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Preparing for the Life-Long After Party
If you are reading this, you already know that through all the excitement and stress of wedding planning, the most important thing you are actually planning is not one specific day, but a lifetime of healthy partnership and connection. That’s why you chose this planner! You are someone who cares about mental health and the success of your future marriage even more than the fabulous wedding I know you are going to have.
As a licensed professional counselor, I see clients in all stages of relationships. And while every relationship is unique, there are repeated themes I see come up in nearly every couple I counsel. These themes all revolve around two things. The first theme has to do with what we fight about. The second has to do with how we fight.
My goal is to give you basic tools to increase self-awareness and communication skills that you can use for the rest of your marriage. Think of this as “pre-marital counseling 101.” I urge you to really sit down and think through these topics together. Pop open a bottle wine, put some good music on in the background, and take a date night to ask each other these deep and important questions. Hopefully, through this exercise, you two deepen your love and appreciation for each other and feel excited about the strong foundation you are building together.
What We Fight About
There are some tried and true topics that repeatedly bring people back to counseling: money, sex, kids, and lack of emotional connection (or romance.) I’ll give you some homework to consider with each topic that will hopefully spark questions and conversations between the two of you.
Financial Values:
Once you are married, how do you want to split finances? Most couples know how to split bills, but I’m talking about debt, student loans, fun money, “us” money for vacations and date nights, savings, etc. How will you separate money if one person has a larger income than the other or one of you stays home with future kids? What does “living within our means” mean to each of you? If you’ve never done it before, your homework is to make a budget together (do it for fun money too, not just bills!) and/or visit a financial planner.
Kids:
If you want kids and don’t already have them, I cannot emphasize enough how different your relationship is post-children. It is beautiful, wonderful, glorious, and deeply sad and confusing. You both will change, and you might have to grieve who you or your partner used to be. It takes a lot of intention to stay connected and find each other again. (The good news is if you are proactive about it, your relationship will be even stronger and more vibrant on the other side!) Your homework is to take out a couple you admire with kids (not your parents) and listen to their advice on their parenting and marital philosophies.
Sex Life:
How comfortable are you talking about sex outside of sex? What about during it? Intimacy tends to come more naturally when we are dating because our happy hormones are high, and we are still putting in a lot of active work to keep the relationship. Once we are married, it is natural to “coast” and accidentally find ourselves physically distant and disconnected over time. Your homework is to get good at discussing your sex life, your desires, your turn-ons and turn-offs. Give each other grace that you two will be married a long time and your desires get to look different throughout your relationship. Bonus Homework to help you have those conversations: Read “Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life” by Vanessa Marin and Xander Marin.
Division of Labor:
How do you divide life’s responsibilities, and where do you each hold “mental load” in your relationship? This is more than just who does the dishes. It’s who takes the time to think through everything that needs to be done and planned and people who need to be texted and called. Your homework is to read “Fair Play” by Eve Rodsky, or at minimum go to her website and start to understand how she encourages couples to fairly prioritize what’s important.
How We Fight
Now that you know the common fights that can lead to tension in marriages, let’s talk about what I think is even more important: how we fight. You and your partner will have the same fights over and over. We all do it. We all have our own histories, families, traumas, and beliefs that lead to the same disagreements disguised in a different fight. The fights come down to us interpreting our partner’s behavior as a slight to us. We feel disregarded, invalidated, invisible, taken advantage of, humiliated, etc. When we feel those feelings, we tend to lash out using unhealthy and unhelpful coping skills such as screaming, using sarcasm, shutting down, giving the “cold-shoulder,” name-calling, being passive-aggressive, dismissing, etc. The more these disagreements come up without proper resolve and repair, the more hurt we accumulate over time. So how do we find new ways to handle the same arguments with kindness and empathy rather than letting our hurt feelings take the lead?
My favorite tool as a couples therapist will always be “‘I’ Statements.” When we get heated, we often resort to “you” statements. “You always forget to take out the trash.” “You never take me out on dates.” “You never listen.” These statements are extreme in their absoluteness and immediately put the other person on the defensive. “I” statements have us leading with our own feelings. They tell our partner how we are interpreting the situation rather than laying all the blame on the other person. The formula is basic, but the technique is game-changing once you master it. It goes like this.
“I feel (emotion), when you (action), because (interpretation).”
You state your emotion first to help your partner empathize with why you are hurt or upset. You state clearly the action that has upset you. Then you explain your interpretation of the action so they can understand why you are hurt. Here is an example of the same conversation framed as a “you” statement and an “I” statement.
“You always do this! You say you’re going to take me out and then you cancel at the last minute to hang out with your friends. You don’t even care!”
“I felt unvalued when you canceled our date night because it seemed to me like you prioritized your friends over our relationship.”
Do you see how the first statement could lead quickly to defensiveness, blame, and distance, while the second statement can lead to empathy, kindness, and problem solving? As a bonus, practice responding to your partner with a reflection. That’s a therapy term for repeating back what you are hearing. Using a reflection not only confirms to your partner that you are listening, but it helps to prevent miscommunication. Here’s an example:
“To be clear, what I’m hearing is that you’re feeling like I’ve deprioritized our relationship lately by hanging out with friends more than you?”
Imagine how much safer and less defensive you would feel if your partner responded to you this way and validated what you were feeling! From there you two can have a productive discussion around balancing social life and romantic life to make sure everyone feels filled and valued. Your homework is to post the “‘I’ Statement” formula somewhere in your house so you two can both be reminded to practice this type of communication when disagreements come up.
Go Team!
Our first year of marriage, a sweet older man at our church started saying “Good morning, team Kennington!” every time he saw my husband and me. We quickly stole his phrasing, and “Team Kennington” is now our go-to moto. When we make hard decisions, when one of us is going through a difficult time, or when we are fighting and want to pull each other’s hair out, we look at each other, hold hands, and say, “team Kennington.” It’s a reminder that through all of life’s ups and downs, we are each other’s teammates, and we want what’s best for the team.
Congrats on finding your forever teammate! I hope these tools help you put in the work to keep practicing day after day to build up your “team” and grow your strong foundation. If any of this really piqued your interest, I encourage you to seek premarital counseling in your area from either a licensed counselor or a spiritual leader you trust. If you put in as much effort to the health of your relationship as you do for the amazing wedding you’re going to throw, then I have all the confidence in the world you will have a beautiful and resilient marriage for years to come!