Premarital Counseling
Premarital therapy in Greenwich, Darien, Westport, Westchester, and Surrounding Areas in Connecticut and New York.
What is premarital counseling?
Premarital counseling helps couples better prepare for life together by thinking through key areas of their relationship prior to officially becoming married.
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Premarital therapy is usually led by a marriage counselor, licensed therapist, or a clergy member that is trained in such matters. The goal of premarital counseling is to provide couples with the tools they’ll need to form a healthy and long-lasting partnership.
Topics explored within premarital counseling include: future goals, communication, conflict resolution, sex and intimacy, and better dealing with each other’s family and friends.
These therapy sessions are meant to purposefully and gently surface potential areas of friction – in a controlled and loving environment – so that the couple can discuss and explore the issues without the fight or flight defenses that tend to accompany real-time situational arguments.
What are the benefits of premarital counseling?
Perhaps the most important benefit of premarital counseling is improved communication. As odd as it seems, many couples enter marriage without a complete understanding of how their partner prefers to communicate or handle stressful situations. Premarital therapy sessions help the couple develop active listening skills, how to verbalize their needs, and how to help diffuse discussions before they become full-blown arguments. And an improvement in communication skills helps with all other potential benefits of premarital counseling.
Counseling can also help couples set realistic goals and expectations. It’s not uncommon for a couple to enter married life wearing rose-colored glasses. And when real life doesn’t match the daydream things can get tense. Premarital counseling encourages open and honest conversations and it promotes mutual understanding and respect.
Sessions provide a forum to have those difficult conversations that either didn’t come up during dating or were glossed over to keep everything happy and light. Examples include conversations about religion, sex life, the past, in-laws, etc.
Studies suggest that couples that partake in premarital counseling have lower divorce rates and improved marital satisfaction. Couples that invest in couples therapy are better prepared to work through the challenges that real life will continually send their way.
Couples therapy with Sala Psychology
Dr. Sala is trained in Relational Life Therapy, Gottman Method Couples Therapy, and Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy. These approaches influence her approach to premarital counseling. She will help you strengthen your friendship, improve communication, improve conflict management, and find shared goals, values, and meaning. She will also help you understand how your familial experience growing up may be influencing your intimate relationship.