Pre-Marriage Counseling, Session 2
First, a follow-up to my last entry (link), which included my recent struggle with my blood sugar. It took about a week, but my equilibrium has been restored. I am keeping a closer eye on my sugar intake to avoid accidentally over-doing it again.
My fiance and I went to our second pre-marriage counseling session yesterday afternoon. We received the results from the Prepare and Enrich relationship assessment, and our “couple type” is vitalized (the highest or most satisfied type). According to the documentation,
“Vitalized couples typically have high satisfaction with their relationship. Like any couple, you may have some growth areas in your relationship, but your strong relationship skills should help you work through them. You have a great foundation to build upon!”
When it came to couple agreement, we actually had no growth areas. Our strongest areas (areas with high couple agreement) were Communication, Conflict Resolution, Family & Friends, Relationship Roles, Sexual Expectations, and Spiritual Beliefs. Our possible strengths (areas with moderately high couple agreement) were Financial Management, Leisure Activities, and Partner Style & Habits.
Our pastor was surprised by our results, as we may have been the first couple he has counseled using this method to have such high couple agreement. My fiance and I, on the other hand, were not very surprised. Our communication is pretty impressive and we have had thorough discussions regarding many of these topics long before we became engaged. Still, it is intriguing to see what we did answer differently on and discuss why. When it came to how we view our relationship (basically on a scale ranging from pessimistic to realistic/practical to idealistic), my fiance scored more realistic/practical and I somehow ended up in highly idealistic, which was quite odd to me, because I have approached our relationship from before it was a relationship from a very practical viewpoint. Then the pastor shared the few statements that lead to those results, and we realized that we both have a pretty similar view of our relationship, but we answered differently because we viewed the statement(s) slightly differently due to word emphasis. For example, he rated a statement a 2 (disagree) while I rated that same statement a 5 (strongly agree). His answer for one of the statements was more metaphoric: “How can anyone truly understand another person completely?” I, on the other hand, took the instructions for that section literally, which said to answer based on your relationship at that time. So I was confident that I understood my partner as completely as I could at that time. It is semantics, but very interesting. I tend to do that, though. My brain over-analyzes, and I tend to out-smart, over-think, or take instructions too literally when it comes to tests and assessments like this one. I am an INTJ, after all.
Hmm… other worthwhile notes: we both are very highly assertive (the ability to express one’s feelings and ask for what one wants) and have strong self-confidence. It was interesting for me to see how highly I scored on the self-confidence. I have always had extremely high self-confidence in my skills and intellect, but since I was a child, I did struggle with positive self-image. I was the “heavier” one out of my sisters, and after high school, due to undiagnosed food allergies, I gained weight. My self-image has improved dramatically in the last three years since discovering the allergies, changing my diet, losing weight, and improving my fitness. Moving out on my own for the first time is another factor, and I would be lying if I did not say that my relationship with my fiance has helped significantly, especially in the self-image. He loves me, all of me, and he believes I am beautiful. A few weeks ago, I made the commitment to myself and my fiance that I will no longer view my body negatively: no more self-shaming and the self-inflicted wounds of negative thoughts and words. Are there areas that could benefit from improvement? Certainly, but even without any physical improvements, I am precious, beautiful, and loved by God, my fiance, and my family.
So yesterday was sort of a walk through of our results and we discussed Communication. We have a few exercises to do from the workbook. Next Wednesday we will likely move on to Personal Stress and Conflict Resolution.
I admit that I was very hesitant about the pre-marriage counseling. No one in my family has ever done it, and being very private, I disliked the idea of discussing private matters with a third party, even if he was a pastor. However, the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America highly encourages our pastors to do pre-marriage counseling before conducting a marriage ceremony, and since an official religious ceremony was very important to both my fiance and myself, counseling was a must. I also understood that, despite my misgivings and all of the preparation we have done on our own, undoubtedly there would be something of value to learn from the sessions. I was nervous yesterday when we were given our results, but as the discussion progressed, I found myself relaxing more and more. I shifted my mindset from defensive mode to game mode. It does kind of feel like a fun “get to know you better” game. It was also nice to receive confirmation in the areas we have discussed and worked through already.
My only disappointment so far is that I was expecting more insight from the Scriptures and Spirit of Prophecy, but this was only our second session and first real counseling session, so there is plenty of time ahead for that.