My fh reaction to my suggestion of premarital counseling..need to vent

It's different from therapy for depression or other stressors. From what I have been told, it can take any form really. There is premarital counseling as required by religious denominations before they will marry you, and then there is counseling not affiliated with religion with a regular family/couple's therapist to make sure you are on the same page with big issues before they arise and create havoc: money, beliefs, and any number of other topics.

Does your FH go to the doctor or dentist regularly? Or does he wait until he’s curled up in pain to address his health? Counseling works the same way as getting a physical at the doctor. If you wait until something is wrong, you’re only addressing the problems that exist. If you go beforehand for preventative care, it can help you discover tools to keep your marriage healthy in the long run.

I definitely understand where he’s coming from, it probably felt very out of the blue for him.
We get to see all this talk on counseling and how beneficial it is almost daily, but he probably doesn’t.
It is a little weird to talk about a prenup directly, that feels like something he maybe said out of anger?I would try to have another discussion about it all and explain again that you don’t have any issues currently, but that you’ve heard people say how much it’s benefitted their relationship and that all you want is to feel even closer to him.

Yikes, I'm sorry that the suggestion brought up some difficult issues. So, I'm 100% for couples counseling (I'm almost through a doctorate in Clinical Psychology after all lol), but it isn't necessary for every couple. My husband and I did not go through premarital counseling, but we did make a point to discuss many important topics such as finances, future children (how many do we want, how do we want to raise them since his background is Catholic and mine is Jewish, etc.), and future goals (buying a house, where we want to live, and the like). Many of these conversations we have had throughout our relationship, and we lived together for a number of years prior to marriage as well. Maybe you can start off with doing a book or something? The idea of pre-marital counseling isn't to just air out grievances (and if your therapist is helping 1 person gang up on the other, find a new therapist), but to facilitate difficult conversations that couples may have a hard time discussing or may not even think about having. A book may be an easier way to get some of the benefits of premarital counseling. I highly recommend John Gottman's Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work.

Another thing you can do is to describe counseling to your husband like routine car maintenance. He gets his oil changed after every few thousand miles, right? Checks the brakes, the fluids, rotates the tires, all that. Premarital counseling is just like that. It is routine maintenance for your relationship to make sure everything is running as smoothly as it can be and give it a tune up if needed. I know the analogy takes the romance out of it, but it may make him see it from your point of you.

View Quoted Comment Love this! Very well said - I was definitely struggling to find a way to explain what premarital counseling is in a way he would understand because I’ve never done it so it’s hard! But thank you

What is it that you hope to gain from premarital counseling? Is there anything in particular that you feel like they could help you with?

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YEP.

DH and I did counseling before we even got engaged. Our relationship was totally in a great place, but I wanted us to establish good habits, and "check the foundation", as it were.

We started calling it our "tune up", because our counselor considered us one of her happiest couples.

It's like changing the oil on your car, cleaning out your fridge before that ... thing in that container... grows life, or any other basic maintenance.

Also, I'm firmly of the opinion that if *one* person wants to go, then they need to go... and the other person in a relationship needs to understand that they are creating more conflict by not going.

My fiancé and I are both very happy in our relationship but we went to premarital counseling and it was great. It just helped us become even better at communicating with each other. The fact that you are trying to COMMUNICATE with him why you want to go and he is not understanding is exactly the reason that you should go. That is clearly an area that could stand some improvement. It doesn't mean that you two aren't compatible, it means that you recognize that marriage is a big deal and you should go into it from the best possible place.

My FH had the exact same reaction. He also said he thought it was inappropriate to tell someone details about our relationship and that we would use it as a crutch if we had marital conflict and never learn hoe to solve conflicts on our own. He also was worried about being ganged up on and about the counselor having the final say in conflicts.


I went alone and then eventually he did come around and go with me. We wouldn't have gotten married if we didn't go.
I was upset and frustrated by his fears, but I now see them. We were lucky to have a good counselor who just helped us communicate and didn't take sides or insert himself into conflicts. However, I have had awful therapists who did damage, so I would watch for that. If I could go back, I would frame it as "this person is going to help us communicate" rather than "we need this person to help us solve our problems". Assure your FH that you don't want this person to weigh in on your lives, but rather to help you two become closer and communicate (if that's the case, that's just my idea of good couples counseling)

My FH has the same fear of being ganged up on which I totally don’t understand. I would discuss the two separately. Maybe start with the prenup because it was his idea? Talk about why he wants a prenup, what he thinks the prenup should look like, who’s paying, when it should be done, etc. Once that’s hashed out, talk about counseling again. Like everyone has said, it’s not a gang up session and it’s so much better to go before major problems and bad habits start.

We are doing pre-martial counseling and it's been very helpful. We've been together for almost 5 years, but I know my FH better now. I've seen new sides of him. It's been great. We went with a male counselor, which made my FH feel a bit more comfortable. We will also do some spiritual based pre-martial counseling with the pastor who is officiating the wedding.