Do You Want To Build A Foundation For A Lifetime?
As an engaged couple, are you dedicated to laying the groundwork for your future together in alignment with your spiritual values and faith? Does the idea of “forever” energize you and make you nervous at the same time? Have you cultivated a solid relationship with your partner and seek to make it even stronger?
Perhaps you’ve noticed cracks in your relationship and desire to repair them. Maybe you and your partner want to find better ways to resolve conflict. You may also want to make sure that you’re on the same page as your partner when it comes to your values as you build a future together.
Addressing relationship issues can be a challenge, but to grow, a couple must get to the root of what creates a faulty foundation. And it can be difficult when you see what an issue may be but you don’t know how to fix it, especially if you lack the tools to pinpoint issues so you can address them and improve your relationship.
Perhaps the signs are small now—a disagreement here and there, lack of quality conversation, or feeling distant, for example. Maybe you ignore the signs because you are happy in your relationship. Yet this happiness may rest on a lack of communication. And should you ignore an issue for fear of causing a negative response, not communicating may cause your relationship to suffer. If you ignore issues as they come up, they will remain and your relationship may stagnate, unable to grow a mutual loving and respectful bond between you and your partner.
While cultivating a healthy relationship can seem intimidating, premarital counseling offers the tools you need to build a strong, spiritually-centered relationship with your partner for years to come.
No Couple Is Free From Relationship Issues
Whether we are a premarital couple or already married, we all seek to be understood. When we feel understood, challenges become less threatening because our partner makes us feel safe as someone who listens to our needs. Yet if we are not understood, we may lose confidence in ourselves and our partnership without the added support. When neither our partner nor us are on the same page, we end up feeling alone.
In reality, we are not actually alone, as many couples experience relationship challenges. We all want to have a relationship that rests on solid ground so our marriage can stand the test of time.
Our struggles make us nervous because we worry that they are a sign of a much larger issue that can lead to divorce or separation. Perhaps we know someone who has experienced this. Or it could be that due to society’s focus on the “ambitious” individual rather than partnership, we may also have difficulty with communication issues as couples because we don’t understand how to compromise.
We lack the tools to build healthier ways of relating to one another and addressing conflict, so we cannot easily overcome our relationship troubles. Sometimes we lack these tools because we were never exposed to role models to help us mirror healthy relationships. For example, perhaps we grew up in a dysfunctional home, so we now reflect those unhealthy behaviors in our current relationships.
We may try to solve our problems ourselves without the help of couples counseling, or by seeking guidance from a religious leader who might not have the sacred and science-based skill set of a spiritually-centered counselor. We may also ask a loved one for premarital or marriage advice. Yet if this advice does not work, then our issues still remain. However, premarital counseling offers the support needed to build effective communication skills and find lasting peace in your relationship.
Christian Counseling Can Help Your Relationship Thrive
The fact that you have questions about your relationship is likely a sign that it has the potential to reach even greater heights. Ignoring these questions can set your relationship on shaky ground, as unresolved issues can eventually snowball into something more serious if they aren’t addressed.
Loppnow Relationship Center can help you to find answers to your questions, explore your challenges, and provide solutions to your premarital problems. We offer a warm, non-judgmental environment that helps you develop strategies to better support one another as you pursue your individual and collective goals.
Our compassionate approach to counseling has helped many premarital couples work through issues with communication, shared beliefs and values, marriage roles, intimacy, sex, the engagement, family relationships, and the desire to have children, among others. We will note that while we use various tenants of the Christian faith in our premarital counseling services, our focus is on integrating your and your partner’s spirituality through daily life. We work with individuals from many different faiths and backgrounds.
In premarital counseling, treatment begins with our intake process, for which you will complete a client information packet online. From here, we will also ask you and your partner to complete a few assessments so we may learn more about your relationship. In the first session, we will identify your goals and then develop a personalized treatment plan.
Throughout premarital counseling, we will look at how each of your backgrounds contributes to your relationship. What personality traits do you each bring to the table? What are your strengths and weaknesses? Have you exhibited an ability to compromise in the past, and how can you further develop this skill? Understanding your background can help us to identify which communication strategies to highlight in counseling. We also help you to gain more clarity into you and your partner’s behavior by exploring the science behind why you act and react in certain ways.
Premarital counseling uses a blend of positive psychology, scientific methods, and personality models to gain insight into various aspects of your relationship. We may introduce tenants of positive psychology such as flow state, which occurs when you and your partner are fully immersed in your relationship, in sync with one another’s thoughts. Also called being “in the zone,” flow state can help you each respond to challenges with more understanding and empathy. The Gottman Method is a science-based couples therapy approach that can allow you to develop stronger communication skills, disarm conflict, increase intimacy, and remove barriers you may feel with one another. We may also explore the science behind the inner workings of the mind--why you react in certain ways. We refer to this as interpersonal neurobiology.
For more than 20 years, Loppnow Relationship Center has helped couples build a foundation for a better future together. Premarital counseling can give you the tools to develop more constructive behavioral habits and build the life you and your partner desire.
Maybe you still have questions about premarital counseling...
Our lives are too busy for counseling.
To accommodate the busy lives of our clients, we offer the option for teletherapy through Zoom. This option can allow you to use time you may have used for a commute toward a therapy session. In addition, it may help to know that our couples tend to see results within six to ten sessions, or just a few months. If you can make this short time commitment, counseling can help you and your partner set healthy habits early on that pay off for the rest of your lives.
Right now, the cost of our wedding and home is our priority.
We acknowledge that a wedding and home are the two big investments you’re likely focused on right now. However, we gently encourage you to add premarital counseling to the list because of how it can pay off in the form of a more productive and lasting future together. Counseling is also an investment that can help you and your partner to set a solid foundation for years to come.
Can’t we just help ourselves?
Many likely find help in self-help guides, relationship books, and other resources. The benefit of premarital counseling, however, is that a counselor is trained specifically in science-backed techniques that can help couples better relate to one another.
If you want to find an evidence-based, professionally guided path toward a stronger relationship overall, we invite you to try premarital counseling.
Are You Ready To Take The Next Step Toward A Stronger, More Fulfilling Relationship?
Premarital counseling can give you and your partner the tools to build a lasting relationship. If you’re ready to take the next step toward a future of longevity, we invite you to schedule a free 10-minute phone consultation.
NOTE: Premarital counseling is different from couples counseling, which is primarily for couples with more serious issues. For more information on couples counseling, please visit our Couples Counseling page.
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