A recent article in the Shreveport (Louisiana) Times suggests that premarital education could help to cut the divorce rate. Premarital education is different than premarital counseling, which usually takes place with a couple and a trained counselor of some type and discusses potential differences in personality types, families and other areas of conflict. Premarital education takes place in a group setting and focuses on giving relationship type advice.
I think this is a very positive step that may potentially help couples enhance their overall relationship and pending marriage. According to the article, “Couples who received premarital education had a 31 percent lower chance of divorce. The number of hours spent in premarital programs ranged from as little as a few hours to 20 hours.
In my personal experience, my ex-husband and I were involved in premarital counseling through the church that I was affiliated with at the time. After extensive personality testing, individual counseling, and couples counseling, the counselor stated that he did not think we should get married. In hindsight that was a very good suggestion. I do not regret getting married, but had I listened, I would not have married that person, and hence not have gone through the anguish of divorce. We were both young and thought we knew it all. I was not at a place in my life where I was very willing to listen to the advice of others, even if he or she knew more than I did. Most other people we knew thought it would be cool for us to get married. So we did and fifteen years later the relationship ended in divorce.
I do hope that the idea of marriage education will grow and be beneficial to many people. I think that both premarital education and counseling could be especially helpful to people who are going to be remarried to potentially unlearn unhealthy behaviors that may have contributed to the breakup of their previous marriage(s).
Please see the Families.Com Marriage Blog for more information on how to make a marriage successful.