Pre-Marital Coaching
Posted on February 07, 2016 by Sarah Phillips, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
This article examines some of the tools a Coach might use in assessing a couple's relationship.
Pre-Marital coaching usually involves the use of subjective and objective data to help a couple assess and improve the overall strength of their relationship.
Subjective evidence would include the coach’s impression of the pre-marital couple after at least four – eight pre-marital sessions. Such an impression may be based on several factors such as how the couple communicates or learns to communicate and resolve conflicts, and whether the couple exhibits flexibility and respect of each other’s personality as well as closeness and affection between them. Other factors would include their level of compatibility in values (including religious values) and interests, the amount of support from family and friends, and the ability to handle their finances. Though this subjective analysis is very
important and can be very illuminating to the couple as well as the coach, it is also helpful to utilize more objective information in the pre-marital process.
Another test often suggested is the Prepare-Enrich Program which reports the scores and degree of agreement between the partners on at least ten different items such as marital expectations, personality issues, communication, conflict resolution, financial management, leisure activities, children and parenting, family and friends, role relationship, and spiritual beliefs. This test has high predictive validity in that it is able to determine with 80% – 85% accuracy couples who will tend to be satisfied with their marriages versus couples who are likely to experience difficulties or divorce.
Thus, by taking advantage of a coach’s subjective evaluation and the objective knowledge gained from testing, a pre-marital couple is able to secure a wealth of information about their relationship. They are then able to determine whether their union could indeed “be a marriage made in heaven."
Written by Sarah Phillips. Sarah has a Master’s Degree in Psychology(M.S.), is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor(L.M.H.C.) in Florida, a National Certified Counselor(N.C.C.), a National Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor(C.C.M.H.C.), and a YB12 Life Coach.
