Couples considering premarital counselling are on the right track. Stats Canada reports that 38% of Canadian marriages end in divorce and 20% of those are people who were divorced previously.
Most couples have been married an average of seven years when they come to counselling on the brink of divorce and fully entrenched in negative patterns that are causing hurt and mistrust within the relationship. Premarital counselling helps couples learn important relationship skills and is shown to reduce divorce rates one third.
How Premarital Counselling Works
The process of pre-marital counselling involves strengthening a couple’s bond, developing healthy communication patterns, and discussing important topics including religion, children, parenting styles, and finances.
Strengthening Your Bond as a Couple
Studies show that creating a strong, secure bond in a relationship can act like a safety net that provides support through all of life’s tough transitions and struggles.
To help couples create this strong bond, Robin Morgan asks couples to explore past hurts and fears and to develop a strong sense of compassion, acceptance and love for each other.
This process allows couples to develop an in-depth self-awareness of deeper feelings and needs within themselves and their partner.
Developing Healthy Communication Patterns
Negative communication patterns can reap havoc on relationships and cause distance, uncertainty, mistrust and hopelessness.
Counselling to help couples develop healthy communication starts with identifying negative communication patterns within past and present relationships, working through trust barriers, and increasing each partner’s ability to access and express feelings and needs.
Robin will guide clients as they develop the skills needed to be emotionally accessible and responsive to one other.
Discussing Important Topics
Clients in pre-marriage counselling develop healthy communication patterns and secure bonds that make discussing important topics easier. Robin believes it is important that couples anticipate and discuss issues that could affect their marriage including having children, parenting styles, finances, expectations, values, extended family, personal space/time, and spiritual preferences.
