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Why Christian Premarital Counseling?
“Love is long suffering, and is kind; love has no envy, love is
not boastful, love does not behave itself inappropriately, seeks
not its own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, rejoices
not in injustice, but rejoices in the truth; love bears all
things, believes everything, endures everything” (1 Corinthians
13:4-7).
These beautiful words hold us to a high standard. That is why
it has been said that before marriage one ought to open our
eyes wide, but afterwards keep them half closed. In order to
hold up this standard, so necessary for a marriage to work, we
need to choose wisely.
To decide if you are ready for marriage,
you need to choose someone you can trust, because distrust
erodes a relationship, and so does undeserved trust. You also
need to know what your responsibilities to the marriage partner
are so that you can evaluate yourself realistically. These two
things can be done with the help of pre-marital therapy.
Why do you need Christian pre-marital therapy? The quote above
is from the Bible. The greatest book of love is the Bible. The
book of Luke is considered by many to be the most beautiful
book ever written. The book of Luke, as well as the gospels of
Mathew, Mark, and John, tells how Jesus died to save us - the
believers and now the church- from our sins. “Husbands, love
your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, giving
himself up for it” (Ephesians 5:25). God is the expert, par
excellence, on love.
There is nothing wrong with going to a psychologist, a social
worker, a professional counselor, or a psychiatrist for
pre-marital and marital therapy. In fact I would encourage you
because churches sometimes give only six sessions of
pre-marital couple therapy, or group pre-marital therapy with
non professional married couples as group leaders and this is
barely just enough. Many couples who have received pre-marital
therapy say that it helped them but that they wish they had
received more therapy.
There is so much need in the church for
marital, family, addiction, and other kinds of counseling, that
there is not enough pre-marital therapy. I would recommend
supplementing the church’s pre-marital therapy with other
pre-marital counseling.
However, Christian pre-marital counseling adds a dimension that
secular therapies do not usually have. For example, the
Christian counselor advises couples not to have sex before
marriage. In his book on dating, Boy Meets Girl, Pastor Joshua
Harris explains how a manager of a hotel for honeymooners would
run out of activities for the newly married to do. This was
because the now bored couples had pre-marital sex. Whereas,
Joshua and his wife, who did not have sex prior to marriage,
hardly left their room!
In the city where I live there is a saying among the
non-believers. They say that marriage kills sex. But it is not
marriage that kills sex, but pre-marital sex that kills
marriage. I knew of one couple that lived together and had sex
everyday before to marriage. After marriage, the wife confided,
they had sex once a month. It is not worth it to ruin twenty
five or more years of marital sex for one year or even less of
pre-marital sex.
If you are contemplating marriage and you are living together,
you must move apart and stop having sex for a time until you
get married under the guidance of the pastor or Christian
counselor. Physical intimacy is like a battery. It becomes
charged with non sexual activities and gives off energy with
sex. Do not skip that pre-marriage charging time.
When thinking about what pre-marital therapy is, people have
different points of view. One woman tells how she was looking
forward to marital therapy thirty years ago. “I thought that we
would receive counseling courses about marital responsibility,
but the entire time, the courses, which were called ‘marital
counseling’, were about catechism.” She was disappointed as
were many people in the course.
Decades later, now divorced, she expects that marital
counseling should be about what marriage is, what people expect
it to be, and what it will really be like. Dr. Wayne Mack makes
a point that partners differ in expectations and should not
wait until marriage to discuss these differences.
Dr. Nancy Alvarez, secular psychologist and sexologist says
that some men want marriage with weekends off. That means they
spend weekends drinking with their male friends as if they were
single, instead of being with their wife. Obviously, that does
not work out. Couples should also discuss why they are in love
with one another. It has been observed that some people become
happy when they hear why their betrothed wants to marry them,
others become angry.
It is certainly natural for a marital counselor to talk about
spiritual intimacy. In the book, "The Five Love Needs of Men
and Women", Christian marital experts Dr. Gary and Barbara
Rosberg explain how there are two kinds of intimacy in
marriage, physical and spiritual. Differences in religion could
lead to a lack of understanding and different values. But not
everything is religion.
Counselor Grisel López of El Sendero de la Cruz Christian
Church in Puerto Rico explains that even in the case that the
couple is of the same religion, some couples do not have
compatibility of ministries. For example, if both are church
leaders, and one sings in the altar and the other preaches,
they are compatible. But if one is training to be a foreign
missionary and the other is a pastor of a local church, then
one of the two will have to give up his or her dreams for the
success of the other, because they can not make both dreams
come true and live together happily at the same time.
She adds that even church leaders, who know the Bible in
general, still need pre-marital counseling. Some churches do
not require pre-marital counseling for church leaders because
the leaders know Christianity well, yet the divorce rate for
Christians is about the same as for non-Christian marriages.
According to Dr. Wayne A. Mack, some of the things covered in
pre-marital counseling are relations with in-laws, making a
budget together, comparing differences in the way each one
expresses love, good communication (a factor in most marital
problems), and conflict resolution. It is important to plan
ahead how you will approach problem solving, not waiting for
the problems to begin and then start by seeking marital
therapy. This is because there will be problems anyway so
reducing their volatility will prevent bad memories that are
hard to forget later.
Dr. Mack’s workbook, "Preparing for Marriage God’s Way", can be
used both in addition to marital therapy, (or independently, for
those persons who live in areas where there is little
availability of Christian pre-marital therapy). Two copies of
the workbook are used. Each member of the couple reads and
fills out the answers individually. Then the couple meet and
discus their answers together. Mack suggests they can make note
of significant differences and seek therapy for those issues as
well.
Pre-marital counseling can be fun also. You get to take
personality tests with your betrothed, learning more about each
other in the process. Or it could lead to more deeper and
interesting conversations to talk with your loved one. Some
people think they already know each other well. But even people
who have been married twenty years face surprises.
You should also find out some of your betrothed’s faults in the
process. There may be faults that you understand about, this is
called unconditional love. But there could also be faults that
you do not tolerate. Some things are not negotiable like giving
little importance to fidelity. Others might not matter to one
husband, for example, that his future wife likes a relaxed
style of housekeeping, as long as she is a business woman, but
it could matter a lot to another man.
Counselor Grisel López teaches that the best way to find your
ideal love is to tell the truth about how you are so you can
find someone who will be happy with you instead of turned off.
If you do not reveal your faults you will not know if it is
safe to relax your guard with your betrothed and find the joy
of being loved as you are.
Five Surprizing Ways Christians use to Feel Hapiness
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