The Kriwinskis {Premarital + Marriage Counseling}

I’m really excited to introduce all of you to my favorite in-laws in the universe - Gunther and Vickey Kriwinski! These guys are responsible for putting Anna together and raising her with so much love that by the time I met her, at 25 years of age, I had discovered the woman of my dreams.

It is always amazing to see people ahead of me in years doing the thing that I want to be doing when I am well into their age. For Gunther and Vickey family is a huge priority; but more specifically, their commitment to one another. They have 3 grown children all of whom are married; and lots of grandkids to top it all off! Family holidays and get-togethers are spent full of love and joy; peace and hope. Not so with a lot of families. During Christmas when Gunther is dressed in his silly Santa hat and elf vest distributing presents to the eager grandkids I am reminded that the reward didn’t come easy. I know they have had their ups and downs; the years when it just seemed too hard to continue on… but their perseverance and commitment to each other has been the glue which continues to reproduce in years and children full of love for generations to come. Thanks Gunther and Vickey for modeling commitment, family and love to Anna and I and for being available to help couples who are getting married start the journey on the right foot.

Anna and I did premarital counseling and we recommend it to every single couple getting married! It really helped us prepare for most of what we could and will experience. More importantly we developed tools to help us foster a healthy (yet not perfect) marriage that will last until death does us part. We know that our lives could end in ruin; that divorce is inviting us to become part of it’s statistic. And that is why we are actively working on our relationship. Learning to listen and understand each other; learning to live our vows. A wedding is a day; a marriage is for a lifetime. It would benefit your life greatly if you invested just a small percentage of time and money in preparing for the marriage as you do the wedding. All the wedding cake, flowers and photographs won’t mean a thing if in a couple years divorce knocks on your door and serves you papers.

Define Marriage.
G- A commitment between two people for a long term relationship; a relationship that includes growing up together, changing together, and ending life together as friends and lovers. Marriage is a life-long covenant - an adventure of growing together.
V- We believe that God designed marriage - that it was His idea. We believe that marriage is designed to be between a man and a woman.

How hard is marriage in general?
V- It’s the hardest and yet most wonderful, rewarding thing you will ever do. I would say that that is probably true for most couples.

Do you know how high the divorce rate is in America right now?
G - The divorce rate for first-time marriages is close to about 55% right now. For re-marriages it’s about 65%.

What would you say the leading cause of divorce is or at least the common thread?
G- I think the number one reason for marital dissatisfaction comes down to the inability to communicate and simply understand one another. It’s not the lack of talking together -it’s the lack of being able to hear each other and communicate thoughts and feelings as well as ideas. Many people say that issues such as money and sex are the reasons for divorce. I think it really comes down to the inability to understand each other in the midst of conflicts regarding money or sex, or whatever. An inability, or unwillingness to empathize with your spouse and understand that person’s position and work towards a solution.
V- Couples aren’t able to really hear who the other person is or understand where that person is coming from.

What made you start offering counseling to pre-married couples?
V– We’ve been doing counseling on and off for a long time; maybe even decades. But a couple years back we got a phone call from a very close friend of ours - someone we’ve known since before we were married. She called to tell us that her husband had left her. We have known a lot of people over the years who have divorced and it is always a tough blow. But especially with this couple it really hit us hard. I think it was because we were so close and they were one of those couples you would have never guessed would end up divorced. At the same time we started to see that a lot of people in our own community and church were struggling in their marriages. I think our friends’ divorce was the last straw for us. Kind of “enough is enough”. We decided that we wanted to help anybody we could to prevent divorce from happening to them. We made ourselves more available to give people the tools to succeed in their life commitment to each other.
G- Ask any couple – no one gets married expecting to divorce. Even though people are aware of the high divorce rate, no one expects it to happen to them. We want to help couples identify what their points of conflict and differences will be. Then we want to give them tools to face those conflicts and to equip them and ready them for a lifelong healthy marriage, right from the very start. We also want to help identify the strong points in their relationship so they can be encouraged and continue to grow in those areas where they’re already fairly solid.

How long have you been married?
33 Years

What does it take to have a healthy marriage?
V- I would say commitment. The feeling of being in love is going to ebb and flow, so is the fun, so is the romance. But your commitment to each other is what will carry you during the rough times. Other countries in the world have arranged marriages. Now I am not saying I am ready to ascribe to arranged marriages, but there is something about their approach that we could learn from. They understand the power of commitment, and that it is from commitment that love grows and is sustained. In our culture it’s all about ‘do whatever makes you happy’. Then when people are no longer happy the first thing they want to do is bail. By contrast, when your marriage has a foundation of commitment you are going to stick in there for commitment sake. It may sound overly clinical, but the romance will come back when you are committed to each other. There is a real security when you know that your partner is committed to you. You both have bad days and when you do you know your partner is not going to bail. Another way to say it is that a life long commitment is a gift that you give each other. As a result of that gift comes a wonderful security and a confidence in our love for each other.

What is your favorite part of being married?
G- The answer to that question can evolve depending on your age and the season of your marriage – your favorite part of being married is constantly going to grow and change. After 33 years our favorite thing about our marriage is different than when we were newlyweds. Right now my favorite thing is the realization that I am married to my very best friend.

