What is premarital counseling?

I just ran across a website with a fascinating view of premarital counseling and marriage preparation courses.

Waste of money, why would you pay someone to ask you both “what your dreams are?” If you don’t know by now why you are getting married. Don’t get married!

After I stop being shocked I did laugh a little. It is a frustration for many couples who are excellent communicators and in rock solid relationships to sit with a third person who asks questions that are just downright insulting. Um, you think we haven't talked about whether we want kids? "Yay, communication came out as our key strength. We could have told you that for FREE!"

But here's where the comment shows its ignorance. Marriage is NOT about your dreams. Marriage is about how you manage your money, your job, your stress, your notions of responsibility, fairness, equity. Marriage is about how you navigate your loyalties to your parents, spouse, kids, and your in-laws. Marriage is a nonstop relationship always in balance with all the other demands put on you as a person.

Marriage is about having SKILLS and abilities. It has little to do with dreams! Afterall, you can marry someone with the identical dream and still end up in a miserable marriage. Or you can marry someone whose dreams change after five years of marriage, but it doesn't matter because you still have a bond, a loyalty, and the skills to work through life changes.

So if you don't want to talk to anyone else, we have some fun at home options.

1 - The Ultimate Premarital Test - research based, over 2 million couples have taken this premarital inventory. It assesses 20 aspects of your relationship and gives you an excellent "view" of your relationship as it compares and contrasts to each of your own views of marriage and of how you grew up. It's online, you both take the test, and you get a huge personalized report.

2 - A new MONEY game. It's actually super easy and fun. It has a sort of Myers-Briggs feel to it, like are you THIS way or THAT way... you want to "win" but you realize it isn't about winning, it's about learning how your own mind and emotions work around money. It will also give you some "aha" moments as you plan your wedding with someone who may have very different beliefs about money.

3 - A 12 hour self-guided premarital counseling book designed and used by a paster for many years. He doesn't believe that HIS role as a pastor is to "tell couples" things. He believes that he can give couples an amazing, in depth experience where they share their own beliefs, values, visions and that in sharing in a deep way, their bond and understanding grow. It's worth checking out! You can make one date out of each "conversation" in the book! It has pages you rip out for each hour-long conversation. Minnesota couples can also do this in a group setting and get $70 off their Minnesota marriage license fee.

4 - If you're experiencing any wedding stress, Take Back Your Wedding is a great way to have a marriage counselor perspective of marriage and family life in book form. You will definitely learn new skills and ways to think about all the complex relationships in wedding planning (and married life.)

5 - And meeting with an experienced marriage counselor in person is always a useful thing. We have a list by state on our premarital counseling page.

A good book on love and fairness is:

What is marriage, anyway?

I've been reflecting a lot as I dig more into the marriage counseling website affiliated with The First Dance, about what it takes to be married and if things get tough, what the solutions are.

There are so many "theories" on relationships, how and why they work and how to fix them when they break. I have never gone to a counselor myself, other than growing up with a counselor father and reaping the rewards of that father/daughter relationship. But I do wonder how we all see ourselves, our relationships and how we view the world as it relates to who we are and why we get married.

Whenever I get together with certain old friends, I always leave feeling a bit hollow inside in the way they talk about their marriages/husbands. Invariably I come home to my own husband and we process the way they talk about their spouses and how that makes me feel depressed inside! But then my husband and I talk about how we all come into a relationship with our own emotional baggage, our own notions of what a wife/husband is and what a marriage looks like. If your model is not a great marriage, or a selfish parent in a bad marriage, it's no wonder we can get confused as we grow up.

And from where I sit with The First Dance, I feel defensive for all of you who do not want to be talked down to, treated like you are clueless as you plan your wedding. If you want premarital help it's because you recognize that marriage is hard work and you'd appreciate some tips and tricks. It seems that our generation (Gen X and Gen Y) are in a completely different place than our parents generation when it comes to male-female relationships and to our own marriages.

Perhaps I'm just thinking about how complex life is, how complex marriage is, and what tools couples should have before entering into a marriage-bound relationship. Once you are engaged, my feeling is that you were smart enough to recognize in yourself and your partner that this was a match worth fighting for and worth spending the rest of your lives for. The question then, I guess, is if things get tough, as they always do, how do we as a society help support your marriage? How do we hold up your vulnerability and show you the strength underneath rather than tear your commitment down, devolving into "I just deserve to be happy" or, "life is too short" mentality.

