What is Premarital Counseling?
This is a question that must be asked before writing further on premarital counseling. Premarital counseling is defined as the type of therapy that helps couples prepare for marriage. While the word compatibility means if the couples can go along with each other despite the difference in background and attitude. To test something means to provoke the possibility of its continuity. We shall talk on the premarital counseling compatibility test.
It is very important to have this test before marriage so that future conflict will be avoided. Note, premarital counseling compatibility test, simply means premarital counseling, therefore, don’t be confused by the topic title. This is carried out for both young and old couples to help guide them into a marriage relationship.
Why is the premarital counseling compatibility test done?
There are reasons why humans do things. This means premarital counseling compatibility test is channeled at a particular goal. I will explain these goals one after the other as part of the key reasons why people go for premarital counseling. This will also help you too while you decide either to invite a professional therapist into your relationship for premarital counseling.
Here are the goals of premarital counseling test
Communication
Communication in a marriage involves many human skills. Beginning from how to study the body language of your spouse down to how they feel about situations. Listening skill must be sharpened in a marriage relationship and many other skills such as interactions and getting to know each other better must be your key goal before you get married. Premarital counseling compatibility test helps a lot in this instance. It will bring the partners together as one since they will find the opportunity to interact with each other.
The therapist will ensure that the couples are always engaged in discussion, in each session he has with them. By so doing, the communication skill of the couples will be enhanced in favor of their marriage in the nearest future. One importance of this kind of therapy is that couples will get to know each other better. They will discover new things about each other and then form a rapport towards avoiding further conflict if they had one before.
Understanding
One important thing in any relationship is the understanding between the couples. If the couples fail in this aspect, there is every possibility that such a relationship will always be known for disagreement and conflict. I have seen many people who are not even couples, but due to a lack of understanding between them always fight. This is what premarital counseling will help you solve. It will help you enhance the level of your understanding of your partner.
This is always done by several questions that may be thrown to you by the counselor. Through your sincere reply, the counselor will derive the report of how to use those replies to find a solution for your problems. Always have it on your mind that, both a male and a female are two different creatures.
Finances
The finance aspect of marriage is also one of the key reasons why some marriages don’t work. Before you agree to marry, you must have taken good care of this constraint. The couples must know their reactions to lack of finance. They must understand that if there is hardship in the marriage later, will they be able to cope? If one of the couples is the type that can’t cope without money, it is better the matter is resolved as early as possible.
Belief and Values
What is the belief or value of the couples? Don’t you think this will bring more conflict in the future if left untouched? This is one of the problems that kill many marriages. In order to avoid this, premarital marriage counseling will be a very vital element. You need to understand what your spouse believes in. You must understand their values and how to get along with them.
A counselor will expose you to the strategies on dealing with such situations in marriage through a series of questions. The feedback after the interaction will be used to formulate solutions for what you should do while dealing with your partner in the aspect of beliefs and values. For instance, can you cope with a Christian wife while you are a Muslim? What if your wife is an atheist and you are an atheist? How are you going to handle such conditions?
Marital Roles
Do you both actually know your roles in a marriage? Most of the time, young couples are those who don’t even know what marriage is all about. If this is the case, it means such marriage will experience some setback. One of the major roles of premarital counseling is to help the couples understand their roles in the marriage. Remember, knowledge of a matter really matters, for if you have no clue about a situation, how do you handle it properly?
Lovemaking and Affection
Marriage cannot stand without affection. The couples must know this before getting married. Lovemaking, in a marriage, cannot be taken for granted. I have learned from some couple whose major problem is the lovemaking aspect. Sometimes, it could be that the male partner cannot satisfy the female partner. This issue can cause separation. In most cases, the female partner may begin to practice extramarital affair. If the man gets to know about this, could call for divorce and sometimes, may lead to death or attempt.
A therapist can help you figure out what to do to avoid conflict.
The Desire to have Children
You see every little issue in a marriage cannot be taken for granted. In premarital counseling, your opinions will be sought by the counselor concerning the number of children both of you may like to have. Through your responses, and interactions together, the solution to avoid future conflict will be derived. As I used to say, a therapist should rather act as a leader to the couples than staying neutral. A counselor should Advice and admonishes the couples after the presentation of their feedback to them. Couples must agree to the number of children they desire to have after the wedding so that such decision will be binding during the marriage. It will not come unprepared for again.
