Online Premarital Counseling
You’re getting married! Congrats! It’s time to pick a caterer, a photographer, a florist, and a therapist. Hold up. Did you say therapist? Yes, I did!
I’m partially joking because if you are reading this page, I’m guessing you understand the value of premarital counseling. Couples getting married today have about a 50% chance of failure which is a very sobering statistic. Too many couples jump into marriage thinking they can just figure it out on their own and are shocked at how hard things feel after the honeymoon is over.
Many of the problems that arise in a marriage are preventable by learning some basic strategies and tools for making a marriage work from the beginning. In fact, couples who do premarital counseling have a 30% lower divorce rate than those who don’t. Give yourself a pat on the back for making a great choice for your future.
You probably have some questions about what exactly will be covered in premarital counseling and if it is the right choice for you and your partner. Premarital counseling (also called premarital therapy) is focused on prevention and enhancing the positive qualities of the relationship. It also helps identify and resolve potential areas of concern before they become big issues.
Premarital therapy involves assessments, education, and guidance to prepare you for a lasting and happy marriage.
Pre-Marriage Counseling Los Angeles
Here are some frequently asked questions about premarital counseling and their answers
Will premarital counseling stir things up unnecessarily?
Some of you may be worried about seeing a therapist because you don’t want to “rock the boat” or start trouble where there is none. I get that and I want to reassure you that premarital therapy is NOT about creating problems and starting fights. It’s about preventing problems, deepening your connection, getting to know each other better than ever, and getting clear on your values and expectations for marriage and your future life together.
Do we really need to pay someone to learn how to be in a relationship? Shouldn’t that just come naturally?
Think of premarital therapy this way – If you started a new job and they gave you NO formal training and just told you to figure it out, do you think you’d be successful? I’m guessing not. You’d probably feel completely lost, confused, angry, and like a failure. You might even want to quit.
So why do you expect yourself to know how to have the perfect relationship (arguably the most important job of your life) with no formal training?
In my opinion, this is why so many marriages fail. Too many couples jump into marriage thinking they can just figure it out on their own and close to 50% end up divorced. Many couples develop toxic communication patterns or stop communicating entirely and slowly slip further and further away from the loving, compassionate, relationship they used to have. Much of this is preventable by learning some basic strategies and tools for making a marriage work from the beginning.
Can me and my partner connect from different places?
Yep! That is one of the many benefits of online therapy. When you book an appointment, you will receive a confirmation email with a link. Just send the link to your partner and he or she can connect by clicking the same link. All 3 of us will be in a video chat together and we all can see each other at the same time.
Will I be forced to share things I don’t want to share?
It’s not unusual to be afraid that you’ll find out or be forced to share things about yourself and your soon-to-be-spouse that you’d rather not talk about. A few points of reassurance – First of all, this usually doesn’t happen. Second, most things can be worked out through negotiations and good communication. Fortunately, you will learn a lot about healthy and effective communication and conflict resolution in premarital counseling. Plus, if there is an unknown deal-breaker in your relationship, it’s much better to find out before your big day. I know it sounds extreme and heartbreaking but calling off a wedding is a lot easier than getting a divorce.
Does what we talk about in session remain confidential?
Absolutely. Confidentiality is one of the most important components between a client and therapist. If you choose to become our clients, no one knows you are our clients and no one knows anything you talk about except you and your therapist.
What will we do in session?
Here are some of the topics we cover in our work with premarital couples at Couples Learn.
Assessment – Discover your strengths and areas for improvement as a couple. You’ll learn about each other’s emotional needs, personality types, communication styles and more using various assessment measures based on your individual needs.
Communication – It’s always important to set the groundwork of effective communication before getting into the hard stuff. And trust me, there will be hard stuff that comes up in your marriage no matter how perfect you are for each other. If you know how to talk about issues as they arise, you’ll likely have many fewer and less severe issues throughout your marriage. I teach couples specific communication techniques that include learning how to empathize with and validate each other to make sure both parties feel heard and understood.
Topics You May Discuss Include:
The latest research on what makes a marriage work
Your vision for the future
Money
Values
Routines and rituals to keep your marriage strong
Kids
Sex
Politics
What makes you feel loved and cared about
Toxic behaviors to avoid
Religion
Personal hopes & dreams
Schedule free 30-minute chat
We make it easy to know if it’s the right fit.
Get expert advice
Begin receiving expert advice from licensed professionals.
Get ongoing support
Get weekly, bi-weekly or monthly ongoing support with us.
Best Premarital Counseling
Not all premarital counseling is built the same. We believe it’s important to work with a licensed mental health professional who specializes in couples therapy when preparing for the most important relationship of your life. While many religious leaders and organizations provide premarital counseling for free or discounted prices, their training in the area of love and relationships is nowhere near as extensive as a couples therapists and they are unable to recognize problematic patterns with the same accuracy as a clinician.
Our premarital counseling is nondenominational but our therapists are well equipped to help you explore your religious values, particularly if they differ from each other. The assessment we use is customizable based on your religious beliefs so you can let your therapist know your religion before taking the assessment if you would like them to include questions about your specific religious beliefs.
Premarital counseling with Couples Learn is a thorough multi-part process that starts with an assessment of you two as individuals and as a couple. This helps you and your therapist understand where you are aligned and where you are not. It also helps you both get your expectations out in the open. Often we don’t know we have expectations until they aren’t met or until we’re asked to think about them.
We use the assessment as a personalized guideline for the topics you’ll discuss in counseling though there are some topics like communication and conflict management that will be covered for everyone. In your sessions, you’ll learn about each other’s emotional needs, personality types, communication styles and more.
The best part about premarital counseling with Couples Learn is that it’s easy to fit into your busy schedule because all sessions are conducted online through video chat. That means you can both be at work on your lunch break when you meet with your therapist or be meeting from the comfort of your home.
If you’d like to learn more about whether online premarital counseling with Couples Learn is a good fit for you, book a free 30 minute consultation today.
Check Out Some of Our Reviews
We are so lucky to have found Sarah! Before our wedding we reached out to Sarah for some premarital counseling, and we found her extremely helpful after the wedding too (guess that's where the real work starts!) I use to seek help from friends and family when it comes to relationship issues, but I slowly realized that the most efficient way is to talk to a professional like Sarah. She's a great listener and she always provides amazing advice. I've started quite a few sessions crying, but I truly felt a lot better when our sessions ended and I know what to do! It's also super convenient to do the zoom sessions, I don't think it's any different than a in person session. Our mental health and relationship are so important, having Sarah there for us truly made a huge difference! 
My fiancé and I came to Dr. Schewitz for premarital counseling and it was such a good experience! We weren't really sure what, if anything we needed to talk about but we had heard good things about it from a friend who worked with Dr. Schewitz and felt like it was probably a good idea to talk to a professional before making the biggest commitment of our lives, haha.Before starting, we both were kinda worried that we would end up fighting or starting issues where there were none and TBH, I wasn't sure if it was going to be worth the investment. After doing it, I can say I probably would have paid double what we did because we got so much value out of our sessions.
She taught us how to communicate more effectively, had us do exercises to get clear on our values and expectations for marriage, helped us learn what makes each other feel loved and cared about, and taught us ways to maintain romance in our marriage.
I also loved that it was all online because it made things so much more convenient and comfortable to be able to have sessions at home.
3 years later our marriage is going strong and we still use the tools we learned in premarital counseling. If we ever run into a rough patch and need couples counseling, Dr. Schewitz would for sure be our 1st choice.
