Benefits of Pre-Marital Counseling - Essay Example

BENEFITS OF PRE-MARITAL COUNSELING Pre-marital counseling is essential for everyone out there as it provides helpin developing a sustainable, stable, devoted and a stress free relation filled with love, care and affection. It helps in communicating and expressing yourself effectively to your partner. It is necessary in order to educate couples intending to get married as it develops mutual understanding. To make my research concrete I read 2 novels, many articles to understand this complex topic. I learnt that all relation has its strengths and weaknesses which need to be dealt with in a very smart manner so that the relationship sustains and prospers. This research deals with benefits of counseling session and how essential is to bridge the gap that gets created before marriage . Marriage is one of those social norms of this society that has been followed by all cultures, creed and races irrespective to what ethnicity they belong. Marriage is a front where a couple ties the knot and takes an oath to protecthonour and respect their mates and to provide them with all comforts and pleasures of life. It is about making each other complete through sharing, respecting and valuing. It’s the basis of starting ones own family and therefore abiding to and fulfilling all the physical and mental desires of ones soul mate. This institution is a complete code of life. Marriage is certainly one of the most tangible and complex form of human bindings. It is that mechanism which requires a lot of positive effort in order to last for a lifetime which joins to different souls together forever. These days sadly those couples who embark to this challenge are unaware of its consequences and therefore they are not all prepared to deal with the hurdles that are thrown their way. To be very honest, the reason why the rate of separations is increasing every day is because the couple is not at all prepared for this institution. The reason is particularly that the couples spend more time on working on their wedding ceremonies that they give no priority to their relationship which is in its acute stage. Certainly marriage is a very misunderstood concept. Many couples consider it to be a romantic journey that will last their lifetime but marriage is not that fairy tale at all. It is a financially and a documented legal agreement. Marriage is all about accepting your partner with his/her flaws, to respect his/her family, their temperaments, and understanding their future aspirations. A marriage is a detailed study of knowing in depth about what and how partner feels about things like children, income and expenditures, travelling, feelings about keeping pets , or your opinion to what you and your mate consider as obligatory duties of each other. Hence to sum it up everything that affects your choice and decisions and how all those affect ones personality on the whole. According to the bible there are many perspectives through which they perceive about marriage. Marriage is an institution which all men and women need to abide by. Therefore there are many views about it. It is mentioned in the bible, "Give honor to marriage, and remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery (Hebrews 13:4). In other saying, "The man who finds a wife finds a treasure and receives favor from the LORD." (Proverbs 10:22) We cannot doubt the fact that getting committed to someone for life is certainly a very important and exciting venture. Marriage is a great breakthrough in ones life and definitely all the preparations and festivities that come in hand of the big day are very exciting and loads of fun. But unfortunately during all the festivities and the hustle bustle one tends to forget and easily overshadow the life that waits ahead. People usually get so engrossed that they give no importance to the married life but only the marriage. We all are very aware of the increased statistics, these days it is observed that majority of the marriages are likely to end with a divorce, and those marriages which are some way or the other working out are struggling their way through. But on the contrary there are many who aren’t just not hobbling along but they are quite content with their mates being happy, fulfilled, providing comfort, support, happiness and desire.Many of the absurd things that one focuses on during weddings makes them lose their vision and hence they stop concentrating on their future which is way more important. And likely there are chances that we become victims now. One needs to realize while getting married that this is not a fairytale at all, these days the concept of having ones Prince Charming and Cinderella is pretty vague a concept. These days many take this concept a bit too seriously resulting in utter chaos. They likely sketch a permanent imprint of normal relations in our minds. Due to which many of us suffer as we think that our lives are not precisely on the right track and we tend to get dissatisfied with our lives as we don’t get swooped up by a Prince or didn’t wake up the beauty by a kiss. These stories are just fantasies and reality is quite different from them. These stories were only meant to remind us to strive and test fate for the best. But unfortunately such stories develop in our subconscious a very deep concept and unrealistic approach towards real life relationships. Hence pre-marital and at times marital counseling can at times help in order to work out many issues and hurdles that comes in ones way, in order to strengthen their relationship, and to develop healthy communication and therefore working on ones conflict resolving attributes. This will help one increase the chances to be satisfied and content with ones relationship as the journey continues for both. Pre-marital counseling is therefore a type of mental therapy that apparently benefits couples to make their minds up and equip them with the circumstances that they might undergo during their married life. Pre-marital counseling hence can help to develop a healthy and a strong relationship with your partner. This eventually gives you a very good opportunity