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5 reasons premarital counseling could change your marriage · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, Dr.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: David here.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about premarital counseling and why you should do it.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're alive.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, Doc David here.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yes, I'm alive still.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Summer has taken over.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I've just I I I want to do a consistent podcast, and so I apologize.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't find that I have the time as a single income earner and COVID and and all of the above summer traveling, it just doesn't allow for it.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: So um you get what you get, and I apologize for that.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully this um doesn't turn you off, but I apologize if it does.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I can't do much about it.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um hopefully your summer's been going well.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Mine's been going semi-okay.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Pandemic, COVID has really turned things around so that things that we normally would be doing, we have not been doing.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a sentiment that I've been hearing a lot from my clients, and it's just hard.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that um I'm really hearing a lot right now are from working working parents when both parents work and then schools online.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: How do you keep kids focused on that?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: So we may have a conversation about that in the future.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: But today I want to talk about uh premarital counseling and and the importance of it that I think it's an important thing to do.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it's um useful, important, all of the above.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna give five reasons for why I think it's important.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: And there could be, I mean, we someone could probably come up with 20 reasons, but in my years of experience of working with couples that are divorced, are going through a divorce, are trying to avoid divorce, uh, these are some big things that I think could be really useful to those of you that are getting married or are thinking of getting married.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um these are things that I think you should seriously consider for why you want to do premarital counseling.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they're not in any order of importance.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so number one, one of the things that I talk about a lot of times with my clients is their family of origin.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I call it a foo when I write my notes.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: FOO, families of origin.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: So your family of origin teaches you a lot in relationships, it teaches you how to love people, it teaches you how to be affectionate, it teaches you about anger, what's appropriate anger, hopefully, and it not only teaches you things that how to do them well, but it also teaches you what not to do.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so unfortunately, um, people tend to take what went bad in their families of origin and bring those into their significant other relationships as a way to solve problems for themselves.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and again, that's a whole nother podcast that we can have a very specific conversation about.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: But let's say, for example, uh you didn't learn how to communicate well in your family, and you learned that I gotta protect myself.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't address that prior to getting married, you're gonna have challenges in your marriage when your partner, who did come from a family that communicates well, tries to communicate with you.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be a disconnect there.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, knowing about that prior to getting married is huge, and that leads into uh number two.
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  SPEAKER_01: So, number one, what you learned in your family just simply isn't good enough most of the time.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Number two is knowing your challenges.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um the more the more you know about the challenges that you have just personally, the more likely you can then be successful in your marriage.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that, if you know you have a challenge around, let's say, communication again, um, and you do premarital counseling and it gets identified as a challenge for you, then in the premarital counseling, you can start working on tools and skills that are gonna help you communicate much more effectively after you're married.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times what happens is people don't do premarital counseling, and so they don't realize they have these challenges uh until the first or second year of their marriage, and bad habits have formed on how they talk through things, for example.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so then they come into my office and we don't communicate well, and I ask questions like, Oh, did you know you didn't communicate well prior to getting married?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but we thought marriage would uh to solve it.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I internally I laugh, right?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because I don't want to laugh at people when they just don't know.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll I'll just be clear with you, you gotta figure this stuff out before you get married.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Marriage is not gonna make things better.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: I've uh for some things it may, but generally marriage does not make things better, especially when you have challenges going into marriage.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, number three, so what's I I put it as what's the mission of your marriage?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: But one of the important things to consider is what are some common goals that you're gonna have in your marriage?
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  SPEAKER_01: So, for example, um, are you do you agree to love one another unconditionally?
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  SPEAKER_01: Do you agree to show grace to one another?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: Do you agree to um raise children without spanking?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you agree on the number of children that you uh want?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: These are conversations that I think are super important to have.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um because then you're not gonna be surprised six years in when your spouse wants two more kids and you are bummed that you already have two kids.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it happens.
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  SPEAKER_01: That is that has happened.
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  SPEAKER_01: So uh you need to have those kind of conversations, and those are best to be had prior to making a covenant of marriage happen.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um just it's just a good idea because you don't want to get into your marriage and then all of a sudden realize, oh wait, we're not we don't have the same goals for things.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: So if if you're married, if before you're married you really want to have a great career and you really want to advance in your career, but you're married to somebody that just wants kids and doesn't want advancement and wants to just have a good um home life, those two potentially are not super compatible.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they can be, but there needs to be a discussion around it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's why premarital counseling is good.
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  SPEAKER_01: Number four is if you do premarital counseling, chances are you'll do marriage counseling.
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  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you have experience doing it before, the commitment has happened, the ceremony has happened, etc.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: etc., chances are you'll be more likely to do it after because then you'll you realize what it's like and you have you're familiar with the whole process of it.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And number five, I think doing premarital counseling shows there's a shows that you have a personal commitment to working through difficult things in the relationship that you're in.
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  SPEAKER_01: A lot of times, like I have couples right now that one half of the couple comes into my Zoom meeting and I say, Oh, where's so-and-so?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they said that they didn't they didn't need counseling and that you know I'm the one with the issue.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it I feel bad for those people because they're able to see there's a bigger issue, and their partner doesn't want to address this issue.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you do premarital counseling prior to your marriage, um this kind of aligns with number four, do it before, then you'll do it after.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, doing it before shows that you have a commitment to the person to try to make things work, and it's more likely that after your marriage, that commitment will still be there.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I I think if you're willing to do it before, then you'll do it after.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it shows a commitment to work on your marriage and commitment to work on future issues that may arise.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, again, like I said earlier, these are things that uh these are just things that I think are important.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: There could be like 10 more things that another therapist could say, This is why you got to do premarital counseling.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: If you Google why to do premarital counseling, there will be tons of lists for you.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you can have your own kind of lists.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: I would encourage you, if you know anybody getting married, um, that you share this with them or you talk to them about maybe doing premarital counseling as something that could be really beneficial for them and for the future of their relationship.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, we're moving into fall.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: I can feel it in the weather, and who knows how long the coronavirus is gonna last, who knows how long schools are gonna be shut down.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: My encouragement to you is to be kind to one another, be careful, caring about one another, be compassionate about one another.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you look on Facebook right now, you you will see a lot of unkindness and non-compassionate people.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And my encouragement to you is that is such an infinitesimally small number of people, given how many people live in America.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: So don't let Facebook, social media, news media impact you negatively.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: You are in charge of your emotions, you are the one that can be kind to people, you are the one that can be considerate to people.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I really encourage you to do that.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: I work hard uh to try to do that, I'm not always successful at it, but I want you to know as a person that's telling you to do that, I try to do that myself as much as I can.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I just encourage you in that as you go throughout your weekend and your upcoming week.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, have a great weekend.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Love on your kids, love on your spouse, and uh treat people kindly.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Take care of the video.