Pre-marital counseling for newly engaged couple
Hi there! I saw a thread on BPN for pre-marital counselors, but the latest entries were about 6-10 years ago. I'm wondering if anyone has more recent recommendations on a great pre-marital counselor in the east bay who will focus with us on open communication (around finances, kids, disagreements, our families, etc) as we head into marriage. We don't have any glaring problems, just want to set aside time to really give this life step the attention it deserves. Also we are a real opposites attract situation, and we have about a 9 year age difference, which sometimes can create tension. Being able to talk through how to manage that would be helpful. Neither of us have had good experiences with counselors who sit back and don't offer much advice or facilitation - an active style would be better for us I think. Any recommendations are very much appreciated! Thanks so much!
Parent Replies
Anna Marie Franco is a wonderful couples counselor. She helped us develop tools for communication during our pre-engagement and engagement phase that we still use years (and 2 kids) later. She is wonderful as an active, hands-on facilitator. Very highly recommend. Website is http://bayareaimago.com/anna-marie-franco-mft.html and her email is relationshipsalive [at] sbcglobal.net (RelationshipsAlive[at]sbcglobal[dot]net)
Congrats on your engagement. My husband and I wanted to do a similar thing before we got married. I just wanted to share our experience in case it is helpful to you. We met with a marriage/family therapist and it wasn't very helpful as we didn't have specific issues to work through. I spoke with a couple others and it seemed like without a specific goal/objective it would have been hard to get a lot of concrete support this way. So if you're just trying to do some pre-marital education work, you might find the therapist option to be a bit challenging, unless you can find someone who has a specific program/course for this. What ultimately worked for us: we spent 3-4 months working through the topics in this book: 10 conversations you must have before you get married by Guy Grenier. The chapters are well-structured, he has great tips about how to communicate and work through conflict and meaningful suggestions about what to discuss to make sure you're on the same page. We recommend this book to every engaged couple we know. Good luck!
https://www.amazon.com/Conversations-Must-Have-Before-Married/dp/155470…
You might want to ask whoever is officiating your wedding. Whenever I officiate a wedding, I always offer pre-marital counseling sessions if they couple would like them. There are many pre-marital counseling curricula that exist in almost every religious tradition.
It's great that you are inviting support to help you look deeply at your relationship before marriage! I think it's a great thing to do, not only to work out what's present now, but to establish a positive "trend" that will make it easier, and less scary, to work through the inevitable future challenges. There are many options. I've heard of a specific pre-marital program called Prepare-Enrich (you can Google it and find local practitioners). You can also find a therapist who does proactive couples therapy with a pre-marital focus. (You can check Psychology Today, Good Therapy, CAMFT listing, Therapy Tribe, etc. Many of the sites have search terms that include "pre-marital" counseling. There are many different styles of therapists and you can speak to each one on the phone prior to see which feels like the best fit.)
Therapist often work with couples prior to marriage with exactly the goal you have, then have an ongoing relationship with them, often long-term, and as-needed. It's wonderful!)
Prepare-Enrich Is a great program that can be customized to most faiths (including no faith), address cross-cultural issues, and blended family issues. It requires approximately 8-10 sessions and covers 12 relationship areas. You can read about it and search for facilitators on their website who are certified pre-marital counselors. The program is active by nature and the training encourages couples to address issues that may not be on one's radar. You can plug in your zip and see the plethora of options around the Bay Area.
https://www.prepare-enrich.com/webapp/pe/couples/template/DisplaySecureContent.vm;pc=1473440061354?id=pe*couples*for_couples.html&xlat=Y&emb_org_id=0&emb_sch_id=0&emb_lng_code=ENGLISH