Family Relationship
Premarital counseling is carried out in other to expose the couples to how to handle the family relationship. How should members of the family live together; in peace and harmony’ or in conflict and violence? Most of the couples that have a fight once in a while don’t understand the value of a family relationship. You must know that a family is established to cultivate and instigate love and affection for each other beginning with the father down to the last man in the home. Premarital counseling will guide you on what to do in order to achieve this purpose in marriage.
Decision Making
As couples, you need to learn how to sit together to make decisions. Remember, a family is not instituted to be the authoritarian government; rather it is more like a regulated democratic government. What do I mean by a democratic regulated government? It means all freedom should not be given in marriage otherwise it will be destroyed in no time. However, the male partner should equally give the female partner the chance to contribute her opinion during decision-making. Don’t be surprised, some females are great adviser, if you listen to some of their advice, you will realize the professionalism involve in them. You both can decide the next step to take the family to the next level together. There is nothing wrong in that. This is exactly what premarital counseling test will teach you.
Dealing anger and frustration
Definitely, every human has this weakness—anger. Frustration is also part of the human enemy that must be fought to the last breath. Anger kills a marriage. Before you know, you alter silly words that will create huge holes in your marriage. Most of the time, frustration brings about anger. Sometimes, it could be stress. Any of these two causes demands that you control your emotion. Most of the people who react to emotion regret in the end. Premarital counseling test will draw your attention to this marriage sword earlier before your union with your partner.
This will give you a high chance to work on your anger before it is too late. You will be naturally obliged to think of how to get your anger and frustration problem cured if you really value marriage.
Attention and Responsibility
What is the level of your responsibility? Marriage is all about attention and responsibility. A mindset of negligence will do nothing better than destroying the relationship between the partners. I have experienced a family whose major reason for the conflict is a lack of responsibility from the husband. As a young couple, you must understand and identify this virus in a marriage. There is no way you will escape conflict if your aim is to remain irresponsible. Your sense of responsibility must be high. What about attention? Both men and women love being given attention. From now, before your marriage, you must learn how to put your family first before any other worldly things.
It baffles me, when some married men who are expected to be mature, prioritize their android phone above their family. This is a bad habit and can drastically reduce the value of marriage, rendering your innocent spouse miserable. I am not a preacher, but I advise that every couple should learn to be responsible for the family.
Time you spend together
This aspect of a relationship is vital. I can’t imagine couples not having time for each other. It is like a scenario of two elephants fight—the grasses around will suffer it. You kids need a role model to take his or her footstep so that they can be social too. Apart from serving as a role model for your children, having each other’s time will build a kind of rapport which at the end help stabilize your relationship with your spouse. You will get to know each other very well. Through this time you spend together, you will play together and also share things that bother you together. From acting this way, you may end up taking good decisions together.
Samples of Questions asked during Premarital Counseling
I have mentioned various purposes for conducting premarital counseling. Now, I will be presenting some samples of questions you may encounter during the sessions. This is necessary in order to prepare your mind ahead in case you decided to give it a try.
The counselor is a specialist, so he has prepared some set of professional question that he will use to scrutinize you and your spouse in order to get the truth out of you if you give sincere answers.
Here are some of the sample questions
- Why are you getting married: I smiled when I saw this question? Did you know? Large percentages of youth couples don’t even know why they are getting married. If this is your case, you need to invite a therapist to ask you a similar question. You need to define your relationship. You and your spouse must know the reason why you are getting married. Is it because your friends are getting married? Is it that you are being forced or you bullied? There must be a reason why you want to get married.
- Do you disagree with any issue: is there any issues both of you disagree on? You need to resolve any issue trending between the both of you before thinking of getting married. Failure to do so will create a way for it to continue during marriage. This will definitely result in a future conflict.
- What is your plan concerning finance: how are you planning to support your partner financially? Remember, once in a while, a person may be stranded even though he or she is wealthy. How readily will you be to help your spouse when he or she needs money? You can decide how you will be spending your money when married and how or on what to spend it on.
- How about Division of Labor? Some men make a common mistake. They believe the chores in the home should be handled only by the wife. This is a strange believe I swear. Your wife is not a slave, therefore, to be more romantic, you need to help her in some domestic works. Both of you should discuss how you will divide the chores when you are married.
- What about the number of Children: how did you define your relationship? To have children in the marriage and how many? This question must be answered. Remember, marriage is no joke; it will be too childish to come up all of a sudden that you are no longer interested in making children after an agreement with your partner that you will have. It doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind. You can but the strength of the consequence is what I cannot assure you.
With these points above, you should understand the overview of what premarital counseling is and the cautions to take while selecting a counselor for your counseling.
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