Premarital Counselling
Getting it right from the start
Congratulations on your engagement! Your marriage, if given it’s proper care and attention, will be your boldest and most thrilling adventure. It will be your greatest source of joy and your steadfast refuge from the world, no matter what it throws at you over the course of your life. But it takes courage, commitment and effort to get it right. Let’s make sure you can do it well.
I believe that if the world was blessed with significantly more fulfilled, committed and loving married couples, many of humanities problems would be diminished. We would raise more stable children, build more cohesive communities, want for less of the earth’s resources and have the emotional fortitude to forge a kinder and more compassionate world.
Marriage can be either your greatest source of joy and pleasure, or a painful feat of suffering and endurance.
Engaged couples put an incredible amount of time and effort into planning the perfect wedding. The venue, the dress, the photographer. The right font for the invitations, the right song for the first dance; the list is seemingly endless. It’s a momentous occasion and a once in a lifetime event after all, so it’s got to be just right. But what if it rains? What if it floods!? What about insurance? You need to be prepared for all eventualities.
Sadly however, many couples are often at a total loss when it comes to actually preparing for and ultimately achieving a happy, lifelong marriage. What does a happy marriage even look like? What are your deal breakers? What if your careers take you away from each other for long periods? What if sex is no longer of interest to one of you but the other wants more? What if an emerging ‘no go’ topic becomes a very real problem that you are unable to discuss without conflict? These are common problems and they are not always that easy to overcome without preparation or guidance.
You probably already know that just under half of all UK marriages end in divorce. Perhaps even more tragically, a large proportion of those that do survive are far from happy. Many married couples will endure a lifetime of bitterness, ambivalence and loneliness together. Some barely managing to share even a handful of meaningful conversations over several decades. Criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling are common foes in many a household. These ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ can take years to bed in to a marriage, but once they do, they can be terribly difficult to evict.
Thankfully, premarital counselling is now becoming far more common as society is tending towards discussing mental health and emotional wellbeing more openly. Premarital counselling can help couples identify ahead of time, areas of their own personalities that might contribute to interpersonal difficulties and how best to resolve with them. It can give couples a space to discuss and agree upon what core values are important to each them from the outset, so that you have a shared vision for the future. It can help you establish rules and boundaries around potentially contentious issues so that a sense of security and trust can be maintained. It can teach you how to effectively communicate your needs, and how to actively listen to your partners. You can learn how to resolve conflict, how to discuss and negotiate sex openly, how to foster an attitude of mutual generosity and much, much more.
The Courageous Marriage
The Courageous Marriage is my new comprehensive 10 week program which you can attend in person in Somerset, or online from anywhere in the world. It is structured (loosely depending on your needs) and is comprised of 10 modules which we will work through together. The main topics will include:
- Your individual histories and how they might subconsciously affect your relationship.
- Your current relationship and any potential areas of difficulty.
- Core values and developing a shared vision for the future.
- Communication and conflict resolution.
- Sex and intimacy.
I am currently accepting a limited number of applications and the program will begin from January 2025. If you are interested in registering, please contact me and include your wedding date (if you have one), a little about both of you and how you met in your message. I would love to hear from you!
THE COURAGEOUS MARRIAGE ProgramA comprehensive 10 week premarital course
SaneFounded on truth, authenticity and certainty.
SexyBrimming with intimacy, playfulness & generosity.
SecureProtected by trust, commitment and loyalty.
£950 In person or £850 Online
What are the benefits of marriage?
Benefits of Marriage on Physical Health
- Married people live longer and are less likely to commit suicide than those who are not married.
- Married people have better emotional and physical health than unmarried people.
- Married people have the lowest incidences of diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.
- Married men have lower levels of stress hormones.
- Those who are married report less depression than cohabiting couples.
- A study in 2016 found that married people have higher odds of surviving a heart attack.
- Other research has linked marriage with a lower risk of developing cancer and being diagnosed with dementia.
- Married cancer patients are more likely to survive the illness than those who are single and develop the disease. Death rates among unmarried cancer patients are higher, especially among single men.
- Married women are significantly less likely to be the victims of violent crime than single or divorced women.
Benefits of Marriage on Psychological Health
- Marriage provides partners with a sense of belonging.
- Married women experience less psychological distress.
- Married mothers feel more love and intimacy, less ambivalence, and experience less conflict with their husbands than cohabiting and single women do with their partners.
- Married mothers report less depression, more support from their partners, and more stable relationships than cohabiting mothers.
- Married people are least likely to commit suicide.
- Married people are much more likely to report being happy than cohabiters.
- Married mothers of infants have the most positive attitudes and report forming better home environments than single and cohabiting mothers.
Benefits of Marriage on Children
- Children with married parents have better emotional and physical health than those raised by single parents.
- Adolescents living with married parents are less likely to be depressed than those in stepfamilies or single-parent families.
- Children with married parents are more likely to stay in school and have fewer behavioural problems.
- Children with married parents are less vulnerable to serious emotional illness, depression and suicide.
- Children with married parents receive a model for their future marriage.
- Children from intact families are likely to have higher paying jobs as adults.
Benefits of Marriage on Finance
- Married people enjoy greater wealth than unmarried people, and the longer they stay married, the more their wealth accumulates.
- Married men earn more money than do single men with similar education and job histories.
- Married women are economically better off than divorced, cohabiting or never-married women.
Benefits of Marriage on Society
- Adolescents living with married parents are less likely to be depressed than those in stepfamilies or single-parent families.
- Married women are significantly less likely to be the victims of violent crime than single or divorced women.
- Being married changes people’s lifestyles and habits in ways that are personally and socially beneficial.
- Communities with more married-parent families will be safer and better places to live because they are less likely to by plagued by substance abuse and crimes committed by young people.
- Married people have better health than unmarried people and so societal healthcare costs are lower.