Pre-martial Counseling Books

My fiancé and I used the 'What I wished I'd known before we got married' book by Chapman. It's pretty basic, but a great start.

I agree with PP. My fiancé and I are long distance as well. We are reading that book and are also doing “live” counseling too through FaceTime with my pastor. Many counselors are doing virtual sessions now, especially given the current circumstances. Just wanted to throw that out there just in case it’s something you had not thought of and you could do it even when you are in different places. Good luck!

From Me to We was an awesome book my fiancé and I did! I will say it has a Christian focus.

"The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work" by Gottman is a book that many psychologists give to clients to read when doing couple's therapy.

I agree with Gottman -- he's been studying marriages for decades and has great practical and research based content. Daughter and SIL thoroughly enjoyed Chapman's the Five Love Languages, as part of the their premarital counseling. In addition, on their own they bought 1001 Questions to Ask Before You Get Married. They'd talk about a couple questions a night over dinner. They enjoyed both so much that when friends get engaged the give them copies of Love Languages and 1001 Questions as an engagement gift. Good luck!

Also, I'm a huge fan of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in general. It provides great insights into how and why people perceive the exact same things so differently. For me, it applies to everything -- marriage, friendships, work groups, family interactions, you name it!

My fiancé and I use an app called Lasting. It’s has lots of session topics like money, family, sex, etc. it’s been sooo helpful to learn to communicate better. And you each do the session by yourselves then you’re able to compare answers. We love it

We read His Needs, Her Needs and The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts. His Needs, Her Needs was a little outdated for me, but we did get good tips from it. The 5 love language book was recommended to us by our premarital counselor after our "sex and family" session. It helped us a bunch! Good Luck.

I second the 5 Love Languages. It is a super easy read and it really is a great book. On that note I also recommend the 5 Apology Languages. I think these books will help in any relationship and especially for couples.

My Fiancé and I did our pre-marital counseling on Till Death Do Us Part by Apostle Gilbert Coleman, very insightful and straightforward regarding marriage, it’s based on The wedding vows broken down in wisdom great book 📚

An excellent question for which I also wanted an answer, as we're long distance too. FH doesn't ask me questions, and half the time when I ask him a question, he doesn't have an answer...which is just baffling to me.

The only book I've read so far has been Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. It's been helpful for me in understanding my FH better. It also has a section on The Love Letter Technique which is useful if like me, you can find being honest about your emotions hard sometimes.