This time last year I was newly engaged. Boy does time fly! My fiancé and I are now planning our wedding. Our special day is July 21, 2015. It’s also the 8th year anniversary of my dad’s passing. Growing up in church I’ve witnessed many couples go through premarital counseling. I’ve also chatted with quite a few couples, divorcees and women who wished they would have had counseling prior to getting married.

By no means do I think that premarital counseling guarantees a “perfect” relationship. I thought premarital counseling would be a great way for my fiancé and I to get to know each other on a deeper level, to get insight from marriage veterans and to be challenged to discuss matters ( hypothetical or real life) that we may not have considered.

Long story short, we had our first premarital counseling session last night with a couple who’s mentored us since the beginning of our relationship. We really enjoyed it! Below are a few myths about marriage that were presented to us along with questions that I believe should be discussed before marriage as well as a few nuggets that I found in our notes. This list is by no means all- inclusive, but it’s a decent start.

7 Questions

1. Why do you want to get married?

2. What does marriage look like from each of our perspectives? What expectations does each of us have?

3. What are your ideas of the gender roles?

4. How will we handle finances and bills?

5. How many kids do you want? What happens if we aren’t able to have children?

6. How will we deal with our respective family dramas?

7. What are our career goals and what will it take for us to reach them?

4 Marriage Myths

1. We both expect the same things out of marriage– It’s important to discuss expectations because you all may have different perspectives on what marriage is and what it should entail.

2. Marriage is a cure all- No. The same issues you had before you were married will be there after marriage. Communication is key.

3. Everything will be better because we’re married- Negative.

4. Marriage is 50/50- Marriage is 100/100. Each person should give 100% of themselves.

Nuggets

  • You must create the union that you desire
  • Fight fair. No hitting below the belt when arguing
  • Marriage takes team work

Reflection

Overall I really really enjoyed our first session! He did too lol Not to toot my own horn but our relationship is built on a strong foundation. As cliche as it sounds… communication is key. Communicating when you’d rather stuff emotions and vulnerabilities way back there somewhere, is hard. Being the first to apologize or apologizing when you don’t feel as though you’ve done anything wrong takes a huge amount of humility but it helps.

My favorite part of the session was when our mentor, Pastor Yah, discussed gender roles. She talked about how some people get their idea of marriage from TV, family members or the advice of others. Depending on where our idea of marriage comes from, we may feel pressured to fit into certain roles. At the end of the day, whatever works for you and your partner is all that matters! If a woman doesn’t cook and her husband does, that doesn’t make her less than a woman and vice versa, if a woman works and her husband is a stay at home dad, that doesn’t make him less than a man.

 

Share Your Wisdom. Comment Below!

What topics do you think couples need to discuss before marriage? Did you get premarital counseling? If so, what’d you think? Was it beneficial?

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