Marriage, often seen as a foundational stone of society, is a lifelong commitment. It requires love, understanding, and dedication for it to survive and thrive. A marriage based on trust, respect and love can be a source of growth for both the people involved. However, a lot of married people today struggle to deal with different issues related to marriage. These issues when left unaddressed might lead to miscommunication, arguments, and in many cases, divorce. Though love is a crucial component of marriage, it is not the only thing to think about while trying to make marriage a healthy, happy and rewarding experience. One of the most effective ways of preventing marriages from breaking down and of reducing the chances of marriage to end in divorces is through premarital counselling. In this type of counselling, couples under the guidance of professional and trained marriage counsellor, explore and evaluate their personalities, values, expectations, and preparedness for marriage-related responsibilities. This type of counselling also allows the couples to identify the problems in compatibility if any. By understanding and resolving potential problems before marriage, couples can make well informed decisions about their future together.
Marriages, both traditional as well as choice marriages, in almost all societies, can experience challenges, which might eventually lead to disappointment and divorce. We are witnessing a worldwide increase in the divorce rates at an unprecedented level. So it is important than ever for us all to understand and address the main causes behind the failure of marriages. In this regard, premarital counselling can act as a preventive approach as it might help the to-be-married couples to create a solid understanding between them before they get married. In this article, we will discuss the issues with modern marriages and why and how premarital counselling can be advantageous for better stability of marriages. We will also discuss how premarital counselling can help in strengthening marriages, particularly in areas like compatibility, emotional preparedness, and shared responsibilities and also how can it help in reducing possibilities of divorce.
The Reality of Modern Marriages
Marriage is an individual journey that asks for combined focus on love, employment, individual ambitions, and mutual objectives. Efforts in all these areas can make marriage a source of transformation and growth. However, due to lack of understanding of individual ambitions and confusion in mutual objectives, marriages turn stale. Divorce rates have been rising as per global data, with some studies suggesting the rates as high as 50% in certain parts of the world. The rate of divorces is rising even in societies that would historically value long lasting marriages.
There might be multiple reasons for a marriage to turn stale, however, one important reason among such reasons is the lack of mental preparation among couples for such a responsibility. When a couple enters into a marriage with romanticised expectations, they might underestimate the amount of effort and compromise that is required to make a marriage work successfully. Quality of marital life might get affected by a myriad of issues, the most significant ones being problems in communication, mismanagement of finances, intimacy issues, difficulties in resolving conflicts and problems in identifying the common goals. When these problems remain unresolved, they often lead to resentment, distance, and eventually divorce. Premarital counselling can have a significant role in helping couples manage such problems by encouraging them to engage in open discussions about such issues so that they reflect upon their own roles and responsibilities and hence this type of counselling might help them to gain an understanding of their relationship so that they make proactive decisions.
Promoting Compatibility
Compatibility between the couples is one of the most critical aspects of any marriage. Though love between the two partners is what brings them close to each other, it is compatibility between them that helps them sustain their relationship. Through premarital counselling, the couples might get an opportunity to assess whether they are emotionally, psychologically and practically compatible with each other or not. For couples to be compatible with each other, it is not necessary that they should have the common interests or same personalities, however for them to be compatible they should be able to complement and support each other in ways that enhance and strengthen their relationship.
Couples with the help of counsellors can explore some basic questions such as:
– What core values do the partners have?
– How does each one of them handle stress and conflict?
– How does each one of them communicate their needs and emotions?
– What are their expectations regarding family, children, and career?
Once these and similar questions are addressed, it can help couples in identifying areas that might make their personalities clash or align with each other. E.g., seeking financial security might be important for one partner while the other partner may feel adventure and travel as important things to consider. Understanding such differences in priorities early before marriage may allow the couple to discuss the areas in which they might need to compromise so that they set realistic expectations for their future together.
Premarital counselling not only helps the couple to explore shared values, it also helps them to identify possible red flags that need to be understood and discussed before they go ahead with their plan to marry each other. Such red flags might include having significant differences of opinion in matters such as finances, ineffective emotional support or very deviant or unrealistic expectations about what marriage are all about. By identifying and acknowledging such red flags before marriage during premarital counselling, couples might collaborate with each other to resolve them and if they find that they can’t come on the same plane on such matters, they might as well reconsider their compatibility.
Emotional Readiness for Marriage
One more important component to consider before marriage is to evaluate the emotional readiness. For a person to have a successful marriage, they need to have a particular level of emotional maturity/readiness that not every person may possess, especially in the beginning of engagement. It is understood that the couples get emotionally attracted to each other and after sometime might also think of marrying each other, however, one needs to have emotional readiness to make their marriages work. Emotional readiness entails being aware of oneself, being emotionally resilient and being able to deal with conflict in a healthy and constructive manner.
In the presence of a well trained counsellor during premarital counselling, couples may get a chance to identify and work upon the emotional challenges that may arise post their marriage. The discussion during premarital counselling in this regard might include the questions such as:
– How does each of the partners deal with disagreements and emotional triggers?
– What approach each of the partners employ to resolve conflicts?
– How does each of the partners maintain intimacy and emotional connection?
Once such and similar questions are addressed during premarital counselling, it can help the couples to build effective communication and conflict-resolution skills, which are essential for maintaining a healthy marital relationship.
Trained counsellors during premarital counselling might involve the couples in role-playing exercises that mimic challenges they might face post marriage. Such exercises might help them to learn how to communicate more effectively and deal with difficult situations effectively. Discussion about emotional vulnerability is also included in such exercises that might help the partners to feel safe in expressing their feelings without fear of judgment or rejection.
In addition, various underlying emotional issues such as unresolved trauma, attachment insecurities, or mental health concerns can also be uncovered during premarital counselling that might otherwise affect the quality of marriage later on. Counsellor can help the couples to work through such issues so that they don’t develop into more significant problems. Issues such as parenting styles and the distribution of roles within the household can also be discussed during such sessions so that expectations are set realistically and so that it makes the couples equipped with the tools to navigate the difficulties in parenting as well as cooperation in household affairs.
Role of premarital counselling in reducing the possibility of divorce
If various issues that might arise in marriage are identified and worked upon in premarital counselling, it can help in reducing the possibility of divorces. Reducing such possibilities is essential as divorce not only drains couples emotionally, it can also have long-lasting consequences on the lives of children who may unnecessarily get involved in the conflict. It has been seen that children of divorced parents have a higher likelihood of experiencing emotional and behavioural problems, perform poorly in school, and have difficulty forming healthy relationships in the future. Divorce also has financial and social consequences, as it often leads to economic hardship and a sense of isolation.
By promoting premarital counselling, couples can reduce the likelihood of divorce and its traumatic impact. This preventive approach not only benefits the couple but also their families and future generations.
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