Asking to choose between premarital education or counseling is asking the wrong the question. Because why would you need counseling, unless you are not sure about who you are marrying?
Counseling is a focused approach to particular issues, which helps if you’re stuck in a rut or face a dilemma. A good marriage counselor, including a clergy or other philosopher, may be able to help you see things more clearly. But before you get married, you really need to know how marriage works, and how to make it work for you.
The divorce rate (meaning more than a glance and shrug at the statistics) as well as your own observations of married couples’ interactions sends a clear message: Getting married does not guarantee a successful marriage!
But it should! Getting specific, and very important, premarital education prepares couples for marriage. It’s no less important than proper preparation for a trip around the world.
There are many options under the umbrella of premarital education:
- Religious premarital classes — These are offered by many major religions, such as Mormons and Catholics. Religious courses from churches, other than Mormons, used to not show statistical improvement in their rate of successful marriages. I think it is because they were geared to teaching how the church is more important than the marriage. Maybe in the old days, when families rarely broke apart, that was all that was needed. But couples need more practical instruction about their lives together, with the focus on their interactions and attitudes. Mormons, Hasidic Jews, and other religions make their marriages a sacred part of a bigger family, so their guidance is much different than what most require for success. The emphasis for religious premarital education is scriptural. So, unless you are a believer, it may not be the best for you.
- Premarital inventories — We really think of these as shallow quizzes, rather than useful guidance. The idea of this approach seems to be all-around compatibility. Where compatibility has its importance, it is not going to save you from the pitfalls that come from close-quarter living or help your marriage progress to the level of intimacy we all desire. They are widely used, but not highly effective.
- Online courses — Not all courses are created equally, of course, and we, The Marriage Foundation, have our own course. If you are taking one of our high quality courses, you will have access to the classes all the time. You can go back again and again, through our text and videos, as often as you need to learn what is most important for you. In addition, if the course is provided by a strong source, they will back it up with certified experts to give personal help when needed.
- Individual premarital counseling — Just about every marriage family therapist would be happy to sit with you for a 45-minute session or more. We say NO! There is far too much you have to learn, about communication, soul-mind-body relationship, biological imperatives, social considerations, etc. Even the clergy who sit with you, unless they just want to share a quick pointer, are hardly adequate.
On the other hand, if you are not sure you are meant for each other, and that is why you want individual counseling, you should not be engaged! Not yet, anyway!
We know you want to have the best marriage you can have, and you can have it. Marriage is not difficult when you know what you are doing. But don’t think you can just wing it. That is suicide!