My husband and I just celebrated our FIVE year wedding anniversary. If you would have said half of the things that have happened to us 5 years ago I would have been horrified, shocked, and scared to death. We have had extreme career changes, mental health issues, mortality issues (a few horrendous medical crisis'), two children, chronic health problems from a pregnancy... and that's just to name the biggies. I have experienced the lowest points of my entire live through all that and been on the brink of complete hopelessness.

I've experienced points where I could see the exit ramps that others might have chosen to take. Life is tough, stressful, and it seems like giving up is the easy way out. But when you stop and really think about it, you are not remotely perfect. You are annoying, you stress out your partner, bad things that happen to you also greatly impact your spouse, and yet she or he sticks by your side. You may resent something that happens to you or to your spouse or to your lives together. But it should be a humbling reminder that if you can share in "this sucks", whatever "this" is, then you have accomplished a huge task of married life - commitment. Wouldn't you rather ride the next roller coaster with a comforting, familiar face? With the person who has said in words or actions, through the good and bad, I'm by your side?

I feel the tension in our society between me saying "divorce is not an option for me" and the "oh, Elizabeth, you are SO naive." It's as if by saying you are in this forever, you are denying that "people change and grow apart", or denying that you may have married "the wrong person." While there are certaintly relationships that come to a shocking, unilateral end, for the vast majority of us it's never that simple. The longer I am married, the more I am in awe, humble awe, that each of us is very imperfect and by recognizing that, we can see our spouses in a new, respectful light. We can see our parents marriages in a new light. We can see our friends who seem to have high conflict "bad marriages" in a new light. It's the dance back and forth in a marriage that takes work - compromise, communication, humility, that ultimately pays off with intense security, happiness, contentment, and a stability that no matter WHAT is slung your way next (massive car accident, disability, heart attack, job loss), you are with the person who will be at your side.

It's a pretty funny thing to try to plan the PERFECT wedding when entering a completely imperfect relationship, called marriage. As if in "real life" you ever have to agree on a color theme, or ever have to spend hours upon hours figuring out which flowers best respresent your couplehood, or what invitations best fit the "tone" of your relationship. Those can be fun excersizes, but more often than not, they get in the way and cause people to doubt their relationship ("how can we get married if we are fighting over something as stupid as the wedding invitations??") rather than doubt the cultural pressures placed on weddings today.

I would say The First Dance is only about 30% "done". I have a lot more in my head I need to get out! I think there is so much unsaid in our culture and so much untapped wisdom of real couples. I hope to get more of that out in the coming months.

-Elizabeth

The myth of cohabitation: living together before marriage

I just heard on a radio show something you hear often, from everyone... from parents of adult kids, from friends, coworkers, movies, TV. It's so common you'd never know it's dead wrong! It is an argument that "just makes sense." It's so grounded in reality you would actually question NOT doing it... I heard it a lot when I was engaged and made a certain choice about not moving in with my fiance.

One crucial note about this blog: I'm mostly talking to the NON-ENGAGED couples.. those who haven't yet committed and had the serious conversations about finalizing their decision on spending the rest of their lvies together by becoming engaged.

Living together before marriage. Specifically while dating someone, moving in together with one main purpose of "testing" your relationship. The logic goes that it is important to make sure you are compatible before you commit the rest of your life with this person. After all, what if they snore, or are messy and you're a neat freak? And really, how can you really know someone unless you are living with them?

Now, if you're wondering where I'm going with this blog, I want to give a shout out to the liberal, non-religious people by saying I do not take a religious stance or a more "conservative" view of this topic. But I come to the same conclusions, just for very different reasons. It's too bad the only voice against living together is strickly the religious voice. Most young people don't go to church and it's actually the non-churched who are as likely, or more likely, to think it's a good idea and have social support.

I could bore you with the research. The following up of couples who lived together and what their future marriages holds is a grim reality. Those couples fare much worse than their counterparts who do not live together. But not just divorce is grim, even those who stayed married their happiness about their marriages is lower than their counterparts!!

WHAT GIVES, then? How on earth can you commit the rest of your life with someone who you have never lived with, hip to hip, day in, day out, sweaty armpits and all?

Obviously we are all special and unique. Or so the logic goes, right? YOU of course are marrying the love of your life. YOU are never getting divorced. YOU don't fit "statistics". YOU are an outlier in a scattogram of research data pointing towards clear trends of divorce and unhappiness.

