6 Things to Cover in Pre-Marital Counseling
Marriage is a gift from God.
“He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord” (Proverbs 18:22).
When a couple decides to tie the knot, we should celebrate and rejoice with them. As Christians, we always want to elevate the beauty and goodness of marriage.
But there is another side to this.
Divorce stats are not particularly encouraging. Both husband and wife carry baggage and wounds into the marriage, and it’s just a crazy, sin-saturated world. In short, marriage is tough!
Pastors feel the weight of responsibility when it comes to pre-marital counseling. You want to equip the engaged couple with as many tools as possible. But unless you plan on doing six months of weekly counseling, you cannot cover everything. Prioritization is a must!
Here are six things you should cover in your pre-marital counseling.
1. Gospel
When a couple ties the knot, it is natural for them to think, “This is about us.” We got married because we love one another, and now we can spend the rest of our lives enjoying one another. And yes, that is part of it, but it’s far from the whole picture.
In an ultimate sense, marriage is not about you. Marriage is about pointing to another reality – “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her!” (Ephesians 5:25). God intends marriage to reflect a picture of the covenant love of Christ for His bride, the church.
If you have the privilege of doing pre-marital counseling, aim to center the sessions upon the gospel. In my experience, couples are often “gospel illiterate.” They know “Jesus died for my sin,” but they have little understanding of how the gospel relates to the whole of life.
Remind couples that there will be times when they don’t “like” one another very much. Nonetheless, they must choose to love one another through thick and thin. Giving and withholding love based on your spouse’s performance is a recipe for disaster. However, loving one another unconditionally reflects the covenant love of Christ. That’s what marriage is all about.
2. Intimacy
As a counselor, you want to affirm the goodness and beauty of sex. God intends couples to enjoy this gift frequently and exclusively within the confines of the marriage union. If couples are going to enjoy this gift to the max, they must foster “intimacy” within their relationship.
Sex as an act is not necessarily intimate. It is often just an act of self-indulgence, lust, or impulse. In contrast, intimacy is a deep heart connection that comes from thinking of your spouse before yourself. It starts well before clothes are off and passions are high.
When intimacy is not the focus of marriage, sex becomes something men “don’t get enough of,” and women “feel obligated to give.”
During counseling sessions, make it clear that they are friends before lovers. Husbands especially need to be reminded that great sex doesn’t start at 10 p.m. when they arrive in the bedroom. It starts first thing in the morning as couples choose to serve one another in love (Galatians 5:13).
3. Secrets
In our modern world, it is all too easy to live separate lives. Wives might be tempted to run up credit card debt without consulting their husbands or spend hours of unaccounted time scrolling or watching. Husbands may buy another gun, another tool, or another toy and spend hours watching sports or playing video games. They may stay up late only to watch porn or indulge in other secret activities. Left unchecked, these behaviors will eventually kill a marriage.
In your counseling sessions, warn against the habit of keeping secrets, which lends itself to leading separate lives. In marriage, husband and wife are meshed together in a powerful way. It is a “one flesh” union (Genesis 2:24, Ephesians 5:31). Living separate lives is not an option. Couples must build communication and mutual accountability into the marriage. Couples don’t need to tell one another everything, but communication is a must when it comes to finances, children, schedules, hobbies, etc.
4. Kids
When my wife and I first married, we devised a 5-year plan. Sadly, the plan didn’t include children. The redeeming part of the story is that God’s plan trumped our plan (Proverbs 16:9), and birth control didn’t work. A month after celebrating our second anniversary, Steph gave birth to twins! Since then, we have come to see parenting as one of the greatest blessings of our lives.
The Bible says, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward” (Psalm 127:3). Sometimes couples approach family planning from the perspective of “once we get our lives in order and have career stability, then we will have kids.” They often come to regret that approach.
The creation mandate remains – “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth!” (Genesis 1:28). Children are not an inconvenience but a blessing! Remind the couple that God gives Christian parents the great privilege and responsibility of bringing up little bambinos in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).
5. Expectations
One of my favorite books on marriage is, What Did You Expect?” by Paul Tripp. This book offers a needed reality check for many. Yes, marriage is an enormous blessing, but it’s downright hard at times! When two sinners join in holy matrimony, there will always be challenges.
What often brings couples together is their commonality. However, husband and wife are rarely in complete alignment on everything. The husband may thrive off travel and vacation time, while the wife is more of a homebody. Encourage them to talk and work out a plan to “meet in the middle” beforehand.
How will we spend our money? Who will do the finances? How many kids do we want? What church will we attend? How often will we visit the in-laws? This is just the tip of the iceberg regarding questions to talk through. But when a couple loves the Lord and loves one another, they have the necessary foundation to work through expectations and differences.
6. Prayer
Simply put, couples that pray together stay together! That’s not the only thing that will keep a marriage intact, but it certainly goes a long way in that direction.
Since my wife and I married, we have prayed together habitually, morning and evening. This has been an enormous blessing, and it has served to strengthen and solidify our bond of love.
As you do pre-marital counseling, be realistic. Remind the couple that marriage is hard! They will go through trials and suffering. Only by the grace of God will their marriage thrive, grow, and be a mutual joy.
©2023 Daniel Stegeman. All rights reserved. Used with permission.
About The Author

Daniel Stegeman
Daniel Stegeman serves as pastor of Pine Glen Alliance Church in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. He blogs at pastoral-theology.com and is the author of Help! I Want to Be a Loving Husband.