What is Romantic Love Anyway?
By Beverly Rodgers MS, LMFT and Tom Rodgers MA, MHDL

More What Is Romantic Love Anyway? (Cont.)

The next important issue that relationship counseling should cover is communication. During the blissful, phenylethlamine stage of a relationship, it is quite natural for couples to read each others’ minds, even finish each others’ sentences. How many times have you heard young couples say, "We just think alike", "She knows me so well", "I feel whole in his presence"? Once again we find this aided by the couple’s brain chemistry. No wonder so many pre-marital couples think they don’t need counseling to aid in communication. It’s all too shocking when these mystical mind-reading processes come to a halt, which incidentally is at our four-year critical mark. This is when couples really have to learn to communicate.

Good pre-marital counseling teaches couples tools to do just that. Communication techniques that promote understanding, foster empathy, bring about insight, and facilitate forgiveness are essential parts of pre-marital counseling.

In addition to providing all of these helps for young couples, pre-marital counseling can help you with any unresolved individual baggage you may knowingly or unknowingly carry into your marriage. Issues such as low self-esteem, unresolved issues in your family of origin, unresolved guilt, and others can rear their ugly heads and reek havoc on a new marriage. More than anything pre-marital counseling gives couples the confidence that they can beat the odds and become the soul mates God intended them to be.