Premarital counseling in McKinney, Texas is helpful for couples who are entering a marriage relationship. It helps couples understand the often “hidden” expectations they may have about their relationship or spouse based on how they saw marriage modeled to them from their parents’ relationship. Premarital counseling at McKinney Christian Counseling also helps a couple talk about topics that may not come up in a dating relationship but are beneficial to dealing with conflict, setting boundaries, and handling seasons of hardship or stress together.
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Please contact our reception team at
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Typically, a couple seeks premarital counseling at McKinney Christian Counseling to help them prepare for essential topics that will come up throughout the marriage. Meeting with a licensed professional counselor can help you and your soon-to-be spouse tackle how to handle finances, where your spiritual beliefs and preferences lie, and how to respond to conflict in healthy ways.
Most counselors suggest between five and ten premarital sessions prior to marriage. A licensed professional counselor at McKinney Christian Counseling may start with some basic questions to make you and your fiancée feel at ease. Some of these include when your wedding date is, how you met, and how you arrived at the decision to get married.
Once you and your fiancée feel comfortable with your counselor, he or she may ask questions or have you do some surveys related to topics such as communication, conflict, hobbies, spiritual beliefs, habits, and financial matters. Compiling your answers with your future spouse’s answers can be a helpful starting point for the counselor to help you look at where you are in agreement and where your opinions may differ from one another.
The counselor’s job is not to take sides, tell one partner that he or she has a better perspective than the other in any area, or lead you to believe or behave in a specific way. On the contrary, your premarital counselor will help you both talk about household responsibilities and expectations, family relationships, and other topics that will set you up for a thriving, long-lasting marriage.
When two people join their lives together, there are so many factors involved. How one partner’s parents related to one another has a deep, lasting effect on that partner. It can impact his or her attitude toward marriage, fears, willingness to engage in conflict, response to discord, etc. So premarital counseling enables two people to talk about as much of this as possible before marriage.
It allows them to learn about the other person, understand their fears and hopes, and hopefully, come to mutual agreements in areas where there are differences. Some studies say that even just a handful of premarital counseling sessions can reduce a couple’s chance of divorce by 30%. Having an unbiased listener involved in the beginning — before marriage — can also decrease the perceived stigmatization of undergoing counseling at any other point in marriage.
Topics that you might discuss have to do with how your relationship will weather times of trial, outsider perspectives and relationships, perceptions of partner roles and habits, hobbies and leisure time, financial management, and attitudes toward children to name a few.
Specifically as it relates to conflict and communication, some of the discussion topics may include:
- Learning to listen and ask pertinent questions before jumping to conclusions
- Discovering your own tolerances for conflict management and how they differ from your partner
- Finding out how you approach areas of discussion that you know may be sensitive topics with your partner
- Discovering unhealthy patterns you may have witnessed as a child in your parents’ relationships
- Talking together about how you each communicate using non-verbal cues and exploring what those cues are and what they actually may mean to the other person
- If one spouse has been previously married, how will the communication with the ex-partner be facilitated and by whom
Common discussions around the subject of roles and responsibilities may be:
- Which spouse (or both) will do cooking and cleaning
- How each of you views terms such as “messy” and “clean” and what that can look like in practical, everyday life
- What your preferences both are for household roles, such as working inside the home, outside the home, and a blend
- How these preferences and expectations may change if and when children come into the relationship
- Who will do administrative tasks such as paying bills, managing a household budget, communicating about spending habits, etc.
- Where you will live and how you may prefer to interact with neighbors, friends, and areas related to hospitality
A few discussions may revolve around you and your fiancée’s perspective on relationships with friends and family. Some of those topics could be:
- How to handle holiday visits with each respective extended family
- Expectations around the involvement with extended family members, how often you see them, what their input will be in the relationship, and how you will work as a team
- Perspectives on friendships with people of the opposite gender and/or relationships with co-workers
- Possible hurdles when it comes to familial opinions about major marital decisions, such as where to live, when to have a family, etc.
Sometimes, a counselor may help you explore ways to have a continued connection together. This may be through time spent on mutual hobbies, the freedom to pursue individual interests, and/or habits that may or may not be disruptive to the relationship. Some of these may be:
- What you like to do together for free time
- How you or your partner’s need for individual downtime impacts the other person
- Ways to agree on shared hobbies when those are hard to find
- Expectations about vacations, trips, and personal getaways or retreats
- Communication preferences related to safe pursuit of hobbies and interests
- Habits that can be healthy or viewed as unhealthy, depending on the relationship. Some of these could be a girls’ getaway, a habitual nightcap, or a Saturday shopping trip. These can be habitual pursuits that fit within a healthy marriage or unhealthy if expectations are discussed ahead of time.
- Health and fitness and what each spouse desires or expects as related to lifestyle and diet
When it comes to money management, there are plenty of areas that can benefit from discussion before marriage. A counselor may ask you and your partner the following questions:
- If you have set an agreed-upon budget
- How you will handle two incomes joining as one
- If either of you will keep a separate account and why
- What you and your partner’s fears or anxieties about money are
- How you might respond if your spouse wants to make a large expenditure
- What to do in the case of disagreements over areas of generosity such as tithing and giving
As your counselor brings up matters of faith, spiritual topics may include:
- Where you will attend church
- If it’s important to get involved in church beyond the weekly services
- How you feel about serving together or separately
- What your personal faith practices are
- If you will merge any of your personal faith practices with your spouse, such as prayer or reading God’s Word together
- If you want to both be in a community group setting to explore deeper issues of faith and everyday life
- How open you and your partner are to being vulnerable about your relationship to others such as a pastor or accountability partner
As you can see, the discussion topics for premarital counseling can be wide and varied, depending on the needs of each couple. However, the important takeaway is that undergoing premarital counseling is a healthy step toward a long-lasting, fulfilling marriage for each partner.
If you would like to take the next step and find a licensed professional counselor in McKinney, Texas who specializes in premarital counseling, we have several options for you. The counselors at McKinney Christian Counseling desire to help you have a strong marriage built on mutual trust, respect, and healthy communication. Contact us to set up a premarital counseling session today.
Get connected with a Christian Counselor
Please contact our reception team at
(469) 943-2452
