The Tools Every Couple Needs to Start Well
For a lot of my career, premarital counseling lived almost entirely inside church walls. I understand why — I spent years as a pastoral counselor myself, sitting with couples in the weeks before their wedding, walking through faith and family and what it means to build a life together. That’s part of my story, and I’m grateful for it.
But I’ve also sat with enough couples now to know this: the value of premarital counseling was never really about religion. It’s about something simpler and more practical — learning how to navigate the road ahead before you hit your first real pothole, instead of after.
So let me say this plainly, because I don’t think it gets said enough: you don’t have to be religious, engaged, or even planning a traditional wedding to benefit from this work. I welcome couples of every faith and no faith at all. I welcome LGBTQ+ couples. And I welcome couples who’ve decided that a legal marriage isn’t the road they’re choosing, but who are just as committed to building a life together — what I think of as precommitment counseling. The tools are the same either way, because the tools were never about the ceremony. They’re about the relationship.
What the research actually shows
I don’t ask couples to take this on faith alone (pun intended). There’s real research behind it, and none of it requires a shared theology to hold up.
One of the most respected reviews in the field, led by researchers Jason Carroll and William Doherty, looked across the available studies comparing couples who went through premarital education to those who didn’t. What they found: couples who did the work came out ahead — better communication, stronger relationship quality, and those gains held up in the months that followed (Carroll & Doherty, 2003). A later, large-scale review led by Alan Hawkins backed this up, finding real, measurable gains in communication and relationship satisfaction for couples who went through relationship education (Hawkins, Blanchard, Baldwin, & Fawcett, 2008).
Now, I like to give couples the honest picture, not just the encouraging one. A more skeptical follow-up review by Elizabeth Fawcett and colleagues found the benefits weren’t uniform across every study — but even in that more cautious analysis, one finding held firm: premarital work reliably improves how couples actually communicate, especially when researchers watched couples interact directly rather than just asking them how they felt about it (Fawcett, Hawkins, Blanchard, & Carroll, 2010). That tracks with what I see in the room. The skill that transfers, every time, is communication.
Why timing matters more than people think
Most couples don’t come see a therapist until something’s already cracked. By then, the conversation you need to have is tangled up with months or years of hurt. Premarital and precommitment counseling flips that order — you build the skill of working through hard conversations before the hard conversation has left a scar.
That timing matters most with the topic couples avoid longest: money. In one of the larger studies on the subject, researchers followed over 4,500 couples and found that disagreements about money were the single strongest predictor of divorce — stronger than conflict over chores, family, or how you spend your time together (Dew, Britt, & Huston, 2012). That’s not a faith statistic. That’s just what tends to break relationships if it’s left unaddressed.
Come as you are
If you’ve read anything else on this site, you know I mean it when I say people can come as they are. That’s true here too. Whether your faith is central to how you see this relationship, still forming, or not part of the picture at all — whether you’re planning a wedding or building a committed life together without one — the goal is the same: giving you and your partner real tools before you need them, so the road ahead is one you’re both ready for.
Wherever You’re Starting From
If any of this resonated — whether you’re engaged, dating and thinking long-term, already building a life together, or newly married — I’d love to help you build it well, together.
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Sources
- Carroll, J. S., & Doherty, W. J. (2003). Evaluating the effectiveness of premarital prevention programs: A meta-analytic review of outcome research. Family Relations, 52(2), 105–118.
- Hawkins, A. J., Blanchard, V. L., Baldwin, S. A., & Fawcett, E. B. (2008). Does marriage and relationship education work? A meta-analytic study. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 76(5), 723–734.
- Fawcett, E. B., Hawkins, A. J., Blanchard, V. L., & Carroll, J. S. (2010). Do premarital education programs really work? A meta-analytic study. Family Relations, 59(3), 232–239.
- Dew, J., Britt, S., & Huston, S. (2012). Examining the relationship between financial issues and divorce. Family Relations, 61(4), 615–628.
Next in this series: The Argument That Predicts Divorce Isn’t the One You Think →