And let's not even go into the harassment, the eye rolls, the "you are just SO STUPID and NAIVE" looks you get from friends, coworkers and others when you announce you are not shacking up. It takes strength, courage, and a lot of patience to deal with all that community baggage.

Here is my take on marriage and why this "living together before marriage is smart" stuff is totally bogus.

One, marriage is about having similar values and views of your future. You can fall in love with someone completely opposite from you in almost EVERY WAY, but if you have similar values and goals for your future, you should fare well. After all, the real stresses of life aren't about being a neat freak, cleaning up the beard shavings, or who does the laundry. The real stresses are about how you earn money, how you spend money, whether and when you want children, how you raise them, how much you save for retirement, how you relate to your families, how well you balance your sex life and parenthood roles with some level of independence and self-growth.

Two, marriage is about being committed. Through it all, you are committed to the marriage. Commitment is not something you 'test'. It is a choice you hold and then a choice you let go of because there is no alternative except perhaps in horrendous situations - your spouse murders someone, is violent, abusive, etc. But if you are in a committed relationship you will survive because while the rest of your world (physical or emotional world) falls apart, the one rock in your life is your commitment. It is the one constant, the one unwavering, unchanging element in a crazy, unpredictable world. Commitment doesn't care if you experience tremendous growth in your life while your partner is the same old person, change careers (for more or less money), gain or lose a lot of weight, develop a dibilitating illness, disability, or emotional problem.

Values, trust, admiration, respect, commitment. These are not things you build just living with someone. If that were the case we'd want to marry our roommates in college or when we enter the real world. You can hold those things dear for a best friend you have never lived, right? The difference is you aren't marrying your best friend. You are marrying someone you want to commit your entire life to. You work around the quirks of daily life because you are holding onto something much stronger and deeper than the petty annoyances that invariably happen when two people live under the same roof.

On a bit lighter note, if you have the confidence in your dating relationship, there is no need to "hurry it along" by living together. You are more likely to have those intense conversations while dating than while being hip-to-hip, falling asleep to the television. Why? Because you stop dating! And dating is where we get out of our daily routine and truly spend time, alone, having those conversations we don't have at breakfast about our values and deep seated notions of our future.

So hats off to those who chose to have fun dating and when the time is right, the wedding date is set, and commitments are made, still consider waiting til the wedding. Have fun spreading out, alone in your bed. Have fun doing anything you want in your own space. Enjoy the alone time. For when you get married, those times will quickly pass.

_____________________________________

For full disclosure my husband and I were engaged for 15 months. 5 months before the wedding my husbands apartment lease was up and we needed to get a house before the weather got cold. We couldn't afford my apartment rent and a house so we planned for me to move in with my parents (after 9 years living away) until the wedding. We both got a ton of crap for what others perceived as a foolish, naive, dumb choice. We bought a house and everything changed. Those who own property know how much that shifts your world. I had no idea and there was no way I could co-own a home and stay at my parents. So for 5 months we lived together, after being engaged for 10 months, dating for a year prior to that. And I still hold firm - living apart as long as you can before the wedding is something you'll never regret and if you're purposeful about it, will build your strength and character to withstand more social pressures coming your way post-wedding.

Fighting, communication and assessment of your couplehood

I got an interesting comment from my last post. In case there is any doubt, my husband and I are "good" fighters - never raise our voice, very sincere, listen well to the other side, and generally are "good communicators" as demonstrated by The First Dance Couple Checkup, an online, inexpensive, research-based premarital inventory on our website. The point is that with all those skills you will STILL disagree, still have "fights" as a couple, and the question is how you handle the problem. In todays society it is easy to feel if you can keep at it, eventually you'll convince the other person they're wrong. Or worse, you start to reassess whether you married the right person because they aren't Mr. or Mrs. Perfect, afterall. It's called a consumer marriage and it's a disasterous mindset to have if you take it to an extreme.

If there is one thing I've learned over the years, "right and wrong" aren't words that should be used in a marriage (excluding obvious cases of physical or emotional violence.) The reality is would you rather be "right" or happy? For most couples who have been together a long time, being happy is better than being "right". Of course this all depends on the area you are disagreeing about. Generally those problems I talked about that are perpetual - you always procrastinate, you married a pack rat, your job makes you put in long hours but you love your career and don't want to leave... all those stressors will always be there and sometimes it's better to avoid the unending fights, or to at least TRY to see the other persons side. Your spouse doesn't want to be a pack rat but finds it extremely challenging to throw things away, or you were born late and have never been on time for anything in the 30 years you've been alive... you don't like it about yourself, but having a spouse yelling at you for it won't make it better!