to sustain a stable and satisfied marriage. Apart from this it also helps to locate weaknesses and positive side of your mate and develops awareness in order to counter the problems that might come during ones married life. This pre-marital counseling will prove beneficial so that one can evaluate and access their partners and their willingness to tie the knot. This will help develop the skills required to combat the evils that exist and develop understanding in order to be able to cope up with any difficulties or habits that are not in favour of the relationship patterns that can be very difficult to break once they are formed. This counseling leads to a healthy relation because in a way you get to know a lot about what your partner expects from you and what still lacks that needs to change. It is recommended to all new couple aspiring to get married as this is one of those profitable investments the couple makes which benefit them in the long run. Pre-marital counseling sessions start off with a quiz which the couple takes about one another. The results at times turn out to be quiet surprising as couples are shocked when they see what actually their partner feels about them. How their future partner might respond to a certain situation that might arise in their future. When one learns about their partners view about them and how he/she might react is an alarming sign. It is about taking out the time to develop understanding of one another and then critically analyze how similar or contradictory your views are and eventually figure out what needs to be done to overcome the weaknesses or whether it is time to change ones decision. Another reason so as to why this counseling is required is that couples can understand and evaluate what they actually desire from this union. For instance if the wife wants 5 children and the husband doesn’t want many might shatter the dreams of your partner. Aspiring to move abroad in the coming years can affect your partners decision about the marriage if he/she does not intend to move. Pre-marital counseling actually proves helpful to discover the hidden realities and what exactly this marriage will turn out to be for your life. Many studies show that the pre-marital counseling is based precisely on skill and it is a comprehensive way to educate and cause awareness therefore reducing the rate of divorces. It serves as an antibiotic and a cure to the obstacles that one will eventually face with each other. It is a good way to think straight, develop a good way to communicate, develop mutual consensus to solve a particular problem that might arouse, make or change decisions, develop a family structure and a way to interact and face the world. It provides a platform where the couple for a moment stops to do some marriage planning rather than doing their wedding day planning. It also helps to understand what actually affects their families to which they belong and what might just be a bit too much during their marriage. Pre-marital counseling contains individual sessions for the couple and a counselor who is quite experienced when it comes to marriages and relationships mediates the conversation where many couples who are about to get married gather and participate together at the same passage of time. These sessions cover a diverse range of topics which are compatibility, demands, expectation, individual personality assessment, backgrounds, mode of communication, conflict resolving skills, physicality, intimacy, sexual expectations, and future aspirations. At times these counseling sessions will also contain possible relationships stress management classes which are designed in a way to develop understanding their compatibility, weaknesses, strength or other things which require attention and need to be guided on. During such sessions all the possibilities and all issues regarding marriage are addressed like children, whether to have them? If ready, then how many? If both the partners would work to make both ends meet, where would they reside? Who would manage the house chores? How much time would the couple spend together? Etc. all these questions seem pretty useless and apparently can be figured out later and many couples who are about to get married do not discuss these things before marriage but it is actually very beneficial to talk about your expectations and aspirations as soon as possible so that one is already prepared and ready for what lies in the future. This helps in developing a stable relation and avoids the misunderstandings and different conceptions. Being in love is quite different and getting married is a completely different phenomenon, it is no necessary at all that if you are in love so you would be compatible with your partner. At certain times it can be the exact opposite way. You might differ in your perspective about your partner, their approach and goals. This counseling will help in developing understanding about those areas which lack compatibility. Once these issues are highlighted the couple can discuss and eventually come up with a solution to deal with the situation. While this will also help in deciding and making up ones mind and will not cause regret later in the future. Pre-marital counseling helps one in communicating. Good way of communication helps in developing a content marriage. Through this process the couple will develop an effective communication method as well as provide ways to make it better. Talking out with your partner helps in increasing good relations as one can then express freely with their mate. When a couple talks it is natural that problems start to arise and then a conflict might erupt which can cause problems. These counseling sessions focuses on talking effectively with your partner and working on the ground rules required to overcome the conflicts and the ways to settle quarrels by compromising. If a couple hasn’t engrossed themselves in physical activities and have protected themselves from such intimacy then they might want to know what their partner expects from them before their marriage. Or even if the couple has already been physical then even discussion over