Engaged in Investing in
Your Marriage: Getting it Right
From the Start

Seventy-five percent of all new marriages end up either in separation, divorce, or unhappily staying wed. All couples want to be in the 25% who remain happily married, but according to these statistics, the odds are against you. What engaged couple wants to contemplate this data?

But wait… here's good news! You can prepare to beat the odds before you get married; to be among those couples who stay HAPPILY married. Do you want to join the party of happily married couples? Of course you do. Otherwise you would not marry in the first place!

You have heard about investing in your future - life insurance, retirement accounts, savings – financial matters. If you are wise, you have or will become educated in how to do this successfully before parting with your money. Well, you can invest in your relationship's future, too. Again, if you are wise, you will become educated in how to do this successfully BEFORE you walk down the aisle.

Sure, you will have some conflicts in your marriage. Without doubt, you have had some with your fiancé already. Conflicts are inevitable and unavoidable. And face it, your lives would be pretty dull if you agreed on everything. But you can have the tools to solve those conflicts before they become insurmountable problems. Think about all the potential suffering and pain you can avoid and all the pleasure you can enjoy by being prepared ahead of time.

It is astonishing that most couples tend to spend more effort on their wedding than they do on their relationship. A wedding to remember forever is a treasure and creating that memory deserves effort.

Realistically, when a marriage fails, what the wedding was like no longer matters. Are you absolutely sure you have also put in the effort to build a solid relationship? Have you learned how to:

Communicate and confide effectively,

resolve misunderstanding and conflict productively,

heal any old relationship wounds adequately, and

maintain and increase intimacy successfully?

Choose a counselor who is a relationship specialist. If you had heart problems, you would seek out a cardiologist, wouldn’t you?

Greater gains are usually made if you choose someone who helps you focus on the relationship rather than the individual. When your relationship wins, you both win.

Select a counselor who will teach you proven, concrete, and practical relationship skills and give you the opportunity to practice these skills under supervision. Once learned, you can continue to use them regularly and successfully by yourselves.

Couples counseling, where you meet regularly over a period of time with a counselor, works. The benefits include the privacy of the counseling session, a focus on your specific relationship needs, and flexibility in scheduling appointments.

Consider a couples relationship workshop. While people sometimes express concern about sharing their problems in the presence of other couples, workshops have their own set of benefits. Usually couples value from seeing their problems are a lot like the problems other couples have. They tend to gain encouragement from experiencing not just their own immediate positive results, but also the rapid changes of the other participants. It is common for any initial discomfort you have about being in a group to go away early in the workshop. An added value of workshops: couples are likely to spend significantly less time and money to obtain positive results. Both secular and faith-based programs are available.

If you can’t decide if couples counseling or a couples workshop is best for your situation, have a consultation with a relationship specialist to discuss which is right for you.

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Lighted Pathways serves the communities in the greater Capital District area including: Saratoga Springs, Ballston Spa, Wilton, Gansevoort, Middle Grove, Greenfield Center, Galway, Porter Corners, Corinth, Schuylerville, Stillwater, Waterford, Malta, Round Lake, Clifton Park, Mechanicville, Cohoes, Watervilet, Albany, Colonie, Schenectady, Troy, Scotia, Glenville, Burnt Hills, Ballston Lake, Glens Falls, South Glens Falls, Queensbury, Hudson Falls, and Fort Edward.