Premarital Counseling from the PAIRS Perspective

THE PREMARITAL COUPLE treads a challenging path between falling in

love and solidifying a commitment. Premarital couples seek professional

help to prevent or to understand and resolve relationship difficulties

that may have arisen even before marriage. The status and

circumstances of premarital couples seeking help vary from the youngand-

inexperienced to the previously married (with or without children) to

long-term cohabiters who have not committed to marriage. The premarital

couple is wise to be cautious. Statistics tell us that the likelihood they will

find happiness and longevity in marriage is despairingly low whereas 90%

of couples married during the years 1945 to 1949 made it to their 10-year

anniversary. Forty years later, barely 70% of those married during the

years 1985 to 1989 celebrated a decade of wedded bliss—and the statistics

continue to decrease (Fleming, 2003).

Premarital couples seek assurance that they can create a lifelong intimate

partnership. Each partner needs accurate concepts, conducive attitudes,

technical knowledge and skills, and practiced competencies to

sustain a loving relationship. As in ballroom dancing, the couple relationship

gains best through co-learning, by acquiring and practicing these intimate

relationship skills together. The couple needs to acquire high levels

of skill to continue dancing lovingly in the face of changing family life

with its unrelenting and often discouraging economic, domestic, and

parental responsibilities. The counselor, who wishes to effectively offer

such knowledge and skills to couples, needs to undertake relevant professional

training. Such training is not yet established in most graduate clinical

programs.