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Premarital
/ Relationship Inventories
We recommend that couples
explore their compatibility issues and expectations as part of a
premarital education program like ours. We offer a premarital inventory
as part of our program. If you tackle these issues on your own,
you won't have the support, skills and understanding to do so most
constructively. A seminar like MST gives
you a clear idea of how to intentionally approach building a successful
relationship.
If, however, you decide
to try to explore expectations and compatibility on your own, one
inventory you might consider is the one that we use for our seminar,
Relate (www.relate-institute.org).
It does not predict relationship or marriage success, but it will
help you to identify risk factors. While Relate is far from perfect,
after carefully reviewing the range of alternative inventories,
we've determined that it's one of the best tools available for this
purpose. (Prepare-Enrich, for example, requires that results be
provided only through a counselor or other trained facilitator,
although they have a less comprehensive Couple Checkup that you
can buy directly. Foccus is used in the Catholic Pre-Cana and Engaged
Encounter programs. There are several others. Each has particular
strengths and deficiencies.)
You should be aware that
we do not agree with all of Relate's interpretations of the marriage
research. For example, we feel that the risks of cohabitation are
overgeneralized by Relate and that some of the challenges (and strengths)
related to spiritual beliefs and affiliations or lack thereof are
not fully articulated. You'll benefit from professional interpretation
of your inventory results to help you understand these and other
issues and limitations of the inventory.
You might also want to
look at a book called The Hard Questions to help you explore expectations.
It's available thru stayhitched.com/books.htm.
Again, though, we urge you to do this as part of a program--ours
or another of your choice.
Copyright
2005, Patricia S. & Gregory A. Kuhlman. You may copy this article
for non-commercial use provided that no changes are made and this
copyright notice, author credit and stayhitched.com source citation
are included.
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