Ep. 53 - Premarital Counseling: What Nobody Tells You About The Time Before "I Do"

What if a simple investment of time and money could dramatically improve your chances of having a successful, fulfilling marriage? The research is compelling: couples who participate in premarital counseling experience 31% lower divorce rates and report 30% higher relationship satisfaction compared to those who skip this crucial step.

In this eye-opening conversation, we explore why premarital counseling matters and how it creates a foundation for lasting marriages. Many couples—especially in faith communities—mistakenly believe that sharing values, attending worship together, or having mentors provides sufficient marriage preparation. But beneath surface-level compatibility often lie unaddressed issues around communication patterns, financial expectations, past traumas, and conflict resolution styles that can emerge years into a marriage.

We compare professional counseling approaches with typical pastoral premarital preparation, examining how each addresses different relationship dimensions. While pastoral counseling often emphasizes spiritual foundations like covenant, forgiveness and prayer, professional counselors typically focus on communication skills, financial planning, and addressing past wounds that might affect the relationship.

Perhaps most intriguing is our discussion of pre-engagement counseling—an emerging approach where couples invest in relationship assessment before formal commitment. This removes the pressure of an impending wedding date when addressing potential compatibility issues and creates space for honest conversations without the implied timeline of marriage preparations already underway.

Consider premarital counseling as an investment rather than an expense. A typical series of sessions might cost you substantially less than an engagement ring or wedding expenses, and potentially saving thousands in future marriage counseling or divorce costs. More importantly, it provides structured space for difficult conversations about intimacy, finances, and family planning that couples might otherwise avoid.

Whether you're currently dating, engaged, or even married, the principles we discuss offer valuable insights for strengthening your relationship. Join us for a thoughtful exploration of how intentional preparation creates marriages that don't just survive but truly thrive.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Premarital Counseling
• 5:22 Research and Benefits
• 10:51 Pastoral vs Professional Approaches
• 21:14 Pre-Engagement vs Premarital Counseling
• 29:39 Addressing Trauma and Hidden Issues
• 34:33 Communication Skills and Conflict Resolution
• 42:25 Making the Investment

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

All right, everyone, welcome back to the Psych and Theo podcast. Sam and Tim here. We have had a lot of busy weeks. We're coming to the end of the semester and we're finding some times here to record and hopefully it's not a series, but we're going to be talking about a bunch of different topics here. Hopefully you'll find them interesting.

Speaker 1: 0:23

And today's topic we're going to talk about the benefits of pre-marital counseling.

Speaker 1: 0:29

Uh, specifically because we I mean just dealing with relationships in general. Most of the population I work with is college students, but a lot of you guys who are listening to the podcast are actually between 25 to 45, 25 to 50 in that range. So maybe hearing this topic could be a reminder of some of the things that maybe you would have discussed in premarital or you may see some relation to it and regarding, maybe, where you currently are in your marriage or, for those of you who are single, just kind of thinking about, okay, as I'm walking through this stage of life, what are some things, that conversation that I'm supposed to have when I start dating, and so on. So we have a good mix of both. We have a lot of singles, a lot of married, married couples as well, and, yeah, I hope you find this, this episode, to be a blessing, and I think this was. This was a topic recommended from a listener, tim, or was it a friend, just someone who just thought of it?

Speaker 2: 1:30

I actually don't remember. I thought this was your suggestion, so maybe it came from a comment.

Speaker 1: 1:35

No, no, actually, yeah, we were texting and he said, hey, I heard, or someone shared. This would be a good topic for us to cover that one and the one that we'll be talking about next.

Speaker 2: 1:51

I never remember what I text.

Speaker 1: 1:51

You have to it's all.

Speaker 2: 1:52

It's all good okay yeah, if someone that we're doing anyways. Yeah, I don't know who suggested that to me. It must have been someone at church. Uh, it's all I can think of.

Speaker 1: 1:58

Yeah if we figured out what throw the name out there. Just so you know that. No, we're just kidding. We won't do that.

Speaker 2: 2:03

All right, so benefits, the benefits of marriage counseling, okay, so where do you want to take this?

Speaker 1: 2:09

Well, let's introduce the topic first with why this is actually a very good thing for people to do. Obviously it's a the research shows that it is a positive thing for couples to do before they get married. Actually, 31% and when you're doing premarital counseling, 31% have a lower divorce risk and 30% of people who get premarital counseling report higher relationship satisfaction. And there's a lot of other research in which I'll get into right now practices that we do that help that research in which I'll get into right now our practices that we do that help that. But I think what happens often is that those, especially in Christian circles, saying well, you know, we go to the same church, we have some mentors that we meet with individually, we have good teaching in our church, so really we don't really need to do premarital counseling. So this is within the church.

