What Pre-marital Counseling Can Teach You About Long-Term Relationships: PART 2

Pre-marital counseling can help not only engaged couples but also those in long-term relationships looking to strengthen their bond.  Couples who participate in pre-marital counseling report greater satisfaction in their relationship, improved communication skills, a stronger foundation of trust and intimacy, and confidence in navigating life’s challenges together.  Investing in your relationship now means fewer obstacles and a healthier, happier partnership later.

Building Trust and Emotional Safety

Trust is the foundation of a relationship.  Gottman emphasizes the role of trust in a relationship’s success. Premarital counseling focuses on building emotional safety, allowing both partners to be vulnerable.

Two things that build trust over time are consistency and reliable actions.  At the beginning of a relationship, it is reasonable to enjoy a high trust metric, which means you have a strong sense of confidence that your partner has your best interests at heart.  As a couple preparing for marriage or in the early stages of marriage, you might instinctively think, “I trust my partner.” However, it’s important to reflect on what that trust is built on. Do you trust your partner because they’ve consistently met your expectations? Is it because your trust hasn’t been challenged yet? Are you naturally a trusting person? Or is your trust grounded in a deeper belief system or spiritual perspective?

Long-term couples can ask the same questions around the theme of trust, but now they must consider a longer history of actions that can build or erode trust.  There may be conflict to repair and actions that foster trust to celebrate. Trust creates emotional safety, which is essential for intimacy and closeness as the relationship matures.

Aligning Values and Goals

Premarital counseling encourages couples to openly discuss their values, dreams, and expectations for the future.  Understanding the foundation of each other’s dreams, along with your deepest hopes and desires for the future is one of the most fulfilling aspects of a relationship. It takes time to find alignment and is only achieved by continuing to check in with one another.  In this way, you keep the conversation going and the relationship moving in a forward direction.  It’s also important to revisit this conversation as goals and dreams can change over time. 

For long term relationships, it’s important to stay connected to the goals and values that motivate you to maintain harmony.  If your goals and dreams change over time, and it’s not communicated, conflict is likely to flare. Understanding each other’s goals even as they change can prevent conflict and increase collaboration.  

Rituals of Connection: Keeping the Spark Alive

Premarital counseling stresses the role of rituals of connection—small, meaningful actions that foster intimacy and affection.  You’ll be encouraged to explore, discuss, and establish meaningful rituals for connecting with one another. These rituals can range from how you celebrate holidays and enjoy date nights to your morning routines, vacations, and how you spend Sunday mornings. You’ll reflect on what matters most to each of you, what traditions you’d like to carry over from your family backgrounds, and what new customs you wish to create as a couple.

Simple, intentional moments of connection (like date nights or daily check-ins) keep the relationship vibrant.  Gottman refers to the 6 hours to a lasting relationship.  Those 6 hours are vastly made up of small intentional moments every day that build and maintain your relationship. It includes how you depart from each other and greet each other, making intentional time to kiss and checking in on how your partner’s day is going. 

Long-term couples who maintain rituals of connection are more likely to stay emotionally engaged and satisfied.  These rituals are how your love for each other gets expressed every day.  These moments sustain you over the course of the day and the life of your relationship. 

Conclusion

Premarital counseling teaches vital lessons in communication, conflict resolution, trust, shared values, and connection—all of which are crucial for long-term relationship success.  Rather than wait until serious issues arise, I encourage couples to use the momentum of this joyful season they’re in to deepen and elevate their relationship.  I wish when I was getting married, I would have had the opportunity to learn these skills!  When you are just starting out in relationships, you often don’t know what you don’t know.  Sometimes, things seem so much easier at the start of a relationship…until they don't.   

For long term couples, the same skills can rebuild or strengthen your relationship. At The Lake Erie Center for Relationship Counseling, we are here to help couples at the beginning of their journey and when they are miles down the road in a long term relationship. Both types of couples can consider “premarital counseling” to discover or strengthen skills that make the journey all we long for it to be.