With the divorce rate around 50%, we want to help couples be in the successful half, and believe strongly that pre-marital counseling goes a long way toward making a marriage satisfying and successful.

Pre-marital counseling can actually begin long before the wedding, in fact the earlier the better - before the engagement is optimal. Once a couple has moved beyond the starry eyed "honeymoon" stage of their relationship (anywhere from 3-12 months) where the partner seems perfect, where there are no problems and they can't imagine there ever being any problems.... then they're ready to begin looking seriously at one another and really assessing long-term compatibility.

Partners designing a successful long-term marriage take into account their beliefs and desires in a number of domains: family and children, work and career, religion and spirituality, money and wealth, aging and retirement, health and fitness, play and leisure, values and commitments. The more a couple is in alignment around these, the smoother the ride they can anticipate - the less they are in alignment, the more they can anticipate the need for negotiation and compromise. Partnerships with a high level of compromise can still work, as long as both are clear and willing to participate at that level.

We generally recommend using Susan Piver's excellent book The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say "I Do" as a guideline for conversation and generate structured homework assignments over the course of a certain number of agreed upon weeks to get couples talking about what they want.