Pre-marital Counseling

[Elizabeth123]

Originally Posted by Elizabeth123
OK - first off trying to NOT start another thread - if you feel it should be a new thread please move/change

My SO are coming up on our 1yr anniversary...he "popped the question"!!!
Now we are wondering about pre-marital counseling...
My questions to you are:
1)have you tried it?
2)what site did you use?
3)was it worth the fee?
4)any negative experience with same?
Thank you for your replies

dglynn77 -wrote:
Thank you for trying not to start unnecessary new threads, but this thread is so old and a slightly different topic so I would suggest starting a new thread about this if you want people to respond.

here is the new thread

[snow]

I didn't even know this was a thing. Interesting!

We are obviously not doing it, but I feel like I should read a little bit into this.

[lucybelle]

We did NOT use premarital counseling. We lived together for 2 years before we got hitched, so that was enough for us

I was under the impression only religious couples planning to be married in a specific church had to go under premarital counseling. Obviously anyone can do it, but I've only heard of religious couples doing it. If you're doing it for religious reasons I'd check out the church or place of worship to make sure that doing sessions online are okay. Otherwise, I'd just download that "100 questions" booklet thing available on this site and go through that!

[blankita719]

Florida actually offers a discount on your marriage license fee if you take a pre-marital course - plus they waive a 3 day waiting period from the date of issuance of the license. I've considered it, even though I'm not super religious. I don't know if other states offer the same type of incentives for completing any pre-marital counseling, but it might be a consideration.

[dglynn77]

We did pre-marital counseling, and although we had covered most of the topics beforehand, we enjoyed the third-party discussion it added. The counsellor's opinion weighing in on things was nice, and he covered a few topics Mr. K and I were going to cover but hadn't covered at that point. I really enjoyed it and Mr. K (surprisingly) did too!

[piratemama]

Just wanted you to know that I have not had online pre-marital counseling, but I appreciate this thread very much. I did have counseling in my church for my first wedding; it didn't help much, as that marriage ended in divorce. There were a ton of issues that should have been brought up and discussed, but they weren't. I hope you can find a good counselor. I'm interested in the idea of online pre-marital counseling; that might be helpful for me in the future...I hope I'll need it, that is!

[Heavenly_Love12]

Great thread topic! My SO and I have been talking about marriage for the last couple of months and pre-martial counseling is something we both want to do. We'd like to have options since we're not sure if the church would accommodate long distance/Skype counseling and our work schedules would make it difficult to do counseling on set days and times. I know Texas also offers a discount on your marriage license and waives the three day waiting period if the couple does so many hours of pre-marital counseling. I honestly think it would help and since I am working on a Masters in the counseling field, I'm a big fan of counseling!

I'll be checking back on this thread, hopefully someone found a good pre-counseling program online or a counselor who was open to phone calls and Skype to accomplish it

[Elizabeth123]

Thank you all for your replies.
My SO brought up the idea. We are undecided about counseling but are willing to think about it.
We are not considering this for religious purposes. Mostly to learn and deepen our relationship.

[Malaga]

We did pre-marital counseling, and although we had covered most of the topics beforehand, we enjoyed the third-party discussion it added. The counsellor's opinion weighing in on things was nice, and he covered a few topics Mr. K and I were going to cover but hadn't covered at that point. I really enjoyed it and Mr. K (surprisingly) did too!

Like lucybelle, I've only ever heard of religious couples doing that. In fact, it's mandatory over here if you want to get married in a Catholic church. I have my doubts about being counselled by a man who most likely never had an adult romantic relationship himself not to mention most of them are flat out misogynist dinosaurs from another era.

But I'd be totally up for it with a qualified counsellor, I think it's a great opportunity to grow as a couple and individuals, especially with the added third-party insight.

[lyonsgirl]

My husband & I went through pre-marital counseling. It was required by the church we got married in. And, no, we're not Catholic. Our counselor was amazing (and married, with 3 kids). We took a survey before we talked to him and he helped us talk generally about our results from the survey, and we have the info still. Hm. Maybe I'll bring it out again soon just to look over it. See if our answers have changed now that we've been married a few months.

I haven't heard of anyone doing anything online, though.

[differentcountries]

We lived together before marriage and did not pre-marital counselling, but when my husband and I took a relationship course (5-7 couples together), we wondered why we had not taken it sooner. In my country, a lot of the countries give you the course for free when you have your first child, as a break up prevention.