Expert Articles


Providing advice and information to members is a crucial key ingredient to the overall structure of Cache’ Connections. We are not only interested in introducing you to other Christian singles, but are here to help navigate the issues that you may be facing. In this section, Cache’ Connections makes available to you a wealth of information provided by our Christian experts. These professionals have spent years counseling, instructing, speaking and coaching on single-relevant topics. We encourage everyone to spend some time reading the articles in order to prepare for successful relationships.


What is Romantic Love Anyway? (continued)

October 13, 2008

By Beverly Rodgers MS, PhD, LMFT and Tom Rodgers MA, PhD, MHDL

Proverbs says that there is wisdom in many counselors.  There are a great many pre-marital programs available through pastors, lay ministers, singles sponsors, or trained relationship therapists.  Our program is just one of many.  A fresh, objective perspective can be very effective in giving you guidance.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with what happens in pre-marital counseling, let us familiarize you.

A good pre-marital counseling program will acquaint couples with the six areas that couples conflict about which often lead to divorce.  In therapy we call these toxic subjects because it can become toxic for couples to discuss them.  These issues are money/finances, sex, in-laws, child rearing, roles (delegation of responsibilities and jobs in managing the home), and religion/spiritual leadership.  In counseling couples are given ample time to discuss these issues thereby aiding conflicts that might ensue.  Many young lovers come back to us in the first year of marriage and thank us for helping them develop a plan to handle the problems they naively thought wouldn’t occur.

Another key to a successful marriage is healthy conflict resolution.  Pre-marital counseling will help couples develop their conflict-resolution style.  We have our own inventory we give couples that we have included at the end of this article.

Relationship researchers have determined that there are certain conflict-resolution styles that can lead to divorce. These are stonewalling (withdrawal), defensiveness, criticism, and contempt.  Pre-marital counseling can help couples find these marital parasites early. 

The next important issue that relationship counseling should cover is communication. During the blissful, phenylethlamine stage of a relationship, it is quite natural for couples to read each others’ minds, even finish each others’ sentences.  How many times have you heard young couples say, “We just think alike”, “She knows me so well”, “I feel whole in his presence”?  Once again we find this aided by the couple’s brain chemistry.  No wonder so many pre-marital couples think they don’t need counseling to aid in communication.  It’s all too shocking when these mystical mind-reading processes come to a halt, which incidentally is at our four-year critical mark.  This is when couples really have to learn to communicate.

Good pre-marital counseling teaches couples tools to do just that.  Communication techniques that promote understanding, foster empathy, bring about insight, and facilitate forgiveness are essential parts of pre-marital counseling. In addition to providing all of these helps for young couples, pre-marital counseling can help you with any unresolved individual baggage you may knowingly or unknowingly carry into your marriage.  Issues such as low self-esteem, unresolved issues in your family of origin, unresolved guilt, and others can rear their ugly heads and reek havoc on a new marriage.  More than anything pre-marital counseling gives couples the confidence that they can beat the odds and become the soul mates God intended them to be.