Premarital Counselling
Congratulations on your upcoming wedding! While some only focus on the details of the wedding day, you are focusing on setting your marriage up for a lifetime of success! Amazing!
Whether you are:
-pre-engaged,
-engaged, or
-newly married, this is for you!
Premarital Counselling is the most important thing you can do as you prepare for your wedding day. Please check out Melissa's September 15, 2015 blog post that outlines the reasons why premarital counselling is so important.
While it is ideal to do premarital counselling at least 3-6 months before the wedding date, it can be done at any time, even after the wedding! This work can also be done during pre-engagement. Research has proven that premarital counselling helps to reduce the divorce rate.
Our premarital program includes each person individually taking the on-line Prep-Enrich Inventory, SYMBIS, or Gottman Connect and then meeting together to review the results over several sessions. At the end, you and your partner receive a Certificate of Completion. After this, annual check-ups are highly recommended.
The Prep-Enrich inventory is a well known, highly valid and reliable confidential on-line questionnaire. Susan and Melissa are trained in Prep-Enrich.
SYMBIS is another premarital tool that couples have found very useful, with optional books that accompany this program, called "Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts" by Les and Leslie Parrott. Melissa is trained in SYMBIS.
The Gottman Connect inventory is very thorough and is based on over 50 years of John Gottman's relationship research. Our whole team is trained in the Gottman Method. Melissa is trained and Certified in the Gottman Method and is a "7 Principles for Making Marriage Work" Leader (for information on workshops and retreats on this, see our Services page). Susan, Azalea and Mathilde are also trained in the Gottman Method (Levels 1 and 2).
As you book your initial appointment, please let us know which questionnaire you would like to use. We would then send you each a link to complete it. To complete the on-line questionnaire, there is a cost of approximately $40USD investment that is paid directly to the respective institute (for example, The Gottman Institute, if you chose the Gottman Connect questionnaire). The results of the questionnaire would be discussed during our sessions together, and you would get a copy of your Couple Report.
Using the results of any of these inventories, we can quickly assess couple compatibility and personality in session, saving you time and money in the long-term. With any of these tools, we identify your couple strengths and areas of growth, and use activities and discussions to improve the areas of growth. We would usually cover topics such as: communication, conflict management, children, religion, finances, stress, family of origin/in-laws, marital expectations, chores, leisure, habits, personality differences, roles, relationship dynamics, mental wellness, couple goals, etc.
If you would like to integrate Christian faith, we are happy to bring in Biblical principles and prayer into the premarital work. This will help to bring God into the centre of the marriage and strengthen your relationship with Him and each other. Depending on your preferences and beliefs, we are also just as happy to offer premarital counselling from a secular framework.
Premarital counseling can help you and your significant other improve your relationship by helping you develop better communication skills, learn effective conflict management skills, uncover your shared core values as well as identify and manage differences that could otherwise create future conflict. Working with us, you can discuss expectations with your partner that will help better prepare both of you for marriage and a lifetime together!