Written By: Marizanne Naested
| Photographer = | Charlene Stoltz Portraiture |
| Venue = | Ballito Beach |
A wedding may take months to plan. A marriage can last 40, 50 or even 60 years. So why would we expect to prepare extensively for the wedding, but simply hope that we will know how to navigate the decades that follow?
Think about any other long-term goal. In a 40-year career, you would expect to have mentors, coaches, training, setbacks, disappointments, opportunities to upskill and moments when you need to try a completely different strategy. A lifelong marriage deserves the same investment.
Premarital counselling isn’t about fixing a broken relationship. It’s about strengthening your relationship before life — and the scripts you bring into marriage — start putting it under pressure.
Premarital counselling can be tailored to each couple and may explore areas such as:
- Your expectations around roles and responsibilities
- How you currently communicate and manage conflict
- Family-of-origin influences and attachment styles
- Planning for major life transitions and events
- Understanding each partner’s core relational needs
- Power dynamics and decision-making
- How you want to handle finances, family, children, careers and changing priorities, and more.
Working with a trauma-informed practitioner can add another important dimension. Marriage doesn’t only involve conversations and conscious choices; our nervous systems are involved too. Stress, conflict and major life changes can activate old protective patterns. Learning to recognise and regulate these responses can become an important part of preparing for life together. Depending on the practitioner and your needs, some gentle body-based or somatic work may form part of the process.
Finally, premarital counselling doesn’t have to happen in person. Even if you live in a remote or secluded area, online counselling can be highly impactful and allows you to access the right practitioner for you, rather than simply the closest one.
I believe in premarital counselling because couples shouldn’t have to wait five, ten or thirty years before asking for help. Sometimes a stumbling block appears very early in a relationship. The earlier you understand it and develop strategies around it, the less opportunity there is for hurt, resentment and poor communication habits to accumulate.
There is also something valuable about establishing a relationship with a trusted counsellor before you are in crisis. If something difficult emerges later, you already know where to turn.
Your wedding is a celebration of the beginning. Premarital counselling is an investment in everything that comes after it.
