Premarital Counseling

Premarital counseling with counselor, Richard Greete, is required for anyone getting married at Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church. Please direct questions and make appointments directly with Richard Greete; email Richard Greete, 352.613.4549.

Goals

  • Evaluate a couple’s preparedness for marrying by taking stock of the strength and growth in areas that are present in their relationship.
  • Evaluate their level of idealism toward marriage.
  • Explore important relational topics that they may otherwise avoid.
  • Further develop communication and conflict resolution skills.
  • Give each couple a positive counseling experience so that they know caring, confidential help is available after they marry.

Tools

  • Prepare/Enrich Inventory—taken online: email your email addresses to Richard Greete and send payment to him as indicated below. Once payment is received you will be emailed a link that will take you to the online site for the Prepare/Enrich Inventory. Please do not talk about the Prepare/Enrich Inventory with your partner until you have both completed it.
  • The Marriage Builder, by Larry Crabb (purchased separately)
  • Two counseling sessions

Cost and Payment

  • $185 (Two counseling sessions $140; Prepare Inventory $45)
  • Checks for the Prepare Inventory that will be taken online should be made out to Richard Greete and may be sent to him through the church.
  • Checks for the counseling sessions should be made out to Richard Greete and are due at the time of the counseling session.

The use of Prepare/Enrich Inventory will objectively focus counseling sessions on critical relationship issues. The inventory categorizes critical relationship areas into the below four main groups each with additional subgroups. There are 165 questions on the test, which provides ample data for the counseling sessions.

Critical Relationship Issues

  1. Personality issues
    1. Assertiveness—their ability to express their feelings to their partner and ability to ask for what they would like
    2. Self-confidence—how good a person feels about themselves and their ability to control things in their life.
    3. Avoidance—their tendency to minimize issues and reluctance to deal with issues directly.
    4. Partner dominance—how much a person feels their partner tries to control them and dominate their life.
  2. Intrapersonal issues
    1. Idealistic distortion toward marriage
    2. Marriage Expectations
    3. Personality Issues
    4. Leisure Activities
  3. Interpersonal issues
    1. Communication
    2. Conflict Resolution
    3. Sexual Relationship (expectations)
    4. Cohatibation Issues (variation 3, cohabitating couple)
    5. Role Relationship and Children and Parenting
  4. External Issues
    1. Financial Management
    2. Family and Friends
    3. Family of Origin

The test is known for being both preventative and educational as couples are led in an evaluation of their own self-report of their relationship. It also has an 80-85% accuracy range in discriminating premarital couples that get divorced from those that are happily married. This statistic is derived from a database of more than 500,000 couples.

For couples in different life situations there are two additional variations of the test. One is for premarital couples with children, and another is for cohabiting couples. Both of these variations of the test cover the same areas above, but in a way that is more appropriate to the couple’s situation.

In addition to the Prepare Enrich Inventory, Richard Greete recommends that couples read The Marriage Builder, by Dr. Larry Crabb. In this book Crabb succinctly gets at the heart of what marriage is about: oneness. And, to develop oneness it talks about grace, commitment and acceptance. At 150 pages it communicates without overloading the couple. The book also includes a set of discussion questions.