Premarital Coaching and Counseling
The decision to get married is one of the most important decisions a person makes in life. In fact, personal relationships, especially the marital one, is essential to our well-being. Therefore, investment of time and energy in the selection process and in the understanding of our future spouse and of ourselves is of utmost importance. It is much easier to make the effort initially, to lay a sound foundation for marriage than to struggle with rectifying the damage after the fact. Receiving training and coaching before marriage prevents much marital conflict and suffering.
Benefits of Premarital Coaching
Typically, premarital coaching takes 6-8 sessions and it helps the prospective couple with the following areas:
- Assessing compatibility in a realistic and honest way
- Providing the tools to navigate through the many challenges of marriage
- Acquiring a clear understanding of Islamic rights and responsibilities
- Setting rules and guidelines and making important adjustments during the engagement period
Premarital coaching can take place over the phone or teleconference at scheduled appointments on Sundays. In addition, in-person sessions are available at the Muslim Community Association in Santa Clara, CA for couples that are local to the Bay Area. And in the near future, sessions will be offered over video conference via Cisco UMI.
Compatibility Questionnaire For Prospective Couples
As a highly recommended complement to Premarital Coaching, Living Eman offers an in-depth questionnaire that helps prospective couples explore seven compatibility dimensions that are essential to a successful marriage.
The questionnaire was designed by Kamal Shaarawy based on over 25 years of experience in helping Muslim couples in the US and Canada overcome common marital challenges. Kamal identified common patterns that make a marriage successful and then used them to design an in-depth questionnaire that can be an excellent tool for prospective couples to identify areas of compatibility and areas of concern. Prospective couples may choose to take the Questionnaire on its own or as an add-on to premarital coaching. The process of taking the Questionnaire involves the following steps:
- Prospective couple takes in-depth questionnaire individually and in privacy at home
- Counselor studies, analyzes and interprets each party’s answers
- Counselor schedules a session with the prospective couple to highlight areas of compatibility and to explore practical ways of addressing any areas of concern that are flagged by the questionnaire
After the questionnaire is analyzed by the counselor, a review teleconference session of up to 2 hours is scheduled with the prospective couple to go over the details.
To inquire about the Compatibility Questionnaire process and fees, please contact us using the form below:
Premarital Coaching for Singles
Singles may also take this coaching series to learn about the stages of the selection process: how to recognize and handle any red flags in a potential partner, reasons for wanting to marry and whether it is their personal desire at that time or just pressure from family and whether they are really prepared emotionally, physically, psychologically, financially, and spiritually for marriage. With singles, we focus on identifying strengths and weaknesses and we provide an assessment of any psychological issues such as depression, anger, chronic sadness in order to have them addressed before marriage.