Couples often find that premarital counseling sessions make them think differently. You’ll approach new subjects from various perspectives, but what should your counselor bring up before you walk down the aisle? Check out these essential topics for Christian premarital counseling to learn what you should discuss and why they’re so important.
1. How Seriously You Take Your Faith
People can claim they believe anything, but taking their beliefs seriously makes all the difference. Research shows that 65% of American adults say they’re Christians, so meeting someone from the same denomination may not have been difficult.
Marriages succeed or fail based on how each partner prioritizes the same values. Your counselor should ask how you both describe the foundations of your faith and how mature your commitment is. Ideally, both partners will be in the same place in their walk with Christ, so the marriage feels like a partnership — not a classroom.
2. What Marriage Means to You
You may have a different idea of marriage than your partner. Biblical premarital counseling is an excellent way to define that together. Consider questions like:
- Have you always pictured a particular spouse being the head of the household?
- Do you want one partner to be the spiritual leader?
- Should one partner be in charge of finances?
The months before your wedding is the time to discuss how much of a partnership your marriage will be. If one person should assume a leadership role, they need to know in case they want their marriage to exist between two equal partners.
3. How Your Families Operate
How your parents or guardians raised you plays a significant part in your future marriage. They demonstrated love, communication and dependability whether they did it well or not.
Any reliable Christian premarital counseling curriculum will review how your parents defined and lived their marriages. You’ll want to go over the things you want to repeat and what you want to avoid. Your partner should agree with both lists to start your marriage in a strong place.
The most helpful premarital counseling demonstrates conflict resolution between family members because they are essential to a thriving marriage. You wouldn’t want to officially join your partner’s family if their parents dislike you or hold old grudges from your shared past.
4. How You Currently Communicate
Just as God wants Christians to love him in the best way they communicate, you and your partner should also demonstrate your love for each other. That might mean learning to share in the way your partner best receives information, even if it’s not your first instinct.
Review styles with your counselor, such as:
- Passive communication
- Assertive communication
- Aggressive communication
- Passive-aggressive communication
- Manipulative communication
You might also deal with your preferred ways of hearing and giving information, like:
- Personally
- Analytically
- Functionally
- Intuitively
Some people believe biblical premarital counseling covers only information that would arise during sermons. Although those subjects are important, they should also include reviewing practical skills that make marriages last longer, like communication styles.
5. Which Conflicts Arise Most Often
Loving someone doesn’t mean supporting their bad behaviors and letting them slide. It’s healthy to point out when something isn’t working in your relationship, but it’s easy for that to explode into conflict.
Marriage counselors teach ways to constructively work through the issues that often arise before you get married. This might mean you both learn your trigger points and how you most often react when confronted. It can be uncomfortable initially, but identifying and working through these details together means you’ll handle conflict in healthier ways as a married couple.
6. How You Experience Spiritual Intimacy
People can feel shy about discussing forms of intimacy. It’s especially nerve-wracking when brought up in a Christian premarital counseling curriculum, but it’s crucial to talk about it with your partner. Among other things, your counselor should bring up spiritual intimacy and the many forms it can take.
You should enjoy sharing spiritually intimate moments with your future spouse. This might look like reading devotions together in the morning, praying before meals or singing worship songs in your home. These moments help you bond and reinforce your spiritual relationship, leading to a more fulfilling marriage.
7. What Money and Faith Mean to You
It would be impossible to go through life without thinking about money. You and your partner should agree on things like:
- Personal and combined financial goals
- How you budget
- How you spend and save money
- How much you tithe
- How much you donate
Counseling sessions are safe places to talk through the logistics of marriage. Money is part of that. Although your counselor may not be a financial expert, the topic could point out what you can look for in a financial adviser before merging your income, savings accounts, investments and other assets.
8. How You’ll Raise Your Kids
Whether you attend the same denomination or not, you should agree with your partner on raising future children if you want to expand your family. Discuss questions such as:
- Will they attend church every Sunday?
- Will they go to a Christian school?
- Will you pray with them?
- Will you teach them to be of service to their community?
- How will you be faith-centered role models for them?
You may not have kids for many years, given that 92% of couples need four years to get pregnant after beginning to try. However, it’s good to start this conversation before getting married. If one partner prioritizes something different than the other and neither will compromise, the marriage will require more work if it lasts.
9. How You’ve Experienced Physical Intimacy
Biblical premarital counseling wouldn’t be complete without discussing previous physical intimacy. You don’t have to go into detail — many marriage counselors aren’t therapists. However, it’s good to know what you’ve both experienced, how it impacted your view of physical intimacy and what you’re looking forward to in your marriage.
You can use this opportunity to set new physical boundaries, as well. Even though marriage brings couples together in new ways, you may prefer to set limits surrounding what you both look at, how you speak to each other or what you’re not comfortable exploring physically.
10. What Your Marriage Mission Will Be
Marriages help two people thrive together through decades of ups and downs. Part of what holds couples together is their intent for their shared future.
What will your marriage mission be? You could use counseling to set an intention, like teaming up to serve your community or establish programs in your church. Maybe you want to become a second family to kids in need through vacation Bible school activities or after-school opportunities. Talk with your counselor about defining your marriage mission with your beliefs to give your love a lasting purpose outside your home.
Prepare for Premarital Counseling
There are many things to look forward to discussing when starting a Christian premarital counseling curriculum. You and your partner will have a long, happy life together because you tackled these challenging topics before committing to your marriage.
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