PRE-MARITAL COUNSELLING

“I didn’t know he would be so reckless with money”
“Everything changed since her sister moved in with us”
“He never listens to me, his family’s opinion is the only one that counts”
“This child does not respect me at all; I don’t know whether it is because I am not his father”

Any of these statements familiar? Well, these are some of the things I, and other therapists, would hear from clients during sessions. These verbalisations would typically happen in the context of couples therapy when the couple are at loggerheads with each other and things have become unbearable. I would then ask: “Did you not negotiate about these issues before you got married”? The response would typically be a “No” or one of those “poor me” stares. It is at these moments that I would be reminded of the importance of pre-marital counselling.

Why is pre-marital counselling important?

I like to use the analogy of a used car to drive home the importance of pre-marital counselling. People who are getting married are not brand new. Like used cars, they look perfect and clean but as they start to live with each other and closer inspections are taken, tiny dents and scratches start to show. As is the case with used cars, the other may sometimes feel, “I might not have chosen it had I seen that dent before purchasing it”; put differently: “I might not have married her/him had I known about this problem before we were married”.

In human terms, an equivalent of dents and scratches I refer to above would be emotional scarring that manifests itself as a person’s personality traits, habits, tendencies, communication style, patterns of relating and other conditions of being human. By saying people are not brand new I refer to the fact that all people are a product of their socialisation and social experience. These social experiences that we accumulated through our maturing years have left an imprint in out personalities so that we tend to have consistent patterns of relating that are shaped by these experiences. For example, a person who was raised in a climate of a hostile and conflict-ridden marital relationship may develop hostile and adversarial ways of relating with people in intimate relationships. Contrariwise, someone who grew up in a warm and loving family would not have difficulties establishing trust in an intimate relationship.

Pre-marital counselling is a process by which the about-to-marry couple open their proverbial cupboards so that their spouse-to-be can take a peek and see what is inside. If they do not like what they see, their fears and expectations can be discussed in the safe space of therapy. Couples get to negotiate around the various issues that are known to give rise to conflict in marriage. The advantage of such negotiations is that the couple start to “work” on their marriage before issues become a problem. This is akin to the Setswana proverb that it is easier to bend a twig while it is still wet (fresh or young, that is). Issues that are addressed during pre-marital counselling are less likely to have disastrous consequences if they cop up during the marriage as the statements at the beginning of the blog are unlikely to be heard.

The issues that I get couples to work on during pre-marital counselling sessions include:

• Values – both personal values and the values the couple want to adopt and live by.
• Money: what are going to be the rules of money in our family.
• In-laws.
• Careers.
• Communication.
• Children (especially when one partner would be inheriting).
• Type of marriage contract (in or out of community).
• Personality differences.
• Misfortunes (e.g chronic illness, bankruptcy and so on).

In addition to these, the couple would often have the issues they want to negotiate.

I usually contract six sessions with the couple. The first two would be my individual meeting with either of them so that I get to know them we start working jointly from the second session when I give them feedback on my observations and suggest things to talk about. We would spend two more sessions with them doing negotiations. Often, I recommend that the couple keep a journal of the things they discuss outside the sessions so that we do a thorough discussion of them in sessions. The last session would occur six months into the marriage and focuses on the progress the couple are making on the issues that formed the focus of the negotiations.

Comments?

Dr ER Tlou

MONEY AND RELATIONSHIPS

In the years that I have been doing psychotherapy with couples I have come to realise that a significant proportion of problems in married couple’s problems is accounted for by money. In most cases the problem is not about a lack of money but, rather, how it is managed. Individuals in couple relationships often have different approaches to managing money. Money and people’s attitudes towards it, it seems, has become another expression of one’s personality. What is also very apparent is that people’s attitudes towards money develop in their formative years and become piggy-backed on their personalities. For example, someone who, as a child, was raised in a family where money never seemed to be a problem and got used to getting everything they wanted at the time they wanted it, is going to have a different “money personality” from someone who was socialised in a family where money was managed more stringently. If these two individuals were to get married, it is likely that money would become one source of their tension as they have different attitudes towards it and, therefore, different approaches to managing it.