Speaker 1: 3:05

Now, depending on the church, some emphasize it. Some pastors actually require it before they marry the couple. So that's a good thing. But usually they'll come at it from a biblical perspective and show a lot of biblical principles, and I'm not saying that's bad, I'm saying that sometimes they may miss some of the other things that we would discuss in professional counseling when we're doing premarital counseling. So we'll see a little bit of contrast between how maybe pastors approach it and how counselors would approach it and see if there's any overlap there.

Speaker 1: 3:41

But yeah, the reason for this topic is to explain how crucial it is to establish a foundation for one's marriage. Okay, we'll discuss about what premarital counseling may look like and the differences, as I mentioned earlier. Okay, so first off, I guess maybe a question that people are having is what is premarital counseling and is it worth it? So hopefully I'm able to explain what that looks like. But, tim, before I start with that, are there any questions that I guess came up as I was sharing a little bit about how in Christian circles sometimes the need for it is either not considered or just kind of ignored because we are in a church setting?

Speaker 2: 4:26

I, you know, I think that stat. You said 31% seek marriage counseling.

Speaker 1: 4:31

No, those who go to premarital counseling have a 31% lower divorce risk and those who go to premarital counseling report 30% higher relationship satisfaction.

Speaker 2: 4:48

Interesting Okay. Report 30 higher relationship satisfaction. Interesting okay, uh, is you know. I'm just curious is marriage counseling common among non-christians? Do you know? Marriage, premarital yeah, premarital, yeah, sorry.

Speaker 1: 4:57

Premarital counseling yeah yeah, I actually didn't, didn't really look at that, just look more so at the general stats of people who actually do go to counseling. So this is just general us population numbers. Like I said, it's one of those things that's so important, but it's often seen as well we get along, we have people who support us and that's enough right, things have gone well. Right. We'll often hear couples say, well, we don't really have that big problems and the ones that we do have, we've talked, talked about it, you know. I do see this new trend, though, where people are seeing premarital counseling as a way to divorce, proof their marriage. So they start really early on. So after a couple of, or when they make their relationship official, they start considering, hey, let's just go to counseling individually and then also let's go together. So it's a small percentage of people, but there are people doing that, and I think what people are becoming aware of is there's a lot of unresolved traumas from their past or unresolved issues from their past, previous breakup trees, relationships where, when they come to counseling, they want to address it straight on right. So they're asking the counselor to say, to explain what's going to affect us if we get married right.

Speaker 1: 6:13

So there's this really famous podcaster, the School of Greatness. His name is Lewis Hose, he's an athlete, he was an Olympian, and so on. He talks about how he and his now wife did that. He was so scared because he had so many broken relationships before her that he said you know what? I've never done this before. I really like this girl. I want to be serious about it. I know that we're going to stir some things up in each other and I want to address it there and that. So he talks about it and kind of followed him along that journey and uh, yeah, I mean, they seem to be doing well. They're not a christian couple, um, but he's a very insightful person and just wanted to do things a different way, right? So so yeah.

Speaker 1: 6:58

So those are kind of the the uh, the stats. They're actually 79 percent of participants have stronger marriages long term compared to those who skip it. Okay, there's people who start premarital counseling and they don't really finish it either. Right, they'll start, they like the things that they're talking about and because they don't see any direct relevance to their life in that moment, they kind of feel like, well, maybe this is not that big of a deal. Like we've already talked about all these things. I think it's okay for us to just move forward with the marriage. But they don't realize that they're building skill sets so that when they do get married it can be helpful for them.

Speaker 2: 7:41

Okay, okay, just some other quick things before we deep dive. How long is premarital counseling? What's the typical length of premarital counseling? Is it six weeks, eight weeks? You know, I've kind of seen things all over the board yeah, yeah, that varies with each program.

Speaker 1: 7:55

Each, each counselor, has their own modality, what I mean? Their own modality and um approach. There's some excuse me, there's some uh programs that are set up for a certain amount of time and there's some people who just want to kind of make that a standard for them up until they get married, right Again, that's a smaller portion of the population, but I do see this kind of starting to become a thing. You know, we may, we've talked about this before. We're just, I mean, singleness. People are getting married later and a lot of that is due to these fears, right? These fears of past relationships. How is this going to show up in my marriage? How's this going to show up in this situation? You know, I've experienced heartbreak before.

