Counselling for Couples in Toronto

Pre-Marital Counselling

From the viewpoint of our learning and development, a Buddhist perspective may be that  “Anyone can be your perfect mate”. But, even though this is a noble goal, we seek a mate for fulfillment and goal-achievement of other kinds – and the learning is inevitable. Pre-marital Counselling can help you with insight, judgment, effective choices, planning, and action steps.

In these practical terms, no one can be a perfect mate and no one can choose a perfect mate.  Sometimes relationships will even form, unite, and succeed because of mutual differences from the group-of-origin! However that may occur, a union based upon common goals, and reasonable similarities in culture, and support from those in your family or group, will usually receive of greatest assistance to the success of that relationship. A caring person, such as Ingrid Dresher, can help, providing objective and supportive pre-marital counselling, to ease this process as well as increase the odds of a more successful relationship.

It is said that when your own development as a person has achieved a certain measure of consciousness, next God, or nature, has created marriage to help us mature and grow, and that every couple will have their share of struggles. But it is significantly important that we are aware of as many of our areas of compatibility and incompatibility before marriage. And when the potential problems are clearly too great to enable a couple to build a fulfilling, enjoyable, long life together, it may be of value to wait until God, luck, and/or our research, helps us to locate and discover a more compatible mate. Otherwise, your destiny may be to work very hard towards adjustment and happiness in a very complex relationship – possible, maybe. Advisable?  Think it over carefully!

Like any other serious endeavor, one can acquire the understanding and know how to master the art of ‘being a couple’. While many people assume that relationships should happen naturally, things do work better when you have a roadmap to the future and a vision of how your relationship is going to work. Pre-marital counselling allows a couple to celebrate their strengths of the relationship, to explore areas of their relationship that would benefit from discussion, and to discover areas that have been previously unexplored, and set the stage for the well-being of your relationship future.

Although pre-marital counselling can occur at any time before the wedding, recent studies suggest that it should be completed six months prior to the wedding if possible, allowing the relationship a chance to shift and adjust as a response to the discussion in the counselling. This is a valuable opportunity to focus on the above-mentioned areas and minimize ‘surprises’ – shock; disappointment; discontent; disenchantment; let-down; disappointment; hurt; etc -; from the relationship after the marriage.

Pre-marital counselling provides helpful guidance in determining whether you and your prospective mate are ready to make a lasting, lifetime commitment; without which the best of marriage cannot be enjoyed.

EMOTIONAL ADJUSTMENT OF THE INDIVIDUAL The person who is lacking in good emotional or personality adjustment finds it difficult to live with himself/herself and others. Most serious marriage problems arise because one or both partners have some long-standing problematic personality characteristics. Once we marry, these problems are even more likely to be triggered because of the new levels of intimacy, responsibility and give-and-take required in marriage.

Many couples considering engagement see a professional counsellor and take personality tests before they make final plans to walk down the aisle to say ‘I do’. Pre-marriage counselling and testing may seem “corny” or “contrived” but is a wonderful way to take a more objective look at your own and your prospective mate’s personality traits. Part of the basis of many dating services is precisely this kind of “typing” to help you best select. This will help you decide whether you should head to the altar, to a therapist! … Or even to the door! This is important because, hopefully you are choosing your beloved for life, and making the commitment to “live happily ever after”. Those who can accomplish “permanent marriage” with joy have created one of life’s great blessings.

Detail: When you identify some personality traits that may be problematic, you can consider several options. You might slow down the relationship or spend lots of time discussing and working through the potential conflict areas or seek professional counselling or lastly terminate the relationship. But one thing to remember is that marriage will not solve potential problems and ‘hoping’ won’t make them go away. Take a close look before you leap. The Bible             advises, “The prudent see danger and take refuge but the simple keep going and suffer for it.” This seems like wise advice, whether you are religious, or not!

Having compatible goals and understanding each other’s plans for the future is vital for a happy marriage. Goals affect every area of our lives. They involve having children (yes, no, and how many), our education, where we choose to live, and our decision to reach out to help people, our spiritual interests, and a host of other factors. Like two front wheels of a car, the more a couple can have similar goals and head in the same direction, the more likely they are to run a straight course in their marriage.

Another question to consider before marriage is, “How compatible are we in terms of our intellectual and cultural interests? In the first blush of emotional love some couples give little thought to the importance their broad, long-term interests play in producing a happy marriage.

Common interests help build togetherness. A relationship is less likely to be conflation when we share in our recreational, vocational, and spiritual lives.

Another major consideration is education. One of the fastest ways for a person to change his or her economic status is to obtain a good education. Education is not only a sharpener of our abilities, it is also a key to many doors that otherwise would be closed. Other things being equal, the person with an adequate education is more able to accept responsible positions in the workplace. But the impact of education on marriage goes far beyond jobs and finances. Couples that share a desire to learn and grow can challenge and enrich each other. There are all too many marriages where unhappiness and divorce become the unfortunate fruits of an inadequate motivation to grow and learn. It is helpful to evaluate and acknowledge your goals for your partner and determine if they already share these. The songwriters, tongue in cheek say, “Marry the man today, and change his ways tomorrow”. This strategy, although possibly successful, does significantly increase relationship risk.

Family involvement is important for relationships. Preparing for marriage should include becoming well acquainted with each other’s families, develop good relationships and working together as a team because our extended family will “bother us,” or help us, or encourage us in our efforts to build our own growing family! Even if your relatives live a thousand miles away, they will influence your marriage. Their physical absence may keep you out of open conflict, but if nothing else, it may deprive your children of their grandparents. And even if you seldom speak, the pattern of relating which your prospective spouse learned in his or her own family system will influence the way she reacts in yours. Before marriage, be sure you get a reading on how you understand each other’s families. Some prospective brides and grooms have faced neither the realities of family involvement before marriage nor have they examined the impact their childhood family experiences will have on their own marriage. How much better to consider these matters before wedding bells ring, rather than later when conflicts have arisen?

Compatibility with friends is another area as you can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps. What our friends enjoy, we tend to enjoy. What interests our friends tends to be what interests us. What our friends don’t care for is most likely what we don’t care for. And our friends’ level of spiritual interest and commitment is probably similar to our own. Otherwise, why would we be spending time with them? Don’t expect you or your potential mate’s friends to change radically after you’ve said your vows.

After reading this do you think that you can benefit from premarital counselling? Ingrid Dresher, an experienced kind and talented psychotherapist - she lives and works in Downtown Toronto - can help you chart your future with your mate which is happy and beautiful – to triumph over difficulties – and to more often emerge a joyous hero/heroine of your adventure in love and marriage.  

Thank you for reading my webpage.

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