Posts Tagged married

By Kelly Purden

There is no need to ask whether pre marriage counseling is for you or not. The answer is always YES. Pre marriage counseling is a psychological counseling given to couples before marriage. It is given to prepare them for and make them aware of possible marital issues that they may encounter in their marriage. This is quite important, as marriage experts say that pre marriage counseling helps reduce the possibility of divorce of up to thirty percent.

Counseling is usually given by a religious adviser and can range from two meetings to four meetings. The couple can choose what the content of the counseling will have as well as the amount of service to be given. It is also possible that the counseling be religion-neutral. No matter what the couple chooses, the counseling should include activities that allow them to adapt real skills, and give them real expectations and education about themselves and their partners so they can face the obstacles that they may encounter in their commitment as a married couple.

When looking for a good pre marriage counselor, it is important to research well on each prospect to get the best results. Make sure that the pre marriage counseling deals with your compatibility as a couple, your expectations, proper communication skills, your long-term goals, how to resolve conflicts, families, and intimacy and sexuality. It is also important to ask whether the counseling will handle a big or small group. Usually, a small group setting can be more engaging and more focused, but on the other hand, being part of a big group may yield advantages as well such as being more systematic and comprehensive. If working with a group, ask whether the approach is flexible enough to accommodate all the couples involved. Some skills are best developed on a one-couple counseling session.

Answering these questions will help you to resolve much better what kind of pre marriage counseling to consider as well as what pre marriage counselor to go to. Pre marriage counseling is very important to strengthen a couple’s relationship and constructively prepare both individuals, especially while they still have plenty of positive energy in their relationship. Couples nowadays face more pressure and maybe less support than before, which is why this counseling can be a big help. It is important to build a strong foundation before committing into this life-changing event. Without this strong foundation, it becomes easier to be overwhelmed by the pressure or the stress that may occur.

Living together is not enough to prove that you are ready for marriage. Do not be afraid of the issues that may be raised when you get into counseling. This will not make you love each other less, but instead help you both to work out these issues early on in the relationship with the help of an expert so to help you avoid encountering this kind of conflict when you are already a married couple.

About the Author: Want to eliminate your pre marriage counseling? Don’t worry – you can save and strengthen it now! Get free award winning advice on how to save your marriage at http://www.SaveYourMarriageQuick.com

Source: www.isnare.com

Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=316438&ca=Marriage

Follow this link: Pre Marriage Counseling – The Answer to a Long and Healthy Marriage!

By Ellen Kreidman, Ph.D.

A marriage vow is supposed to be an inviolate thing, a binding commitment between two people to spend the rest of their lives together. This includes through better or worse, richer or poorer and in sickness or good health; we all know the drill. Every married couple repeats the vows or variations on them and, at the time, the vast majority of these people mean what they recite and fully intend to honor those vows. The unwritten assumption is that there are always ups and downs in any marriage, but on the whole, the relationship is assumed to be strong enough to survive these bumps and should in fact become stronger for them.

Yet, it’s a fact of life that nearly half of all American marriages end in divorce. In Canada, it’s over a third of all marriages. In some European countries, divorce rates actually exceed fifty percent! For a society that generally considers marriage the pinnacle of adult relationships and the foundation for a family, these aren’t statistics to be proud of.

Traditional Marriage Counseling has not been particularly successful for many people and that shortcoming is reflected in the dismal marriage failure statistics. It’s not necessarily a lack of commitment on the part of the spouses who are trying to work their way through a difficult time; in fact, traditional marriage counseling can become a multi-year exercise that requires a significant investment in time, money and emotion. People are enduring this in the hope of piecing their marriages back together. Still, that extraordinarily high divorce rate remains.

Many marriage counselors end up creating a dependency, where couples are afraid to make any move without first consulting their therapist. Spouses tend to be of different temperaments and therapy sessions can be overwhelming for one of the partners, creating or amplifying an existing emotional imbalance in the relationship. Sessions tend to focus on the problems, the negatives in the relationship, and that frequently means singling out one partner for their transgressions. There can be a great deal of emotional energy created in a traditional therapy session, but all too often it’s negative energy: resentment or anger. How can that negativity help the couple struggling to save their marriage?

If you are in a troubled marriage, instead of automatically turning to the phone book and stepping onto the therapy treadmill, perhaps you should Save Marriage Counseling as a last resort; at least traditional marriage counseling.

What is it that makes a married man or woman take the risk of engaging in an extramarital affair? While many people assume it’s simply boredom, money or outright sexual attraction, often the root cause can be traced back to the fact that everyone likes to feel special. Consciously or subconsciously, people get married in the first place in large part because they feel special when they’re with their partner. When that partner no longer makes them feel special, they begin to seek a bond with others in an attempt to recapture that “special” feeling.

There are Online Marriage Counseling services available that avoid the pitfalls of traditional marriage counseling. Instead of sitting in an office, re-opening old wounds as you are prompted to go though the litany of ways you and your spouse have hurt each other, the alternative is to listen to an expert as they walk through real-life examples and focus on the positive experiences of marriage. It’s all done in the privacy of your own home (or car, or wherever you choose to listen to the CDs), on your timetable and benefits can be realized even if only one of the spouses chooses to take part. Instead of digging through the relationship’s dirt, the emphasis is on learning how to fulfill each other’s needs so that each partner once again feels special. This is a positive approach that can give a marriage a much-needed fresh start. The approach has been proven successful and leading practitioners have been featured in the media, including appearances on Oprah, The View and The Today Show, not to mention leading publications including USA Today, The New York Times and Cosmopolitan.

In the end the choice is up to you: months or years of ongoing, intensive and emotionally-charged therapy, or a short, positive re-enforcement of why you chose to get married in the first place.

About the Author: This article was written by Ellen Kreidman, Ph.D. for LightYourFire.com, who has shown thousands of couples that you don’t need marriage counseling to bring back the feelings you had when you first fell in love. Article reproductions must include a link pointing to http://www.lightyourfire.com/

Source: www.isnare.com

Permanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=262089&ca=Marriage

Go here to see the original: Online Marriage Counseling: A Positive Step Toward Saving Your Marriage