Help us not become a marriage statistic

May 21, 2010 6:48 AM

Help us find affordable non-religious pre-marital counseling in the Boston (his) or New York City (my) areas. Please?

We want to make sure we're not batshit insane for wanting to marry each other, so we need an objective 3rd opinion. We're *not* having any problems that need to be solved -- we just need to make sure we've thought this completely through.

We're both not especially religious so we're not sure we'd be comfortable doing pre-marriage counseling in some church.

We'd prefer in-person rather than over the phone.

We're in grad school so we're poor! We Googled and found someone who charges $130/phone session for one of six. I mean, we'd pay it 'cause we're worth it... but... we really need to be saving right now, so we're wondering if there's anything more affordable out there.

posted by The Biggest Dreamer to Health & Fitness (7 answers total)

Call standard marriage counsellors or therapists; there's not a magic formula for pre-marriage counselling. We were in a similar position and had one session with a marriage therapist before getting married; I thought it was worthwhile.
posted by DarlingBri at 6:53 AM on May 21, 2010

See if either of your grad schools has a psychology department with a clinical program or an education department with a counseling psychology program--grad students in those areas likely have to complete supervised training hours at some type of counseling center affiliated with the university, and it's usually quite affordable to see a student or recent grad (flat rate like $10/session or sliding scale). And if neither of your schools has something like that, start looking at other universities in your area--you generally don't have to be a student in order to see someone at one of these centers.

My husband and I did our pre-marital counseling at the Northwestern University Family Center and it was extremely affordable (I think we paid something like $20/session) and an overall very positive experience. I've seen similar sliding-scale options at other universities, though unfortunately I'm not familiar with any in Boston or New York.
posted by Meg_Murry at 7:16 AM on May 21, 2010

Oh, one other thing--I would recommend doing several (like 3-4) sessions rather than just one. Your therapist will probably spend the first session trying to get to know you a little bit, so the deeper discussion will likely come in the second session, and then it's nice to have another one to follow up on whatever you discussed in the second session after you've had some time to think about it.
posted by Meg_Murry at 7:21 AM on May 21, 2010

I've said this before on here, I think, but Engaged Encounter is awesome. This site is one run by catholics, but I believe other organizations have similar programs. I know you said no religious counseling, but it isn't really counseling. You go for a weekend, they give you a book, someone speaks (usually a couple who's been married a while), then you write about the topic in the books separately, then you trade and talk about it. I'd been dating my fiance for years, thought we had talked about everything there was to talk about, and by the end of the first night I was sure we couldn't possibly get married based on the revelations we came to. (It turned out to be less dramatic than that). There isn't any actual counseling involved, but I think it would be a great complement to counseling, something to do in advance to help you figure out what to talk about with the counselor, perhaps. We send all the younger folks in our family to these weekends as an engagement gift; everyone of them (and us, for that matter) was skeptical; every one of us found it extremely helpful and moving.

Luterhans do it too, it looks like. Probably there you won't get the talk on Natural Family Planning, which you will get at the catholic place, but is easy to ignore. Our weekend had lots of noncatholics. There was a mass at the end on Sunday, but you certainly aren't required to stay.
posted by dpx.mfx at 7:40 AM on May 21, 2010

Recommend starting with Smartmarriages.com. It's not exactly a great website, but it is a treasure trove of the latest research, classes, and marriage therapy and education resources.
posted by cross_impact at 10:16 AM on May 21, 2010

I did this Marriage Success Training. It was religion free (although you may talk about your own religious values as compared to your SO's). They have New York and (one) Boston dates.
posted by cocoagirl at 11:48 AM on May 21, 2010

When my husband and I were looking for someone to officiate our (very secular) wedding, we ended up with a Unitarian minister. As part of the deal, we had 2 or 3 sessions of pre-marital counseling, and it sounds kind of similar to what dpx.mfx mentions above. Instead of a group retreat, it was just my fiance, myself, and the minister in her office. She had us talk about our relationship, our family background, what kinds of problems we'd had, and what we expected for the future (kids, marriage roles, etc). The nice thing for us was that it was completely secular--no pretending we were ever going to go to church or raise our kids in some religion. The minister seemed to be a good, neutral third-party observer and basically just asked questions, commented on what we told her, then gave us her blessing. I don't know how much advising we actually needed--we'd been dating for almost 9 years and living together for 5, so we'd worked through the kinks and were ready to be married--but it was still nice to hear someone tell us we making a good choice.

So, that is something you could consider. As far as the cost goes, we paid $500 total, but that included actually officiating the wedding. Your local Unitarian church should be able to tell you if they offer counseling services, and if there is a fee.
posted by Jemstar at 6:37 PM on May 21, 2010