Happily Ever After

Premarital counseling can help you learn what’s good about your relationship and improve the things that could use some help.

At Bowden McElroy and Associates we do a lot of work with struggling couples and families. It concerns us that so many couples come to us after their problems have grown to seemingly unmanageable sizes. It is our hope that we can help families to deal with and even avoid some of these issues before they get too big. Doing honest and challenging premarital work can go a long way towards preventing these problems.

It is well established that those couples who do premarital work decrease the likelihood that they will head down the path to divorce.

One of our primary missions at BMA Counseling is to help families to achieve the joy and fulfillment that God has planned in their lives. We believe that this program can go a long way towards achieving that mission.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are your expectations about marriage realistic?
• Do you know what the common problems in marriages are?
• Have you completely discussed the wide variety of issues that can prove problematic in relationships?
• Do you know what issues you bring to this new relationship from the family you were raised in?
• Would you like to make sure that you have the skills to deal effectively with the issues that will present themselves in your marriage?

Premarital counseling can help ensure that you and your spouse have a strong, healthy relationship. This kind of counseling will help you identify strengths you can build on, areas for discussion that you might not have looked at, and areas that might become problematic. Good premarital counseling has been found to reduce the rate of divorce by 30%. You can address issues before they grow to a seemingly unmanageable size.

5 Benefits of Premarital Counseling

1. 

   Wedding Couple

   Insight. Let’s be honest. Love isn’t blind, but it does put us in an oxytocin-induced, altered state of consciousness. Problems that are easily overlooked now can seem huge when brain chemistry returns to normal. Premarital counseling can bring these issues to light and help you resolve them before they take you by surprise.

2. Strong Communication Skills. Good communication is an important part of a healthy marriage. Without great communication, there’s nothing to help the marriage function properly.
3. Realistic Expectations. Some people are born cynics – they assume marriage will be difficult. Most engaged couples, though, often view their relationship through rose-colored glasses and assume love is all they need. Counseling can help a couple have realistic expectations about their relationship.
4. Effective Problem-Solving Strategies. Neither escalation (arguing and fighting) nor avoidance (either avoiding certain topics or simply avoiding spending time with each other) resolve conflicts. Premarital counseling can help you come up with a plan for “fighting fair”.
5. Intentional Conversation. The process of taking the Prepare-Enrich assessment – and discussing with a counselor – primes the conversation and leads more focused on discussing the topics that really need to be addressed.

Our Premarital Counseling Package Includes:

• PREPARE-ENRICH inventory: an online assessment completed by each partner and discussed with the counselor
• Five premarital counseling sessions
• One follow-up session, six (6) to twelve (12) months after the wedding
• Optional consultation with the minister who is officiating the wedding

This is a $970 value for only $730!

In an effort to encourage couples to complete the whole process, the $685 is paid at the time of the first session and there is no refund if the 6 session process is not finished.

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