Premarital Counseling
Premarital counseling: have the conversation before it becomes an argument.
Engaged and newly married couples usually know they should talk about money, family, sex and expectations. Most of them keep waiting for a good moment that does not arrive. Premarital counseling is the good moment, put in the calendar.
The assessment
What PREPARE/ENRICH actually is.
It is the most widely used premarital assessment there is, and I am a certified facilitator. You each answer the same online questionnaire separately, and it produces a profile of your relationship: where you align, where you do not, and how you handle the places you do not.
Why we use it
Talking about your relationship is hard when you are the people inside it. The assessment gives us a map so we are not guessing, and it surfaces areas you would probably not raise in a first session on your own.
It is not a compatibility test and it does not pass or fail anyone. Most couples score differently in a few areas, and that is the point: those differences are workable once they are named. It is the unnamed ones that cause trouble later.
PREPARE/ENRICH is the assessment I use in this work, and it sits on top of fourteen years of couples and family practice, twelve of them at Redeemer Counseling Services in New York, most of that as a counselor and clinical supervisor. I am also licensed in both New Jersey and New York, so we can meet online wherever the two of you are, as long as you are both physically in one of those states.
What it covers
- Money: spending, saving, debt, and who decides what.
- Families of origin, holidays, in-laws and expectations of closeness.
- Intimacy and affection, including whether you are asking for the same things.
- Conflict style: what each of you does when you disagree, and what that does to the other.
- Children, work, faith and the shape you each imagine for your life together.
Is this for you?
Who tends to find this useful.
Come if any of this is true
- You are engaged, or married within the last year or two.
- You have one topic you keep circling and never landing. Money is the usual one, sex is the quiet one.
- Your families have different expectations of you than you have of each other.
- One of you grew up around conflict and the other grew up around silence, and neither of you knew that about the other.
- A pastor, a mentor or a family member has suggested it and you would rather do it properly than perfunctorily.
Why couples are sometimes told to do individual work too
It is common for a couple to be advised to do some individual work alongside premarital counseling. That advice can land as a criticism, or as one more appointment you do not have time for. Here is the honest reasoning.
The patterns you bring into a marriage were mostly formed before you met. If one of you learned early that conflict is dangerous, or that your needs do not get met by asking, that habit will show up in your marriage regardless of how good the two of you are together. Naming it in individual work means it does not have to be discovered in a difficult year.
It is not a requirement for working with me, and it is not a sign that something is wrong. It is one way to keep the same conversation from happening twice, once now for free and once later under pressure.
How sessions work
Structured enough to be useful, loose enough to be honest.
The shape of it
We start with a free 30-minute consultation so I can hear what you are hoping for and you can hear how I work. Then you each complete the PREPARE/ENRICH questionnaire online in your own time. Nobody sees the other person's answers.
In session we work through the profile together, in an order that makes sense for you rather than a fixed curriculum. Expect some sessions to be practical and warm, and one or two to be more direct than either of you expected. That is usually the useful part.
How many sessions, and what it costs
The usual shape is a small number of sessions spread over the months before a wedding, which leaves room to talk something through properly instead of compressing it into one appointment. We will agree the length together after the first session.
Premarital counseling is booked session by session at the same rate as any other session. There is no package to buy up front, so you only pay for the sessions you actually use.
Practical details
50 minutes, online, both of you on the call. Weekday daytime and evening times. There are no weekend sessions. The fee is the same per session as every other service I offer, and premarital counseling is sometimes covered under out-of-network benefits, so it is worth checking your plan.
- Questionnaires done separately, so neither of you edits your answers for the other.
- We can work around a wedding date, a move, or a long engagement without rushing the content.
- Both partners need to be physically in New Jersey or New York for our sessions.
- Faith can be part of the conversation if it matters to you. It does not have to be.
Ray is also listed as a premarital counselor in the WeddingCounselors.com directory: Ray's listing on WeddingCounselors.com (opens in a new tab)
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Download the self-check (PDF)Common questions
Before you book the appointment.
We are not religious. Is this still for us?
Yes. PREPARE/ENRICH is a research-based relationship assessment rather than a religious program, and most of the couples I see choose it because they want the practical conversations handled well. Faith only comes into the room if you bring it there.
Does this count for a church requirement or a discount on a license?
Often it can. Many officiants and some states accept documented premarital counseling, and I am happy to provide a completion letter that sets out the sessions and the assessment you took. Tell me what your officiant or county needs and I will match it where I can.
What if the assessment surfaces something difficult?
Then we have found the thing worth talking about, which is the point of doing this now. Disagreement is not a verdict on your relationship. A couple who can look at a real difference calmly is in a much stronger position than one that has not found it yet.
Still deciding? The FAQ page covers the practical questions, and the couples therapy page explains the longer-term work, including what to do if one of you is not sure about coming.
If the two of you also want individual work alongside this, the men's therapy page explains how that goes. And if faith is part of the picture, how faith and therapy can work together sets out exactly how that does and does not enter a session. Fees are on the fees page.
Book the good moment in advance.
Thirty minutes, free, to see whether this is the right shape of help for the two of you. No obligation, and no pressure to schedule anything afterwards.