Can Pre Marriage Education be Romantic?

How does one introduce the topic of pre-marriage education to a couple in the giddy thropws of an engagement without sucking all the joy and love out of the room?  This is a conundrum that keeps us at the Before You Say I Do team on our toes.

The future for couples in the period before the wedding is bright. These are genuinely exciting times, the sort of times you will look back and remember fondly for the rest of your lives. Your whole lives together are ahead of you, optimism abounds and let’s be honest, planning a wedding is fun.  You are unlikely to spend money with such wild abandon again in your lives.

So how do we bring a small dose of reality to the situation?  The reality that not all marriages thrive. In fact most will struggle at some point and of course without bringing statistics into the discussion, many will simply fail.

At Before You Say I Do we know this firsthand because for the last ten years we have worked as family mediators, helping couples work out their co-parenting and financial settlements when they are separating.  

We always ask our clients what went wrong and where they started to struggle and the responses for the most part fall into the same categories; we grew apart, we were unable to have constructive conversations when the going got tough, and particularly for younger couples, our expectations for our shared lives ahead were not aligned from the get-go. The same patterns repeating time and gain.

So, in the spirit of ‘being forewarned is forearmed’ we saw an opportunity to put old heads on young shoulders and use the pre-marriage education process as an opportunity to invite the couples to sit down and have some real conversations. These include the big topics they may face together in their marriage; money, careers, kids…. or the in laws, and many more.  

The goal is not to necessarily for a couple to agree on every aspect of their lives ahead but to at least have the conversation so each of them knows where they stand on these issues.  Let’s avoid any surprises after we tie the knot if possible.

We also see this as an opportunity to give the couples the skills to raise and discuss any concerns that may arise through life.  And equally importantly how to receive and hear that concern and hold a constructive and rewarding conversation.

Giving couples at the start of their journey the awareness and tools to identify and address an issue before it festers and becomes a problem and then potentially conflict, is arguably one of the best value gifts they can receive.

Remember, no topic can be off limits for discussion. If that happens, as we have experienced distrust and resentment will surely follow.

The reality is that having these serious conversations at the outset of the marriage is actually the most romantic thing a couple can do before the wedding. We know you love each other.

Put some effort in now and set yourselves up for success and have the marriage you always dreamed of.