September 6, 2018
Doug & Sissy Pitcher were amazing! They communicated timely with us and ensured we had a good understanding of the programs they
offered before signing up. The course we took with them was fantastic! I highly recommend them if you're looking to do pre-marital counseling. I've detailed my full experience below: I found Doug & Sissy Pitcher when looking for a premarital course my fiancé and I could do. My fiancé was a bit hesitant at first, but after I told him couples have a 31% better chance of staying married if they do premarital counseling, he agreed to an introductory phone call with Sissy. Sissy gave us a call and discussed their program options.
They have 2 pre-marital courses they offer. The first one is "Together in Texas" (I think that's the name of it). This is more like a couples one day seminar where you go over various aspects of how to maintain a strong marriage. The 2nd course they offer is a SYMBIS assessment course. SYMBIS stands for Save your marriage before it starts. It's an assessment that you and your partner take separately that generates a 15 page report, and then you have a facilitated session to review your results with Sissy and Doug. The sessions can be broken up into 2 x 3 hr sessions or 3 x 2 hr sessions. We chose to do the SYMBIS course, as we wanted something tailored specifically to us as a couple and our relationship. It was a bit pricey, but we figured if we're willing to spend x amount of dollars for a wedding, we should be willing to invest in our relationship regardless of the cost.
The assessment itself was very personality and relationship based. To be honest, it was a lot tougher than I thought, it makes you think of aspects of your life you usually don't think about, but it was extremely thorough. We didn't get the results directly, they're sent to Sissy and Doug and then you go over each page 1 by 1 in the facilitated session.
The sessions with Doug and Sissy were fantastic! They were extremely personable, realistic (they don't sugar coat things), and gave great examples on how to implement aspects of the assessment into our relationship. Be prepared to get personal in your conversations as they want to make this as tailored to you as possible- I ended up walking away from the session not only with a great foundation of how to make our marriage successful but knowing what I needed to work on with myself.
Even my hesitant fiancé loved it and raved about how happy he was that I pushed him to do it. I can't say enough great things about our sessions with Doug & Sissy and walked away from our sessions feeling even closer to my fiancé and confident in our marriage. Be prepared to discuss: your relationship style and your fiancé's relationship style, red flags in your life to be aware of, how to communicate with your partner effectively, how to make your partner feel loved, tough topics (money, sex, etc.) and how to communicate those issues so they don't result in a blow up/fight, how to manage your partner in intense situations, etc. (Like I said, it's super thorough).
One thing I will mention is that Doug & Sissy are faith based, so the conversations will discuss Bible verses, have prayers, etc. (my fiancé and I aren't super religious, but I will say I did enjoy this part b/c I feel like it brought us both closer to God and each other). Overall, I strongly recommend anyone wanting to do pre-marital courses before their wedding to speak with Doug & Sissy!
