Good Counsel

So, Sweetie and I have been attending some pre-marital counseling sessions. Given the chance, we would not have thought to do this ourselves. But, we asked my old pastor to travel to marry us, and my church has for years asked their new prospective married couples to get pre-marital counseling before marriage.

So, off we went.

I think we are a breath of fresh air for the woman we’ve been talking to. She rarely has people come in *before* some sort of relationship breakdown occurs. Here we sit in front of her – attentive to what she has to share, agreeing in many of our answers, downright laughing out loud together. And, thanks to a couple of consistent communication snafus we have, it’s been advantageous to attend these sessions. She’s not asking a lot of questions – or trying to figure things out. We told her a couple of things we recognize as problems. And she’s been sharing some interesting communication tools with us. These are not rocket science ideas. But, due to the fact that a) we’ve been together long enough we have our own form of “shorthand” way of talking, and b) we are both old and stubborn, and c) we both have feelings that are sometimes sensitive – we tend to not take the time to follow some simple steps of communication. We don’t always take time out of the day to really check in with each other. And, when we have something to complain about, we tend to just burst out with a complaint. Not necessarily asking each other if “hey is this a good time to jump down your throat about something” or “hey, here is something constructive to suggest, along with a small complaint.”

Simple stuff, huh?

Not really. I’d love to say we’re one of those couples that never, ever argue. Not about anything. Not ever. Kiss kiss.

We’re not. We’re foible-y humans (see above, re: old and stubborn). We get tired. We get stressed. One of us gets cramps from time to time.

So, I say – bravo to pre-marital counseling! I think it’s giving us some good tools that we can use for the rest of our marriage. I think, for young couples out there, it’s probably good to talk to someone about what bumps in the road you can hit before you commit. Maybe it’s good just to talk to someone about why you want to commit to this other person. It doesn’t take that much time. We’re busy. We’re working and planning a wedding. But, if this whole thing called Marriage is something we’re willing to spend so much time on, isn’t it worth it to sit down and talk about what that all means before you do it? Or just talk about something as simple as communication? hmmm….