My wife and I recently celebrated our 18th year anniversary on October 10. Before we got married, we took two pre-marital counseling classes…one at my church (6 weeks) and another at her church (8 weeks). We both enjoyed the classes and found value in them.
In fact, three years into our marriage, we started our Relationship Consulting business, originally called the Pre-Marital Bootcamp, as our initial foray into the world of helping Christian couples build a happy, loving successful marriage. And all the couples reported that the lessons they learned were very helpful for their relationship.
However, a few of our initial clients’ marriages didn’t make it. They came back to us for help…but only after it was too late…and one spouse more than the other wanted out! We took those losses hard.
For some time, we thought to ourselves, “Did we miss our calling? Did we fail them? Were we really qualified to teach couples? What could we have done better?”
But what we discovered was when married life happened…and all the challenges that happen therein…they weren’t applying the useful lessons we taught them.
As we developed our business, we made tweaks and changes to improve our programing. We eventually grew and started working with married couples.
Shockingly, we discovered the same problems with married couples we didn’t counsel that we found with married couples we counseled. They too weren’t applying the lessons they learned in their respective pre-marital counseling classes.
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So I began to do research. I discovered that pre-marital counseling material is only retained for 18 months at the most. This uncovers what I believe to be an inherent flaw in the entire pre-marital counseling model.
And it is this: You take 18 month’s worth of information, tips, and techniques that is used to build a successful marriage and cram it into an 8(+/-) week crash course. Then you teach this information to two people who are not married.
Then, you expect them to retain said information until they get married. And after the wedding, you expect them to deploy said information, tips, and techniques accurately to the appropriate situation in their marriage.
This is akin to teaching a high school junior everything he needs to know for his college course-work during summer school before his senior year…and expecting him to retain it throughout his senior year. Then, require him to accurately recall and utilize it for the appropriate class/test during all 4-years of college.
This is a losing proposition for many. So much so, that I’m calling for the death of all pre-marital counseling as we’ve know it.
I believe the course of pre-marital counselling needs to be simplified. It should only teach couples what they need to know…when they need to know it. Then, over time, as their relationship grows, teach them the necessary information, tips, and techniques they need to know for the current challenges they’re facing at the time.
For example, let’s say Shari and Dom are engaged. This new approach to pre-marital counseling wouldn’t focus on teaching them what they need to know before they get married.
Rather, it would focus on identifying what challenges they’re facing right now and showing them how to solve them in order to reach their relational goals.
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Then as they grow and encounter new challenges, we help them address those challenges. We continue this same pattern up to and through their wedding…well into their marriage.
See…we no longer are tethered to a wedding date as a marker by which their training begins and ends. It’s perpetual. Because…truth be told… married couples need the most help during what I call the transition period, 1-6 months after they get married — long after the pre-marital counseling classes have ended.
This is my thesis. I haven’t tested it yet. But I know this…the old model isn’t working.
I need to come up with a catchy name for it.
BMWK Let me know what you think. Will this work…or not? What do you think it should be called?