If you knew then (before marriage) what you know now – what would you have done differently to prepare?
G- Without a doubt we would have had more premarital counseling. We only had 3 half hour sessions and it really was a joke. I think that we could have avoided probably years of misunderstanding and pain. Certainly the mistakes I made in the first 10 years might have been avoided.
V- Oh yes, absolutely more premarital counseling. We really had no idea what we were getting into. We were very much in love and attracted to each other. We challenged each other and dreamed together, but in terms of living a life together we had absolutely no clue!

Define love.
V- There was a time when I would have said that love is the feeling of romance and physical attraction. But now I think I have learned that love goes back to the commitment thing. I think Love has more to do with sacrifice and commitment than what you are going to get or feel. From what I have observed watching couples who really love - they been the ones that have been the most sacrificial and giving.
G- I think love is valuing the other person more than yourself. To give that person my care, my concern and my devotion – making that person’s fulfillment of greater importance than my own.

Do you believe that people can fall in and out of love?
G- If you define love as the feeling – then yes, absolutely. There have been times when Vickey and I didn’t “feel” much in terms of the emotion. But because the basis of our relationship has been our commitment to each other for the rest of our lives - the feeling of love has always returned. We have gone through seasons of satisfaction: sexual satisfaction, emotional satisfaction. That whole sense of “being in love”, yeah we’ve been in and out of that.
V- If we happen to be in a season when the emotion has waned, it doesn’t freak us out. When that happens we know the feeling of being in love will always come back.

Is premarital counseling more like fire insurance or boot camp?
G- If done correctly I think the military analogy is a good description. In this life we battle a number of different things: our own inner demons, pressures, life’s curves. In military training you are taught to work together as a team - to make decisions not based on emotion but based on the correct thing to do for the best results.
V- The comment I would add is that I am not sure there is marriage insurance. I used to think that if we had certain things in order we would be exempt from divorce, kind of a “get out jail free” card. I understand now that no one is exempt. By that I mean that we can become so comfortable that we stop trying or stop working hard at our relationship. We’ve seen it so many times when couples relax and think it will never happen to them, that’s when they can become a statistic. They stop working at it and stop trying. There is a law of entropy where anything left alone will decay. Gunther and I have made it a goal to always invest in “us”, always cultivate what we have as a couple. Ignore it, and it will die.

What does a premarital course consist of?
G- It consists of a few different layers. We start with an online evaluation or inventory of the couple’s relationship. It gives us, and the couple, a full picture of their relationship as it stands at the beginning. Then we will take that couple through different areas of that evaluation working with them to strengthen areas where growth is needed, providing different resources and tools to help them.
V- The actual pre-marital course consists of between 8 – 10 sessions. We cover everything from, money, sex, goal setting, communication, conflict resolution, finances, gender differences, blended family situations, etc. There are reading and exercises that need to be done every week. It’s like a college course. We take it very seriously. We want people to develop their own skill sets in their relationship. We tell couples that we will help them discover what their issues are. We all have issues; Gunther and I have issues. Then we can give them the tools and the resources to work on those issues. We remind our couples that they spend up to a year in preparation for their wedding day but rarely do people spend that much time on their actual marriage.

Do you also do marriage counseling?
Yes

When do you think it’s time to get marriage counseling?
G- I think when one person finds that their dissatisfaction level is growing with their spouse. We personally have gone to a marriage weekend or some sort of marriage event once every few years, just to have a refresher course. Even if we felt like we haven’t needed it, just to spend some time and money on the most important thing in our lives that means the most to us.
V- Another indicator is when you find yourselves going over the same issue over and over again. A lot of times people will come in and say “Well I don’t need to be here because it’s his/her issue; not mine”. And we tell them, if your mate is having an issue – it’s your issue. It doesn’t matter whose fault or whose problem it is. If one of you is struggling then it’s both of your issue.

What would you say to the men reading this blog about pre-marital counseling?
G– How many marriages have you looked at and thought “That poor idiot! I feel terrible for him.” If you want to avoid that sort of marriage, then get pre-marital counseling.
V– There was a book called – “Do yourself a favor and love your wife”. I would say whether you think you need it or not do yourself a favor and get premarital counseling. Even if it’s for the most simple reason, show your wife-to-be that you love her. You would make your fiancé really happy by investing in your marriage.

What would you say to the women?
V- If you think you are going to change him before the wedding date you need to let that dream die. Go through premarital counseling so you can see the way things are –not just in his but also in your life. Then you can make an informed decision whether or not you can live together AS YOU ARE for the rest of your lives. If anything, after the wedding and he’s won his prize, you, that’s when both of your true colors will show. Any woman who dreams that she is going to make it all better and fix him and have this fairy tale fantasy come true – is due for a grave disappointment. If you can’t live with each other ‘as is’ then you’re not ready.

What book would you recommend to any couples who can not get premarital counseling?
Check out our blog and look at our reading list. There are tons of resources!

You can reach us at:
Gunther + Vickey Kriwinski
805.473.8227
marriedforkeeps@yahoo.com
Married for Keeps