What I always do with couples for whom money is the source of conflict is to sit with them individually and assess the meaning of money in their lives. I would take a detailed history of how money was managed in their families of origin and the kind of feelings and attitudes they have towards money. Once I have an understanding of each individual’ “money personality” I would give them feedback and highlight the different areas where they need to negotiate.

What I emphasise is that they are not going to change immediately, however they each have to work on what it is about them that makes them manage money the way they manage it. The idea is to make each individual take stock of who they are and how their personalities influence the way they manage their money. For example, do they see spending money as a way of reaching out to the other person and seek acceptance; or is money a way of maintaining control in a relationship (there are many configurations to this equation).

While in the end it is often recommended that the couple seek professional financial management counselling to teach them budgeting and related skills, psychotherapy helps them regulate those internal factors (self-esteem, cognition, locus of control) that influence their relationship with money. The objective is to help the couple develop a healthy relationship with money.

What has often worked for me is sending the couple to go and do an inventory of all expenditure items in their lives. Once that is done they have to make a list of items that they will manage jointly (for example, big expenditures such as the bond or car payments) or separately (for example, small items such as telephone bills or garden services). They have to negotiate how responsibilities are going to be apportioned. If this fails, a qualified financial (or debt) counsellor takes over. My role is limited to taking care of the personality side of money management because money management is not rational; it is a highly emotive issue which is why it is sometimes difficult to tell a relationship problem and a money problem apart. Once a couple has separated these two problems and assigns different professionals to address them (psychologist for the relationship and financial expert for money) it becomes easier to manage both.

What are your experiences with this problem? I am keen to hear.

Dr ER Tlou

LIFE SKILLS FOR YOUNG PROFESSIONALS

Lately I have started to observe an interesting trend on my couch. I will call it a trend because I can count with the fingers of two hands the number of times I have seen it. The occurrence would present as follows:

A young (late 20s or just crowned 30) man or woman, glamorous-looking and articulate would arrive in a R400k-plus vehicle for an appointment. The address they put on the file would suggest they are fairly well-off for their age and they are often employees of a blue chip company or would be running their own business. They would project an image of what the media have branded black diamonds. They would have good education and a blooming career with all its appurtenances. The immediate impression they project would be that of a person who has a good life – materially that is.

What I have noticed about many of these young people is that although they are bright and have a good education that propelled them to career success, they take very bad, sometimes self-destructive, decisions in their lives. These bad decisions are manifest in the realm of relationships. Either they are caught up in destructive romantic relationships or they relate with their loved ones in ways that are not fulfilling for all involved. In short, they cannot manage relationships in their personal lives, sometimes in their professional lives too. The bad decision-making often results in unhappiness and self-destructive behaviour such as overindulgence in alcohol and other substances (increasingly not just illegal substances but over-the-counter medicines such as sleeping tablets and pain killers). Overindulgence in substances is often related to other forms of reckless behaviour such as accident proneness and risky sexual behaviour.

This observation has got me thinking: To what extent do young people professional people require life skills education?

My hypothesis is that these are bright minds that have succeeded academically and professionally. Their intellectual advancement, however, has not been matched by advancement in emotional maturity and personality integration. It appears that our education system places a high premium on intellectual development while not paying any attention to spiritual and emotional growth. Young people go to universities to obtain the qualifications and skills required for a good career. They achieve this goal it seems at the expense of a well-rounded sense of self. Their career success seems to be the focus of their whole sense of who they are. Once the professional identity is taken away, they are left with an emptiness and loneliness that changes their life orientation completely.
I am thinking that there is a need for life skills education for young people who are about to complete university so that they are prepared for the transition ahead. On leaving university they discover, much to their chagrin, that life does not have a recipe book. Education provided them with the ingredients and they must mix everything and prepare a meal that they (and those close to them) will have to eat.
What do the young professionals say about this?

Dr. ER Tlou