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Premarital Counseling
Start your marriage off right.
What it is
Premarital counseling at ISDR was created to help you build a strong foundation for your marriage. This means helping you explore the history that each of you brings to the relationship, what you want from it, and what investment in each other looks like when it comes from the inside rather than from outside expectations or momentum.
What makes our approach different than a prerecorded educational program is the perspective our therapists have that comes from working with couples across the full arc of a relationship — not just before marriage, but through the conflicts, ruptures, and crossroads that come years and decades later. We can tailor counseling to your specific relationship, address questions or concerns about the way you interact, and discuss unique challenges that may arise.
We think of premarital counseling a bit like an inoculation: it can help you more effecively resist relational pitfalls. If those do show up, premarital counseling can prepare you to recognize them sooner and increase the likelihood that you will get help before they become a years-long gridlock pattern.
What we cover
Topics we cover in premarital counseling are informed by research, your therapist's experience working with couples, and what you want to focus on. Some of those areas may include:
Communication & Conflict
How you each handle disagreements, repair after fights, and express difficult things.
Family of Origin
The patterns, expectations, and unspoken rules you each grew up with and how they show up in your relationship.
Finances & Values
Your beliefs about money, value, financial security, and fairness.
Sex & Intimacy
Desire, frequency, initiation, and creating a meaningful sexual relationship. We also help couples navigating the transition to sexual intimacy after abstinence.
Parenting & Roles
Whether you want children, how you'd raise them, and what you each expect around division of labor and responsibility.
Values & Vision
What a good life looks like, what you want to build together, and how religion may or may not fit into it.
Technology & Outside Connections
How you each use technology and social media, as well as boundaries for relationships outside the marriage.
Extended Family & In-Laws
Boundaries with family, time splitting, and communication strategies.
What to expect
We draw on Self-Determination Based Therapy (SDBT) as a core part of this work. One of the unique contributions of SDBT to premarital counseling is that it focuses on the motivational foundations of a relationship, which is critical: couples whose commitment is rooted in genuine, autonomous investment (rather than inertia, expectations, or external pressure) tend to do better. SDBT is designed to help couples explore and strengthen that foundation, not just cover topics on a checklist.
Premarital counseling at ISDR tends to be structured and goal-oriented over 6-10 sessions, though this may vary. Sessions usually involve both partners together, with some individual time built in when it's useful.
Specializing Therapists
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Schedule a free 15-minute consultation to find out if ISDR is the right fit.
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Strengthen the foundation of your marriage with our unique approach to premarital counseling.
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