How do you feel about pre-marital counselling? Is it beneficial or just a waste of time? Would this be something you plan to do with a partner? How would you deal with the issue of a partner being against pre-marital counselling?
It's only valuable
if the counselor is a legitimate, credentialed, educated counselor from a reputable institution.
My ex-wife did two different pre-marital counseling sessions, one was a group "class" with a "pastor" and his wife from a church that we didn't even go to. All we did was read a book and get together once a week for about an hour. Very unproductive.
The other was with the guy who married us (also another regret of mine). Not only was he not a legitimate counselor, he wasn't even a legitimate pastor. He headed up one of those International House of Prayer offshoots and so his theology and his psychology was pretty bad.
Overall, it left us very ill-equipped to move forward with our engagement, especially given that we had only known each other for about 2-3 months before getting engaged.
So I feel very strongly that yes people should go through pre-marital counseling for a minimum of
six months, but they should also be certain that the person whom is counseling them has been properly trained in the field. Meaning they have either a Masters of Family Therapy (MFT) Degree with the corresponding level of clinical hours (usually 3,000 or so), or a Masters in Social Work (MSW/LCSW).
This way you can be more sure that not only do they have the tools to root out uncertainties that might exist between you and your future spouse, but they also have a code of ethics to operate by - they will keep your circumstances private and won't give you questionable advice.
