You're Only Dating. Do You Need Relationship Counseling?

MY BOYFRIEND OF FOUR YEARS, DOUG, AND I HUNCH shoulder to shoulder on our couch in Tampa, staring into a laptop that’s perched precariously on the coffee table in front of us.

- Virginia Pelley

I slouch to be eye level with the camera and to reduce the number of chins being broadcast across the Internet. Our premarital counselor, Jane (not her real name), beams back at us from Colorado in what looks like a home office. I’m not as comfortable as Doug is with video calls, so this feels weird, especially because our strength as a couple is being evaluated on a screen that freezes up occasionally.

Doug has agreed to help me test-drive a few virtual premarital counseling programs so I can report on this rising trend; even Meghan Markle and Prince Harry reportedly underwent counseling before their wedding (though admittedly, their relationship will be under much more pressure than that of commoners like us).

The idea of sitting down with your partner and discussing your future with a counselor before the wedding is nothing new—for example, pre-Cana counseling for Catholics hearkens back to biblical times—but more and more couples seem to be adding it to their prewedding to-do lists. Christine Hyde, Ph.D., a licensed clinical social worker and sex therapist in New Jersey, says she didn’t have any premarital counseling clients 10 years ago; now they make up a third of her practice. As celebrity couples like Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard open up about their sessions, relationship counseling is increasingly seen as something healthy couples do, like going to yoga or enjoying $9 green juices together.

While roughly three quarters of Hyde’s premarital clients have problems or questions about their viability as a couple, she says the other quarter are perfectly happy and simply want “another set of eyes” on their relationship. Doug and I fall into the second category. And research suggests that whatever the reason, a pre-ceremony checkup is smart: Studies have found that premarital counseling lowers the risk of divorce and leads to happier marriages.