Your interest in my Website tells me that you want a meaningful
and intimate wedding ceremony.

If you’ve clicked on this page, you probably also have a stronger determination than most to make your mutual commitment and joy in each other last a lifetime. Of course, it’s entirely up to you whether you’d like to participate in the program described below. Some couples choose not to participate, which is fine. But the experience of Audrey Marzan and Herby Ramos is worth knowing about.

Before marrying, they had expressed concern about their sometimes differing attitudes about gender issues, handling finances, raising children, spiritual beliefs. They wanted to be better prepared to deal with such challenges as a modern married couple, so they elected to participate in my PARTNERING FOR LIFE® program.

We are looking forward to our special day, and even more excited about our new life together.

Thank you for your wisdom and insight... and for the laughs. We had some good ones!”

For close to 30 years I’ve enjoyed my practice in psychotherapy, specializing in working with couples. Again and again, I’ve seen how knowledge of a partner’s point of view about important issues in a relationship — and each partner’s knowing how to communicate effectively when those beliefs conflict — are key to keeping a marriage loving and happy. Out of this experience, I developed a special partnering program designed to make a measurable difference in the many years a couple spends together. And I take a contemporary, undogmatic, nondenominational approach that my clients greatly appreciate:

How? First, each partner independently takes a written inventory (called Prepare) revealing feelings about such issues as the management of money and time, communication styles, how to resolve disputes, sexual needs, expectations for the marriage, spiritual beliefs, having and raising children, each other’s families. The partners are asked to indicate their level of assent — from strongly agree to strongly disagree — to 165 statements.

Example: “I am satisfied with how we talk with each other.”
Do you: Strongly Disagree Disagree Undecided Agree Strongly agree

Want a fuller picture of the “Prepare” Inventory?
Click here for more examples. Then return to this page

“Working with you and Prepare has reminded us that the health and longevity of this marriage will be based on the attention, respect and communication tools that we bring into the private intimacy of our union…
Prepare has fostered in us a lively dialogue with a great deal of laughter, love, humor and affirmation as we’ve explored our strengths and weaknesses to help us grow closer.”

Here’s how I work: Led off by the Prepare process, PARTNERING FOR LIFE® offers 4 to 6 sessions of 75 minutes each. A cost is involved but couples who have completed the program consider it a sound investment in their future . Marriage may be the most complex of human relationships and, as with anything so important, sustaining it takes effort and commitment.

Research at the University of Denver’s Center for Marital and Family Studies seem to indicate that couples who take advantage of such programs “have a significantly lower divorce rate than couples who don’t.” I have seen PARTNERING FOR LIFE® unite couples in deeply constructive ways that should assist them in staying happily together long after they are legally united.