Marriage is a big step. It is important to us that you find your way to a happy, healthy and long lasting marriage. Most of the work involved in Pre-Marital Therapy is planning ahead for a healthy marriage. St. Louis Marriage Therapy offers a Pre-Marital Therapy course that lasts from 4-5 sessions and covers the basic communication issues a couple should address before getting married. Typical issues covered include communication, finances, childcare and housework, sexual differences, family roles/expectations, and keeping the romantic spark long term. This pre-marital course is based on Angela Skurtu's book, "Pre-Marital Counseling: A Guide for Clinicians." (Routledge, March 2016).
Many couples who are getting married are in second or third relationships. They have been married before and divorced. As a result, you may wonder what needs to happen to ensure that you are not making the same mistake. In Premarital Counseling, couples can discuss co-parenting, how to divide finances, how to share new households, and how to keep the spark alive. You can also explore issues around conflict resolution and being on the same page.
Finances
If you have never been married before, you may have never shared your money with another person. There are many things couples need to discuss about sharing finances. Will you put your money all in the same money pot or will you each have separate bank accounts? How will you pay for household items? Will you divide the expenses or will you each pay half? If one of you makes a lot more money than the other party, will you each pay a percentage of the expenses based on what you bring into the home?
If this is a second or third marriage, you may need to discuss how to keep your finances separate or how to set clear boundaries about where your money is going. For second marriages, there are often kids involved. Many couples have serious questions about who is responsible for what financial costs with their children. To be fair, there are no perfect answers to these questions. In therapy, you can discuss ways to approach finances that make sense. Your therapist won't tell you the right or wrong way to handle finances, but they will offer ideas based on what has helped other couples manage their finances respectfully.
If you are writing a prenuptial agreement and you are feeling unheard, the therapist can also offer ideas or strategies to help resolve conflict. Getting on the same page about finances is a very important task to address before getting married. Finances are one of the most common conflicts couples struggle with. Premarital therapy to address finances is very important.
Housework (Division of Labor)
This topic has become more and more challenging for couples. There are so many tasks we are responsible for now. You have basic chores like laundry, dishes, mopping, cleaning bathrooms, mowing the lawn, and house maintenance. You also have to add things like making and keeping medical appointments, paying bills, saving money and retirement, driving kids to different activities and school, various school appointments, etc. This is only the work in relationships. There is also the work of planning romantic dates, buying tickets for events, and planning vacations.
When couples do not feel things are reasonably divided amongst them, this impacts their sex life and romantic life. Commonly couples who come in for sex therapy are surprised to find that we spend a great deal of time discussing division of labor. People are more open to sex and romance when they feel their partnership is solid and divided reasonably. When there are problems with the chores, couples get into many arguments.
In therapy, we will address ways to create better chore systems and structure in your household. We will talk about the day to day tasks and the emotional labor associated with those tasks. You may find yourselves learning how to do better a project management as a team. In therapy, you will cover a variety of strategies to work better as a team. Again, there is no one size fits all approach. Your therapist has worked with many couples and learned a variety of ways to approach chores in a meaningful and productive way.