Putting in the Work: Pre-marital Counselling

Hey, I'm also planning my wedding for the next month. Many of the experienced persons are compelling me to attend a premarital counseling section, and it helps strengthen our relationship and gives us a better opportunity to understand each other. So we are planning to attend the first section in the coming week. I'm really surprised, and I'm waiting to know how it works.

Hi Leah,

My husband and I did PMC prior to our wedding and I think it's a great thing to do even if you think you know each other very well already. For me and hubby, we found that most of the topics they went through we already knew about or have had deep discussions leading up to our engagement. So, it was a relief to us that the course reaffirmed that we were headed in the right direction. I've had friends who have never had discussions about finances until they did PMC and they are so grateful because talking about money is a hard topic to open up to as it's so private for most people.

Hey everyone! So this is my first discussion post - the FH and I are still in the early stages of planning for our 2020 wedding. I really want us to do pre-wedding counselling for a few reasons, and I'd love to get suggestions for good non-religion based counsellors in Toronto.

I already know that we have different love languages (even without yet doing the actual test) and I really want us to be more aware of this so we can avoid our affection getting lost in translation.

Also, his dad is not well and so he brought his parents to live with him to care for them. His selflessness is of course one of his most amazing qualities. So I moved into his place with them a few months ago and I realize that, while we all get along well, I think we need some objective guidance on how to manoeuvre this next stage of our relationship and learn how to have a strong, loving, balanced marriage, considering our unique circumstances.

Any suggestions would be so greatly appreciated!

We start our course on march 7th!! We are both really excited about it the program we are doing is called "save your marriage before it starts" and ive heard really great things about it! yay!

My FH and I are. We just had our first session on Thursday through his church. The pastor had us each fill out an online questionnaire separately beforehand so we had an idea of where to focus our dicussons! Definitely a fan thus far.

We went through it before we were married. I recommend it! We learned a few new things about each other. It was a chance to talk through situations we hadn’t experienced yet (but hopefully never would). It was mostly confirmation that we have good communication, similar values and goals and the same expectations of what we each bring to the relationship. We used a program and it was led by a couple who have been married for 30+ years so we also got to hear some of their rough patches and how they overcame them.

We're not doing pre-marriage counselling, however, we are working hard at our relationship everyday and are exploring new ways of knowing of getting to each other.

That sounds great actually. I never thought of this.

View quoted message Yes it is! Except I just called it the wrong thing.
Our counsellor said to be specific with it. She said he husband put an image of the exact super kitchen he wanted, and though it took some time it’s manifested into the kitchen they have now.

YES! My FH and I go every second Tuesday. We have gone quite a few times probably 6 or so and have 2 left before the big day. I could not recommend it enough.

Our counsellor has helped us so much with recognizing how each of our personalities are so different and we will not react the same way to things and that is okay. We just needed to understand each others individual triggers and responses to know how to move forward in a healthy way from an argument.

I have seen so many improvements in my relationship and my FH really takes time into thinking through my side of things lately.

I will also add- we make all the counselling nights mini dates as well, and we ALWAYS go for wings after.

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Thanks I really love the idea of a joint dream board. Is it a physical item, like a vision board?

We start our marriage prep on Monday for 6 weeks, one night per week!

I don’t know what to expect. My FH is Catholic, I’m Protestant but not practicing.

Our ideas with respect to religion are different so I hope it is more marriage based rather than religious based or I may not have much to add to the conversation!

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Do you consider your partner your best friend? I ask because my best friend (we've known each other since we were 14), and I have never had a fight either, and like you and your partner will cross that bridge if we ever get to it. Yay for those kinds of besties!

My fiance is also my best friend, but we definitely don't always see eye to eye on situations, and we have a different kind of kinship that me and my childhood pal. He and I both grew up in church going families and have shifted our philosophies and beliefs as adults, and for that very reason made sure that the counsellor we chose didn't have a foundation in religious counselling, because we felt like this process should be disconnected from dogma/structured religion.

Happy for you and glad you are finding it useful!

My partner and I decided not to do it because we've been living together for a few years now and have never had a fight or anything like that. We will cross that bridge when we come to it! We are also both very skeptical/scared of religious counselling because we are both female and have had trouble with certain folks before.

We are not required to do pre-marital counselling, but I did find a link of questions commonly tackled in PMC and we might take a few nights to discuss different categories (Finances, Children, etc.)

View quoted message It totally makes sense.
We intentionally stayed away from religion based counselling for the reason (much to my mother’s disapproval).
And scheduling can be tough so good on you for getting through it “on your own” (with respect to your FH’s extra work schedule).

"We" completed our church-mandated course online... but it was really me who did all the hard work lol. I summarized for him (he's working two jobs at the moment, so time was an issue), and we've had a few discussions about the topics covered by the course. I wish we'd had the time to complete the in-person training, though, and I'd wished the training had been more focused on our relationship as a couple rather than our relationship as a Catholic couple, if that makes sense?

View quoted message I’m pretty sure mine wasn’t into it initially but he’s been really good with the process and it’s been good for both of us.

Even if you don’t go to sessions, borrow an audio book from the library and listen to it together. A book can’t fukky replace sessions but it’s a start!

Huh... Not sure if the FH would be into this but now I'm going to look into seeing if our insurances would cover it!

I'm super excited for ours! We have 8 classes coming up in April and I was a little nervous at first but I'm so excited to get to them together as a couple!

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Awesome! Our sessions are about an hour (sometimes longer), and I find i'm always tired and starving afterwards!

Yup! 4 sessions were required by the church, plus one additional one with a professional psychologist to confirm there were no 'red flags' that the Reverend didn't notice.

They were 30-45 minutes each, and were mostly just sitting and chatting with the Reverend. One was about the 'churches view' of marriage, one was about Money and finances, one was about Children, and the last one was about planning the ceremony service specifically.