?  Her father knew something, and started getting her ready for challenges she would never have predicted or known about.  The foresight saved her life.

I am not trivializing this woman's struggle when I compare this to premarital counselling...I am passionate about the significance of preparing for a quality, enduring, loving, and mutually enriching life long marriage.  For couples starry-eyed with the new vibrancy of a life together, it can feel like putting on winter boots in June to go for premarital counselling…if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

No relationship is perfect…all relationships have stress points and cracks.  Good will, love, and the fresh start can hide these and have them seem insignificant while preparing for the wedding.  Add 10 years, some major unexpected bills, a cranky teething baby, and years of processing disagreements in patterns which aren’t working so well, and the cracks can turn into fissures, and eventually, impassable chasms.

Premarital counselling allows a couple to notice the cracks and stress points…and the strengths of the relationship…and do some planning for addressing those challenges, using the strengths they have, and the awareness they’ve developed to do some preventative maintenance.  Proactive strategies that allow for healthy communication strategies make a difference.

If premarital counselling can reduce the divorce rate and increase marital satisfaction (which research says it does)…then it’s significance is truly lifesaving for the family.  Married people live longer.  Children whose parents stay together in life-giving marriages have greater chance of success in just about every area of their lives.

People spend thousands of dollars on the wedding day…Rich Bride, Poor Bride is eye opening to watch in that regard.  Why not spend a few hundred bucks preparing for the marriage—for the years to come?  Why not open yourself up to the opportunity to establish patterns that will strengthen the fibre of the most important relationship a person can have with another person?

Morning radio typically does not make me weep. However, I found myself wiping my eyes as I was driving to work the other day. The show was previewing and discussing the documentary, "How to divorce and not wreck the kids".

The show is looking at effective ways couples can work to separate in a way that is child centred--with the general idea that if it is done well, the children won't be adversely affected. The counsellor comments to the little fellow, "Sometimes kids feel like it's their fault that their parents separate?" The little boy quickly responds, "No I never thought it was my fault." It was clear that the parents had explained it to the children effectively, and the children understood that this was about the grown ups.

The heartbreaking part was the unsolicited postscript that the boy added, "I sorta wanted it to be fault because then I could do something about it.". That honest plaintiveness was hard to hear.

While the documentary accepts the inevitable fact that approximately 50% of marriages end in divorce, there is this jarring dichotomy. The video features 3 couples who work to surmount their own personal resentments and pain in the separation and find ways to optimize the situation for the children. The general message is that children "whose parents put aside their differences and manage to work together grow up to be just as well adjusted as children of intact families".

However, the video itself challenges this as one child experiences "tummy aches", another cries at transition times from one parent to another, still another "bottles it up until bedtime and cries himself to sleep". The effects of divorce can be substantially mitigated by effectively working collaboratively towards solutions that will benefit the kids. No question on that.

However, it seems to me that this glosses over the pain that divorce creates for many, including or even especially, the children. There are certainly times when the pain of staying together is greater than the pain of dissolving the marriage.

However, society needs to not sugarcoat the pain and long lasting effects of divorce on the children.

The documentary itself points out that most of these marriages end in first 14 years. As a therapist, I find it important to find ways to help marriages maximize their chances of success. One way we do this at Bergen & Associates is the premarital package that couples can use. A few couples, with sober second thought, decide that they'd rather not get married. Many couples use the sessions as a chance to look at the patterns in the relationship which could turn into destructive ruts over the years. And each couple becomes familiar with reaching out and talking with somebody who can provide a compassionate third ear. The last session in the package happens in the first six months AFTER the wedding so couples can feel what it is like to work through a challenging time.

Preparing couples for the inevitable challenges ahead, and helping them anticipate and plan for those challenges is one way that we, at Bergen and Associates, work to help future children grow up in healthy families.