Speaker 1: 8:38

There's people who were married or divorced and now are in their thirties, forties and kind of trying to refigure that out as well. So it can be one of those things that may have been ignored before, but they're starting to see the utility for it. Now. Premarital, I think, people often think about it as only trying to resolve issues that they're currently having, but really it's to prevent things that can potentially happen down the line. So people, I think get bored with just learning the skills and they're not really using it yet. But again, what they're doing is they're building a foundation so that when they do encounter something in the future, then they're able to. They're already been practicing it for years, right or months, whatever the case is.

Speaker 2: 9:18

That's really what it's for okay, uh, yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:22

so with premarital counseling, you know, I've seen now me being a single guy. I've not gone through premarital counseling, so I'm saying this, and then I've seen pre couples go to premarital counseling with pastors. And it's just based on my observation and I I'm a good I think I'm a good listener and I kind of pick up on what people say. It seems that, again, this is just my experience. It just seems that there's a different approach between pastors and counselors how they do premarital counseling. I know I'm I know I'm speaking with a broad brush here, because there's pastors who are, who have pastoral counseling degrees and they're professional counselors, so I'm not trying to like say they can't counsel and I'm not trying to say counselors aren't, aren't biblically biblically based?

Speaker 2: 10:25

okay, um, it seems that pastors tend to take a very practical approach to premarital counseling. Like a couple comes to them and they're like we want to get married, we're getting married in six months, can you premarital counsel us, like? And so the pastor takes them through premarital counseling and it seems like it's like it's usually maybe they read a book together or maybe they have like an eight week thing where they get together once every eight weeks or once a week for eight weeks with the pastor and they walk through different topics like finances, family, and it's almost like very, very practically based. They're not trying to get too deep past hurts or traumas. Maybe I'm wrong about that. They're not trying to get too deep past hurts or traumas. Maybe I'm wrong about that. It seems like the couples who go to a professional counselor tend to go a little bit deeper on the trauma side or just past relationship side of things.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Some of those deep hurts.

Speaker 2: 11:19

Am I wrong about that? Like I know you said, they have different modalities, but that's just my surface level impression. Just seeing all my friends get married there's a sob story there but seeing all of them get married and all of them kind of go through different types of premarital counseling, I've just kind of seen differences there. I distinctly remember one of my good friends from college when he was going through premarital counseling. I don't know if he was seeing a pastor or not, I don't remember, but in that counseling some very, very deep, traumatic things came up from his childhood that he had not disclosed because it was I mean, he was really, understandably, he was very, you know, afraid to just it was abuse, you know sexual abuse and things like that, and so he had to disclose those things to him In the premarital counseling. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:18

With his with his fiance. He ended up disclosing those things, and so that was a. That was a probably the most serious thing example that I've heard of. Others are more kind of like almost comedic where it's. They start talking about finances and uh one, you know, one person is like I'm debt free and the other one's like I have 80 000 in debt and they're like what, like you didn't tell me about this? Uh, so there's, I've heard stories like that too, but yeah, I saw I'm rambling, but give me your take on this. No pastors versus counselors.

Speaker 1: 12:50

It's a great point, you know, because I think a big part of this is and this is where you can also add more on what ministry actually looks like for pastors. But my experience growing up and even now working with you know seeing how pastors approach it, seeing how counselors would approach it is pastors are kind of like on a timeline, right. They're thinking to themselves, okay, what's a good amount of time where I can talk about these biblical principles, these things about marriage that we can cover together and prepare them enough, right, so that they can then make that next step into marriage. So sometimes they try to cut it really short, right, because they're thinking to themselves, they're receiving biblical preaching, they are involved in community, they're serving in the church, so they're seeing all these things and they're all good things as a Christian to be doing right. But then when they look at their relationship to set up the foundation for a marriage, they're saying, well, we could cover all these things. You know they'll talk about prayer, they'll talk about covenant, they'll talk about forgiveness, right, all of these Christian virtues which are good, but it's still very surface level for the most part or they can't go deep enough because in their minds it's. They're thinking, well, they're already receiving all these other outlets or all these other ways in which we're investing in their lives through the church that six weeks should be enough, right.

Speaker 1: 14:13

But then you have a situation where maybe someone is too scared to talk about their trauma or something from their past, or maybe the guy or the girl may feel uncomfortable sharing something that's traumatic, so the pastor may not feel the need to explore it. Right? And one of the things that they'll often talk about is radical honesty. Okay, radical honesty. Let's bring everything out on the table, we'll deal with it now. And they try to resolve that with four to six weeks. And you can't do that, right, you're talking about old patterns, old behaviors that are, or patterns and behaviors that have been there for such a long time. It's not going to break in those four to six weeks, right? So I haven't heard of many pastors who go through 12, 16 weeks with a couple just processing trauma, or processing past behaviors, or processing current behaviors, bad habits, you know, hidden things, right, addictions, things like that. Those things can't be resolved in that six to eight week program that they've created, right? So they're thinking about that.