this topic might increase its effectiveness. It might be the perfect moment to bring things that might have happened in the past so that your partner is not unaware of anything. Because such hidden truths regarding previous intimate life can prove to be very disastrous for the relation that follows. Future is something people tend to forget and do not concentrate much on it although long term goals are very important. Usually this can make or break ones relation because the level of expectation is quite different and if the mindsets do not relate can cause a lot of problems. Therefore a counselor discusses and examines the minds of the couple and eventually come to a common ground where these two different mindsets can relate. Another thing that needs to be talked about is finance. One starts to talk about responsibility, budgets or anything related to finance which may be required. It can also involve your previous financial background, the reservations which apply financially, to what extent expenses are feasible and ones financial circumstances. This will help in defining boundaries and deciding how to lead life reducing the stress level as people usually forget their income and spend so much that eventually they are helpless which leads to problems and eventually leads to divorce. These counselings help to make a plan for a great future. Since many couples fight over finances this session will already resolve that issue. Therefore statistics show that pre-marital counseling thirty percent lessons the risk of divorces. Divorces can completely destroy ones personality, killing ones self-esteem and personality. So countering all the issues that might arise are good ways to avoid any ugly circumstances. Although these counseling sessions do not provide any guarantee that things will turn out to be completely perfect but they help and train to combatthe causes the lead up to divorces. At times conflicts are healthy and they become a good way to understand your partner and nothing is just meant to be perfect. Life is a roller coaster with ups and downs that shape and make your personality. Hence life would be very monotonous if everything is always perfect. Just imagine how difficult is for a single person to live in this world so when two souls completely different front each other get together this process gets more complex, it is a universal fact that humans cannot live alone and therefore need someone to share with. During this process problems are likely to appear which can be easily countered if dealt in a proper way. The best way to overcome such problems is to talk it out. These pre-marital counseling proves to be beneficial but if the couple continues to take these classes even after marriage then there are chances that they will have a healthier relation because it will enhance their potentials to resolve issues, better communication etc. a study indicates that those who are marriedfor an year or even less, agree that their marriage preparation was a very amazing experience for them. But in the case where more experienced couples having seven to eight years of married life were concerned only few like around 50 percent agreed that it was an amazing experience for them (Williams, 2007).Keeping this theory in mind that couples who have had good counseling are the ones quiet satisfied with their married life. As time passes the couple starts to take each other for granted and stop giving time to their relation who eventually causes great discomfort and eventually the relation start to lose its charm. Couples get so immune that they forget how perfect things once were initially. According to a survey done by various methods such as sets of data and by adapting a two way approach,, Lundblad discovered that the therapy couples undergo have helped them to improve their relationships in 60-75% of the couples that took the therapy . Statistically it is very significant that the fluctuationsfrom the ones distressed to those who are non-distressed levels have also reached a sustainable mark of 35-40%. (Lundblad, 2005) and therefore while this is a ratio for the couples who are already married, it can be said that with proper and precise pre-marital counseling serve as the basis of a very sustainable and healthy relationship. Usually when crisis come the couple is not prepared for such a situation which causes problems but if the counseling sessions are taken in then there are chances that the couple will be far more calm and steadfast while the vital lines of communication and care are open for further love. In a nutshell, pre-marital counseling is the first step towards the basic structure and sustainability of the relation which is strong, healthy, straightforward and most importantly long lasting. I would like to conclude by saying that pre-marital counseling is very essential as it counters and reduces the psychological stress that might arise due to the increasing problems. They also help in developing better relations and develop understanding with your mate. They are helpful in overcoming desires which lead to problems later. Hence, it is advised to take such sessions before one gets married to have a prosperous life. Works cited: Benefits of Pre-Marital Counseling « Relational Mental Health.(n.d.).Relational Mental Health. Retrieved February 17, 2013, from http://relationalmentalhealth.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/benefits-of-pre-marital-counseling/ Benefits of Premarital Counseling | Wedding Pastor Dave.(n.d.). Wedding Pastor Dave | Making Your Day Beautiful!. Retrieved February 17, 2013, from http://weddingpastordave.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/benefits-of-premarital-counseling/ The Benefits of Pre-Marital Counseling Lindsey Hoskins and Associates LLC.(n.d.). Lindsey Hoskins and Associates Couples Marriage Family and Individual Therapy. Retrieved February 17, 2013, from http://lindseyhoskins.com/2011/04/the-benefits-of-pre-marital-counseling/ The Benefits of Premarital Counseling.(n.d.). Crackerjack Greenback | Prudent Advice for a Prosperous Future. 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