It is often said money, sex, and children are the three biggest areas of struggle for couples. I have seen so many couples who are so mismatched in their values about money that I urge anyone reading this who is like that, to get a financial planner - someone who is "Free" and can help set the groundwork for your financial future. Or if that isn't likely, I was extremely impressed with the small part of a money game I played called Money Habitudes at a marriage conference. This is an easy card game but it is really surprisingly cool in helping you see how you view money without taking some boring quiz or having to think "too hard." I want to get this sold through my website or somehow help couples more on this vital topic.

The reality is there is no "one" right way to handle money. My husband and I both worked high paying corporate jobs, went out to eat almost every night, traveled and had a great time! We could not have predicted we would make major career changes (stay at home life then small business life and he's going into low paying counseling.) The reality is we're savers and have no debt even with 2 years of him making no money. We bought a small house that we love to give us more flexibility, we own smaller cars, we don't buy a lot of new clothes, etc. We could have never gone out to eat, never traveled and had a LOT more money saved up... but for us we couldn't imagine ruining our fun times, the memories we have, just so we had a bigger bank account. It is the delicate line between having fun and saving, between living for today and living for tomorrow. And every person and therefor every couple is going to have their own UNIQUE balance.... my hope is that you have balance as a couple in however that translates for you.

And an obvious first place to start is WEDDING PLANNING! Do you hold the view that this is the one day worth splurging on? Or the wedding is "only a day" and isn't worth going into debt for? Or the wedding is a massive family reunion and worth the time and money to bring everyone in your life together, even if it's expensive, because there will never be an opportunity to do it again? Or is a wedding a sacred family event and you don't feel a need to invite a lot of extra guests so you CAN have an elegant wedding and still not spend a lot?

What if your parents are paying? Does this have an impact on how you plan, how you spend, and where you place your values? My wedding was paid by my parents and was lower than the average for our state. My husband and I couldn't imagine doing more even though my parents "could have afforded more." We struck a balance between having nice wedding invitations, really nice music, a really good photographer and medicore food, the wedding cake tasted OK but looked pathetic (oh well...) and the table decorations weren't what we wanted but we gave free reign to others and again, oh well. We got OUR wish which was a certain "feel" to the reception... the artwork in the church basement, the lighting, the live jazz band, the great host job of my dad to bring all our guests into the reception with some unique moments (like getting the wisdom from married couples that they have learned but did not know on their wedding day.)

Fighting sucks...

My husband and I just had a big fight the other day. We're not yellers and we're respectful of each other when we fight, but it still sucks. I find fighting often leads to the shocking realization that the other person has very complex emotions and views of things, just like you do. It is easy to take people at face value and not realize there is a LOT that goes unsaid - especially men who may want to be conflict avoiders or feel like it's better to be quiet then get attacked by their fiancee's or wives.

My husband and I don't fit a lot of the gender stereotypes and yet we find we get in some stereotypical fights! It's frustrating to realize that "roles" we play have an impact on our perspective about things, our experiences and how views.

If you weren't aware, John Gottman did some research and has really categorized two types of fighting that all couples go through. One kind CAN be ended... either with the right skills, or the scenario around the fight never happens again, or through therapy. The other kind of fighting is perpetual. There is NO answer, no end result, no way to "end" the fight. These are often where personalities clash - you're always early, your fiance(e) is always late... or you're a neat freak and you're marrying a total pack rat. Since we can't easily change our personalities there is going to be lifelong friction. But the fascinating thing is those fights do not have to mean you are not meant to be together. It's actually a question of HOW you go about fighting that bodes well or poorly for your marital happiness and longevity.

This last fight was about parenting (we have two small children.) Nothing got resolved, but we are able to sit on what was said, recognizing there are some inherent limitations we each hold and there is probably no real solution. So we'll do the marriage dance - give and take a little more now that some dirty laundry was aired, we'll try to be more patient with the other, try to change our own behaviors slightly, and ride the wave of what is possible.

Speaking of my husband, I'm going to try to get him involved in The First Dance more. He's very skitish about being involved in a "family business" but he has so much to say and has taught me SO MUCH about the male perspective! We shall see... :-)