Speaker 1: 15:18

It's not just their only couple that they're counseling. They have other couples that they're counseling, so it seems to be a time crunch ministry wise, that it is efficient in a way to do line up with some biblical principles. But not all of them do, and I think that's why pastors maybe avoid that. They talk more so about the principles and like forgiveness, right, forgiveness and humility, that's a big deal, like those are important things for a marriage. But what does that look like in a conflict, right? So a professional counselor may do some role play with them. Okay, tell me about your most recent argument and let's see if we can show me how you guys kind of dealt with that. Okay, so he'll present it to them and they start talking and he kind of gets a good view of their communication style and how they're missing each other. He'll get them to talk with each other.

Speaker 1: 16:32

All of these different things that for a pastor, I think they look at them and they'll say, well, they're just being prideful, they just need to humble themselves, right? So they're not really addressing the core issue. It's more so wanting to get the quick fix, you're being disobedient to God, you're not practicing the Christian virtues and that's why you're struggling with this, right, and let's say, the couple fixes that for two to three weeks the pattern is going to come back to it. Right, they're going to go back to their old patterns because in that sense they're trying to please the pastor and try to show him hey, we're being humble, we're being, we're forgiving each other, but we also want to get married at the timeline that we've set right. So the couple, the pastor, they both have their own timeline. So all of those things kind of puts everyone in this rush mode of I need to get this done so that the marriage can take place right and with a professional counselor. They're going to be setting up some goals and they're going to be looking how are we meeting those goals? Have your communication habits actually changed, and so on. So again, it can vary because again, counselors do different things.

Speaker 1: 17:44

But I think what I've seen, the most distinct factor between pastors, is that they'll focus on faith, covenant before God, the lifelong commitment, sin forgiveness, spiritual growth, prayer right and there is a lot of research on that too. I think it was something like 5% of couples that pray together every single night, like their divorce rate. I mean, the divorce rate for them is 5% For couples who pray together every night. Divorce rate is 5%, which is great, right. So it's a sense of connection. It's, at the end of your day, you're talking with God, you're talking with each other. That makes sense to me, right? So those are things that the pastors would emphasize With professional counseling, again, we'll talk about finances, sex, conflict resolution, behavioral change, communication, training and all these different things. And, yes, they focus more on those skills that may be missed by pastors or just not really seen as important for pastors, because they're thinking about heart change, right.

Speaker 2: 18:50

Well, that brings me to another question then, yes, sir, premarital counseling versus pre-engagement counseling, yeah, which is better? Yeah?

Speaker 1: 19:02

That's a good question. Yeah, I think that there is something to be said about pre-engagement counseling. Right To that example that I shared with you earlier, that other podcast. They started that really early on in their relationship. When Christians start dating, they're typically dating with the intent to marry, right? So I like you, you like me, we get along with each other. Okay, let's become official. Okay, at what point in time do you start going to counseling? Right, there's a financial piece to that too, so that's another investment in the relationship.

Speaker 1: 19:41

So I think most people say let's wait till we actually engage and then we can start doing the premarital counseling. But what if you have bad communication habits before you get engaged, right? And now you're trying to fix that within your timeline again between the proposal to the wedding day? So again, it just puts this pressure on we got to get this before we get married and then we'll see what happens, right? So I think that there's an argument to be made for pre-engagement counseling. At least maybe four to six sessions, right, just to kind of get a feel.

Speaker 1: 20:19

For before I make this commitment to this person, how do we actually communicate and how do we have this third party outside of us to say, hey, here's an area that might not be good and let's work on this, and then you can decide after that whether you want to actually commit. So I think there is an argument there. That's a good question. I don't know how many people would want to do that, right? Because if people are already avoiding premarital counseling when you're engaged, I can probably see that happen. Uh, before before engagement, right? Oh no, you're moving too fast, too serious, like, do we really want to? So there's all those other factors, right?

Speaker 2: 20:57

yeah, I've, I've always thought, you know, I remember hearing the for the first time about pre-engagement counseling. I was a sophomore in college and the professor she was a psychology professor. You might you probably have heard of her if I were to say her name, uh and she mentioned that her and her husband went through pre-engagement counseling. That was the first time I heard of it.

