Premarital Counseling In Englewood, CO
You might be thinking, hmmm…we don’t have many issues right now. My partner and I feel very connected and close, what would we need counseling for anyways? Great question! Let’s run through a scenario first.
You feel close and connected to your partner, most of the time. Day-to-day life is happy and you’re content with where your relationship is at! There’s only one tift you both get in but it doesn’t happen very often and you feel confident that it’s not hurting your relationship in a big way, so you decide to not address it right now. But when you think about that one conversation: you notice you feel disconnected from your partner. You feel unheard, or misunderstood by them. You’re not sure why because every other area of your relationship is wonderful!
Now let me ask you this…what if this one tift got bigger? What if by not addressing it now, it actually grew and the more you didn’t talk about it (or did talk about it) the more you feel disconnected from your partner. It’s no longer a small, one-off conversation. It’s now coming up once a week and that feels overwhelming because you don’t have the tools to move through it. Whenever you and your partner try to talk about it you end up in the same place–exhausted, not understanding each other, and not feeling heard. You feel defeated and wonder how you ever got to this place with someone you love and used to feel so close to. You even start to think–can we ever repair this disconnection?
We’ve all been there! Wishing we would’ve addressed the small problem sooner, but when you don’t have the tools–those conversations can be really intimidating! Therapy can help you gained the tools you need to reconnect with your partner, and I would love to be the one to help you find those tools.
You deserve to have the tools to repair your relationship, while it’s good! Why not make a good thing even better?
Now imagine…
Things are still great between you and your partner, you both feel so happy, in-love, and connected. The really hard conversation comes up and you both feel confident that you’ll be able to talk through it, repair, and reconnect with each other. Instead of going quiet and ignoring the issue or getting angry at your partner—you both have the tools to calmly discuss what is upsetting both of you and finally feel heard.
You feel even closer than you did before because now, you both know you can talk about anything and still be a team on the other side of that tough conversation. You both feel even more certain that this person is the person you want to marry and now you feel sure you have the tools to face these hard conversations together as you move forward. You feel confident, connected, and loved. Life is good!
I help couples achieve this by using a combination of an attachment-based approach as well as premarital assessments to provide sessions virtually and in person so you can learn the tools you need to stay connected with your partner even in the hardest of conversations.
FAQs
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Absolutely not! I offer them in case people want to utilize that tool but our talk therapy can address your growth areas and give you the tools you need to improve your relationship on its own.
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I am certified in SYMBIS (Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts) and Prepare/Enrich. SYMBIS is more geared towards religious couples and Prepare/Enrich is for anyone! I don’t have a preference–I usually leave it up to the couple's specific wants/needs.
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Good question! The purpose of premarital assessments is to outline areas of strength and growth in your relationship. This would be helpful for couples who can’t think of any areas of growth in their relationship and want to see if they have areas to work on.
The benefit is that these assessments bring up things you might not think to discuss with your partner before marriage and help start important conversations around sex, dividing household tasks, money management, debt, etc.
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Yes, whether you choose SYMBIS or Prepare/Enrich the cost is $35 total, which you will pay to the respective company.
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Here’s what my basic process for couples therapy looks like:
-Session 1: We get to know each other, I learn about your relationship history, strengths, pain points, and what brings you into therapy now
-Sessions 2 & 3: I meet with each partner in the couple individually to get a personal history, how you grew up in your family, and how you found or didn’t find comfort, care, and connection with your family growing up.
-Session 4 & on: All three of us meet together from there on out to discuss the specific patterns that you find yourselves in when it comes to hard topics and we work to help you find the tools you both need to stay connected in those hard places.
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It depends! Some people only want to do an assessment, review it, and be done and I usually say that’ll take at minimum 2 sessions. That is simply reviewing the answers of the assessment, not going into any depth around the answers.
For other people wanting to dive into your patterns and learn how to stay connected through hard conversations, we will discuss your specific needs and goals in the first session and discuss what timeline is possible.