I thought it might be fun to take a look back at the premarital counseling that Jordan and I did, given that we’ve been married for one year already – where did the time go?!
After being engaged for three and a half months, Jordan was offered and accepted a job that required him to move approximately one hour away from where we had been living. Jordan moved to a small efficiency apartment, and I moved back in with my parents. We had been living together for a year prior to Jordan’s new job. With our wedding only seven short months away, we knew that this job was temporary for him, so we committed to making it work for such a short time.
However, the fact that we were apart Monday through Friday and were only together on the weekends complicated one thing that we both wanted to accomplish prior to our wedding: going through premarital counseling. But, it all worked out well, so I wanted to share our strategy in hopes of helping other couples who may be facing a similar situation.
What worked for Jordan and I was to read a book together that still acted as premarital counseling for us, but allowed us to read the book, chapter by chapter, separately. We then got together to discuss each chapter. The book we used is 10 Great Dates Before You Say ‘I Do’ by David and Claudia Arp and Curt and Natelle Brown.
We really enjoyed working through the book together, as it answered all of the important questions that we thought should be answered before committing to someone for a lifetime. Everything from communication to finances to children was covered in this book, and best of all, each “issue” or “question” had a bit of “homework” (mostly list-making or freewriting) that each of us would do prior to our “date,” or the time that was set aside for discussion of the chapter.
After finishing the book (actually, I think that we cheated and only got through nine of the ten dates before our wedding day!), we also met with my uncle, who married us, for a premarital counseling session. My uncle had us fill out (before meeting with him) personality inventories that were full of more critical questions about our expectations of marriage and what we desired to achieve in our lives as married people. We then met with my uncle to discuss the results of these inventories. This was such a fun part of our wedding preparations, especially because Jordan and I were exactly where we should be prior to getting married, according to my uncle!
This approach worked for us, because it allowed us to maximize our geographical differences while still maximizing our marriage preparation. We would recommend the book to anyone, and we’ve even passed the book along to another couple who is considering marriage in the future!
Did you do premarital counseling? Do you plan to when you get married? What method did you/will you use?
NOTE: I wasn’t paid or perk’d to feature the book by the Arps and the Browns – we just had a great experience with it!
[Photo by Creative Kindling]