Speaker 2: 21:16

I was like, wow, that's, that's interesting you know, and I thought it was kind of like unorthodox and kind of like strange at the time because it was just so unusual. Yeah, the more I thought about I'm like you know, it actually makes sense. Like you, if you go to, you know, go into counseling, real like pre-marital, pre-marital counseling, pre-engagement counseling, that kind it's designed to, like you said, discover bad habits, uh, thought patterns, past traumas, all those things, any of that can come up. So like you're really rolling the dice when you go into counseling, sometimes Not rolling the dice like we're just gambling on each other, but when you go, there are unknown. Unknowns when you go into counseling, especially with another person, I mean, let alone yourself, but especially with another person.

Speaker 2: 22:18

And so if to get engaged and then to do counseling, it seems like the and I get, I'm just I'm saying this as a single dude Okay, like I'm not standing in judgment over anyone, cause someone's gonna be like well, tim, what do you know? You know, just hear it, I can hear it now. Like I'm not standing in judgment over anyone, uh, cause someone's gonna be like well, tim, what do you know? You know, just hear it, I can hear it now.

Speaker 2: 22:30

Like I listened to your episode. What do you know about that? Um, yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:38

I'll just leave it at that. But yeah, like you're uh, you, like you said, there's a pressure to get it fixed if something comes up. Yeah, uh. So at the very least I would say, if you get engaged and you're going to do marriage counseling, maybe do that marriage count, that premarital counseling I keep saying marriage counseling, that's like you know, on into the one, on into the marriage, but premarital counseling, at least maybe do that before you set a date. Yeah, that's a good idea too. Yeah, you know, at the very I think at the very least do that, because then there's no pressure like, ah, the wedding's in six months, I just got my dress fitted. You know, we gotta get, we gotta fix this trauma issue.

Speaker 1: 23:21

Come on Like you know, and even then, and even then that's that's the other part of it too, cause once those things start coming up or, um, the clients in session now it becomes so real it's like, oh no, does this mean that we need to break up? Right, and everyone fears that, right, especially after you make that engagement proposal. Um, so I can see all of those things come up as well. Now, again, I don't know if this is going to become popular, moving forward, where people are going to seek the pre engagement counseling, but I do see it as a, as a benefit, at least a couple of sessions just to get a feel for, okay, what are some things that are unresolved here.

Speaker 1: 24:02

But the other issue that I see is that there have been many instances and this goes back, just, it's a generational thing where you don't talk about your traumas, you don't talk about your past, you don't talk about deep hurts and so on where people would get married and in the marriage they would find out about this horrific past, right, and it starts to cause problems in the marriage, right, and it starts to cause problems in the marriage. So, for example, a very common one is women who don't share when they were sexually abused by a family member or close friend of the family, right. So at some point in the marriage could be in the first year, second year, maybe, first five years where the wife starts responding very defensively or very guarded when it comes to sexual behavior, right. So she starts remembering things about her past and the husband's confused and I'd hit. You know what's going on? Did I do something wrong? So there's this confusion and then she drops the bomb of well, when I was five years old, I was sexually abused by this person. Well, when I was, you know, five years old, I was sexually abused by this person. And you know, when you did that, it made me feel this way. And it's just their body responding, right, it's a protective measure. So their body's trying to tell them, hey, something's wrong, but it's with someone that they love. So now the woman herself she feels shame because she's making her husband feel unwanted or ashamed for doing what he did right. She's making her husband feel unwanted or ashamed for doing what he did Right. So it just creates this whole new dynamic.

Speaker 1: 25:29

All because that didn't come up before the marriage, right, because they're focusing on hey, we get along, we love each other, we're attracted to each other all these things and hopefully that will overcome these traumatic wounds. Right? And what they find out once they're married is that oh no, something woke up in me. This is not good. So is there something wrong with me? Should I tell my husband? Should I keep it to myself, like, what do I do here, right?

Speaker 1: 25:56

So then once it really starts to impact their marriage, then they say, hey, we need to go to counseling because we need to address this right. So that's usually the last ditch effort that couples have when they start to experience all of these different things and it's affecting their marriage very significantly. So, ok, well, we need to go to counseling. But depending on when it is that they decide to go, you know there's still hope for it, and I'm just like there's always hope, you can always work things out. You just got to put in the work.

