Premarital Counseling for Nonreligious Couples

In general, (at least in my experience) couples who are looking for a nonreligious wedding ceremony and a nontraditional wedding officiant don’t tend to seek out premarital counseling or conscious coupling processes. Understandably there’s some confusion regarding the difference between clergy-led premarital counseling where a priest checks off a list that permits you to, or prevents you from, getting married. It’s a process that robs you of your sovereignty and self agency, as you hand over your authority to another human to make a huge life decision on your behalf. But premarital counseling at its best is about empowering you to understand yourselves better, to consciously co-create your future, to have the difficult relationship conversations (now vs. later,) and make important relationship agreements, so that you are well prepared for the true terrain of marriage. Conscious coupling is a similar process, and is really designed to support you in making the right relationship decisions for the right reasons. It’s grounded in self-understanding and relationship skill building. And it is important! It doesn’t matter how well suited the two of you are, relationships need tending and the sooner you start tending them, the better off you’ll be. The toxic myth of happily ever after has left us ill-equipped to be in a real relationship, with its ebbs and flows, failures and drifts. It’s not always going to be 70 degrees and sunny in your relationship, and knowing how to surf the waves is your best practice. So I’m sharing some resources to help you go into your marriage intentionally, and with your eyes wide open.

Stan Tatkin and The Pact Institute (resources, books and therapy)
The Relationship School (coaching, podcast and book)
Terrence Real (books, trainings, therapy)
Esther Perel (podcast, books, games, Ted Talk)
The True Hard Work of Love and Relationships (On Being podcast interview with Alain de Botton)
John Gottman and The Gottman Institute (books, podcast, marital stability and divorce prediction)
Gene Keys - Venus Sequence (for those seeking to understand, take responsibility for, and transform *deep* relational patterns)

“Love does not feel chaotic, it’s not a roller coaster and a lot of us are conditioned to think that it is. So that when we get into a healthy dynamic it can feel boring with no passion. In order to understand what is healthy for us in relationship, we need to examine our own conditioning. We need to look at what our family programming was like and what we learned about love and relationship from them. Then we can see where we are carrying those programs into our present day reality and how it is impacting what kind of relationships we are calling in.” —Sheleana Aiyana