Speaker 1: 26:28

But for some couples, if they go too late, then it's like man, it's just been years and years of this repressed anger and resentment towards each other and now it's just falling apart and it's just one more effort. Let's go to counseling, see what happens, and things just fall apart even more because there's so much more to be explored. So I really like that you asked that question because I think that is something that moving forward whether it be with our students or people that I know is that I would recommend that, hey, you know, before if someone's getting serious, I say, hey, man, you know what, before you pop the question, go to counseling, do four to six sessions to just assess your communication patterns. Talk about finances if you're comfortable with that. Already that's a very sensitive topic. Sexual past, how that influences as well. So just to get a feel, and I think that'll give them a better read of okay, we've discussed this. I think I still want to move forward. Then you can pop the question.

Speaker 1: 27:24

Right, every couple is going to be hopeful. I think I still want to move forward. Then you can pop the question right. Every couple is going to be hopeful pre-engagement and even after the engagement. They want to make it work. That's a good thing, but they would also have to be honest with themselves. Is that if there is something serious to address, then yeah, let's work that out, or sadly, they may need to break up, right, and I think everyone's kind of scared of that. So I can see a lot of people avoiding it, but I can also see a smaller group like saying hey, you know what that makes sense, let's do it.

Speaker 2: 27:56

It's just a matter of how they'll deal with the fears afterwards. Yeah, and for the objection you mentioned it, the objection of like, oh, this is money. You know it costs a lot of money for counseling. This is a mental trick that I use on myself for things like this and maybe it helps other people. Let's say, for instance, like counseling, if you look at it as an investment, you're investing in yourself or you're investing in your relationship. It's not a bill, it's an investment that actually helps you. So let's say, six sessions of counseling, ballpark 150 a session. Okay, so that's, uh, how much is that like? Uh, six 150 dollars, something like that. Let's just say, oh wait, no, no, sorry, my math is terrible it's 900 yeah 900, yeah, 900 bucks.

Speaker 2: 28:45

Okay, sounds like a lot of money, money upfront for a relationship where you're not engaged. But think about it this way how much does an engagement ring cost? An engagement ring is easily going to cost three to four times that much. You know easily. How much does a wedding cost? Yeah, a lot, yeah, a lot, a lot.

Speaker 2: 29:09

And then and then, sadly, how much does marriage counseling cost on the backend? And then, how much does divorce cost? Yeah, you know court fees and all the lawyers and all these things you know. So if you look, if you look at it in that light, that this small little investment of 900 bucks for a relationship that you're really serious about and that you're thinking about committing to for the rest of your life, if you think about it in that sense that this, this small little investment, can save you a whole lot of money down the road, even at just avoiding further for their marriage counseling and and divorce, maybe down the road, you know, like, yeah, it can help you avoid those things potentially. So I would think of it as an investment like that, yeah I like that.

Speaker 1: 30:02

I think that reminded me of this. Um, there was a podcast I was listening to and they said it should be a lot, a lot harder for you to get married than to get divorced, meaning all the work, right, all the work should be done before marriage. And if you work so hard for it and you invest all that time right, it could be money, it could be time, all of these different things and then you just make it the most difficult process. And if you're still together after that difficult process, then that's a really good thing. I mean, it sets a really good foundation for moving forward. So it makes divorce less likely to happen because you've gone through so much together, right.

Speaker 1: 30:42

And there's a big debate about that, because some couples, you know, they get, they get meet each other and they propose within three months and then they're married by month six, month, eight, right. And most Christians or most people will look at that and say, wow, that was fast. But then they have good marriages, right. What's the likelihood of that? I mean, the average amount of time that a couple is together before getting married is about a year, which is a good amount of time to get to know another person. Again, that depends a lot on how much they're sharing with each other, right, again, this pre-engagement type of counseling approach where we're talking about the issues, finances, all these different things and, yeah, so that's a good timeline, right, before proposing getting to know each other for a year, very intentionally talking about the difficult things past traumas, how you want to look towards the future and so on.

Speaker 1: 31:34

But what about the couples who know each other for three months, six months? And we probably have listeners who have had this experience where they knew by month four that they wanted to get married, right, so they propose and got married by month A or by the year, and again, most people would see it and say that's fast, right, but really what it comes down to is what are they covering within the time that they're getting to know each other? That's really what it comes down to, because the other approach is the guy who extends that time so this couple has been dating for one, two, three, four years extends that time. So this couple has been dating for one, two, three, four years and the illusion is that because we've spent so much time together, that gives us a higher chance of not divorcing or a better chance of having a better marriage.

Speaker 1: 32:18

So again, there's a lot of debate there, because I have seen more recently like there's couples who have been dating for a very long time and then all of a sudden you just hear that they break, that they break up, break off the engagement and you're wondering what happened. Well, they started going to counseling and they started realizing that there was things that they hadn't uncovered yet and now it just feels like a deception for both, like, well, I didn't know that we've been dating for four years and things come up and now that causes that breakdown and distrust. So it you know it makes sense, better that you know better to break up before then than afterwards as much. I hate to say it, but it's less painful. It's still painful, but you know it's not a lifetime thing. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:59

All right.

Speaker 1: 33:00

So what else? What else you got? Yeah? So I think the biggest thing here and we've already covered a lot of this is just the differences between how counselors do and what pastors do. So I touched on this a little bit, just the communication piece that a lot of counselors will focus on, one of the approaches that they'll teach and again, you can share with me how you feel about this, but using the I feel statements instead of you always type statements. So this is a skill that they'll use within counseling and say you know, as soon as you say the word you, you started off wrong.

Speaker 1: 33:38

Right, there was this, this comedian who was talking about marriage and he was saying the best advice that I don't know if it was his father or a pastor, someone told him. They said don't say the first thing that comes to mind, just pause. And then it's like okay, gotcha. And he says okay, ready, number two, don't say the second thing that comes to mind. He's like okay, good, wait till the third, and then remember just to be very calm. So basically the idea is, you know, sometimes we just need to pause and just listen and just wait to see what happens, because somebody is just an emotional high for either person, right? So pausing, this idea of pausing before you respond, giving yourself some time to really think through, not to get emotional and so on, and not to point the finger. So in counseling you'll see a lot of that.

Speaker 1: 34:34

Like I feel you know, alone sometimes when you choose your friends over me. And again, for me, coming from a Latino background, conservative Baptist church, anything that had to do with feelings was why am I going to share how I feel? That doesn't solve anything Like let's problem solve this, right. But the reality is that in relationships you do have to provide space for that, because feelings are real, we experience it. We don't let them dominate us, right, but we do acknowledge that they're there. I do feel, um, disrespected when, when you take your parents advice over mine, or something like that. Or I feel, um, unwanted when you're not affectionate, right, little things like that. So that doesn't. That doesn't create this judgment on the other person. Like you never give me affection, it's very different than I feel rejected when you don't show affection, right? So, again, just these little small communication tips that they have.

Speaker 1: 35:36

Another thing that they'll do is something called the conflict GPS, right. They'll role play a couple of arguments right? What if one of us wants kids and the other doesn't? Right? They'll role play a couple of arguments, right? What if one of us wants kids and the other doesn't? Right? So there's a lot of focus here on what are your core values? Right?

Speaker 1: 35:51

And we know that in today's culture there is this struggle with comparison. Right, we compare ourselves, our relationships are who we are as individuals, with other people, you know, due to social media and so on, and we think that people are actually living a life that they're actually not, and there's a lot of comparison with that. That to say, when it comes to values like wanting kids or not wanting kids, like that's something that you both should agree on because that's a big part of the future, right? Most people who get married end up having kids. Now, again, there's this trend where some couples are getting married and they just don't want to have kids and they just want to kind of live this as a single couple type of life. But I think for most Christians, there is the desire for kids. So if you can't agree on that, there's this belief that, well, we'll make it work some way. Maybe he'll change his mind, maybe she'll change her mind, and you really can't do that.

Speaker 1: 36:47

A lot of counselors will emphasize don't work on what could change, work on where they are now, and I think that's such an important principle. You got to focus on what you have in front of you, not the potential of what it can be. Money talks, creating budgets, discussing debt, planning for financial curveballs They'll bring that up in session. How would you deal, or what would you do if one of you loses their job? Right, very interesting regarding that, women are more likely to leave a marriage if a husband were to lose his job.

Speaker 1: 37:24

Men are more likely to leave a marriage if a husband were to lose his job. Men are more likely to leave their wives if they get sick and the wives would stay. It's very interesting, those two specific ones If who gets sick? So for if the husband gets sick, wives are more likely to stay. If the wife gets sick, husbands are more likely to leave because they lose, whether it be the physical connection or the emotional connection. Whatever it is, they go and seek that out elsewhere. When it comes to finances, if the wife loses her job, obviously, men usually being the primary providers, they stay, but if the husband were to lose his job, wives often leave those relationships as well. It's a higher percentage. So it's very interesting when you look at all these different things.

Speaker 1: 38:09

So when it comes up in premarital counseling, you talk about that. So what would happen, or what would you do, if one of you guys loses your job and you let them have that conversation? Right, Okay, what would we do? Right, what do we do if, with this, that you know you have more debt than I do? How do we want to resolve that? So you get them to have those really tough conversations and you're able to examine a lot of their communication style. Ok, last one here, just intimacy builders exercises to deepen emotional and physical connection, connection.

Speaker 1: 38:48

Very often, once people get married, where you start to see the data shows that once people have their first child, relationship satisfaction starts to go down. So, first child, you know they're, they're happy. First child, they have the first child and then relationship satisfaction starts to go down and then, once they hit about teenage years, then it starts to go back up again Because again, children are more independent, they don't need as much from the parents anymore and the couple can then focus on themselves and plan for the future and so on. So there's those expectations right, what do you do? What if you have a sick child? What do you get a child with a disability? Right? How is it going to change your dynamic? And all these communication patterns and intimacy builders, these check-ins they're small investments, to your point. They're small investments that have huge returns if you do it right.

Speaker 1: 39:34

A 10 to 15 minute check-in is kind of a good way to not start your day, but how you would end your day when you get home from work. So, hey, how was your day? You're just checking in. Hey, let's have some face-to-face time. Then you have dinner and so on. So those check-ins are very important but people don't see them as, oh, that can make a huge difference. It does, it really does. The research shows just those little bids for connection. They call them Bids for connection. They call them bids for connection. I'm just looking for you to see me, even if it's for 10, 15 minutes face-to-face interaction. So a lot of different things. Hopefully, maybe in the future we can do an episode on maybe some of these, these models and different approaches to marital counseling. But yeah, for now, do you have any other any other questions about the process or how it may be different from pastoral?

Speaker 2: 40:26

counseling. I mean, I was gonna ask, like for those who haven't been through premarital counseling, what to expect, but I think you, I think you pretty much covered it, like some of the topics that would be covered.

Speaker 1: 40:37

Yeah, and let me give, I guess, one last thing here, just kind of where they may overlap, just kind of whether it be religious or secular, premarital counseling works best when couples go in before problems arise. So it's preventative, right. So sometimes couples think that, oh, we have a communication issue, let's go to premarital counseling so we can address that. But let's say you don't have any issue. Let's say, for the most part, you're pretty healthy individuals and you get along well, you have a supportive family, you go to a great church, you're growing in your faith, all of these things, all of those things are good, right, right. So don't necessarily see it as, oh, we need to go only if we have problems. You could see it as a preventative measure or, as you put it, tim, as an investment. Right, it's just an added investment of, hey, you know what, we have some good skills, we get along well, but let's go to see what else we can add to our tool belt. That way, when you have a different problem arise, hey, we're going through premarital counseling, we have these other tools that we can use, right, so that that's one part. They won't practice. The tools that you learn, and one big one that's often communicated is active listening, can am I hearing you correctly? You repeat what you hear from your partner and they confirm yes, that's what I meant. Okay, and now you have actually clear communication. And we don't do that, right in relationships. Often each person wants to get across their point and they're just missing each other, right, completely missing each other. So in counseling what we would teach is hey, when you hear your partner say this, you check in and say, okay, I heard you say this, did I get that right? Say, no, you completely missed it. Okay, tell me, tell me again. I'm not sure where I missed you. So, again, it creates that expectation that you're trying to understand each other.

Speaker 1: 42:30

And lastly, just the aspect of tackling difficult topics. Right, sex, money, kids those are difficult topics to talk about on your own, sometimes like who brings it up? Right, we would say well, the man needs to bring up those conversations. But if there's trauma there, he may not want to, right, he may not want to touch on those topics or it may bring up something sensitive for him in the relationship. It may make him feel vulnerable. So when you have someone as an outside observer who's going to jump into that, they can bring it up with you know, with a lot of openness.

Speaker 1: 43:08

One professor told me. He said if you, as a counselor, don't touch on these difficult topics, they're not going to touch on it right, because you're the one who has the ability to, to explore those with them and they they're going to feel a sense of confidence because they're being guided through the process, right. So for those of us who are counseling, it's I got to go there, even though I know it's going to be uncomfortable. You put them in that situation and that's going to show you how they're actually communicating and how they resolve issues and so on. So all that to say, if you are in this space, if you have been in a relationship, I think one of the ideas that we've proposed is this pre-engagement counseling.

Speaker 1: 43:50

I would encourage that. Maybe four to six sessions, I think that's pretty good, where it gives you a good amount to consider and practice before making a decision. But again, this is the aspect where you're going to look at all these different things and make the decision that works out best for you guys. But I would highly highly encourage it. Well, that's a great talk.

Speaker 2: 44:11

Yeah, thank you man. Yeah, hopefully you guys enjoyed that.

Speaker 1: 44:15

Yeah, we will come back with another big topic similar to or related to relationships, prenuptial agreements. I'm looking forward to that one, tim, all right, all right, guys, we'll see you next time.