How can you tell when these feelings are just indicative of pre-wedding anxiety, or when they're a sign that the couple probably shouldn't be getting married?

It's usually pretty clear to me. This is a generalization, but either there are serious issues, or the person is just not ready to give up their singlehood. I had a woman who said to me, "You'll be a miracle worker if I actually get to my wedding day!" And she did, but she did a ton of work. I knew, with her, that she was with a great guy, and even though her fear-mind would say, "But he's not this and he's done that" -- when you're afraid, you tend to focus on your partner. So how do you distinguish? You work with somebody that you trust.

How do you help your clients work through feelings of anxiety and fear and depression?

It's very specific to who I'm working with and what issues they're presenting. If someone is overwhelmed by fear, I'll sometimes have them start out by writing a list -- uncensored -- of all their fears. To get it out on paper so that it's concrete. And they'll e-mail it to me, so not only have they gotten it out but it's being witnessed. And then we'll go through it, point by point: Is this reality? Is your fear that you're going to turn into a little housewife with an apron around your waist darning your husband's socks -- is that really what your husband expects, or do you have that fear because that's what your mother did?

Are there particular issues that you see your clients facing again and again?

A lot of us have come from marriages that didn't work. Having that in our blueprint certainly affects how we think about marriage and how we enter marriage. We saw a lot of bad marriages. We saw marriages where women center their lives around their man. So that affects how we think -- who am I going to be as a wife? What does it mean to be a wife?

On the other hand, we also have a tremendous amount of freedom in deciding what marriage means to us. There is no one way to have a marriage.

But how can you have a successful marriage if you grew up with an unhappy marriage as your model?

Seek out role models and interview them. Ask them, What works about your marriage and what doesn't? What's the hardest part, what's the easiest part? What do you love most about marriage?

The only happily married couple I can think of are my grandparents, who are still in love after 50 years -- but I'm thinking, would I really want to follow my grandmother's marriage advice?

It's probably not a marriage that you aspire to, but it would still be worthwhile to interview them. There's something working there. Beyond that, you've already absorbed it -- they're your grandparents. I remind women of that: if you have a couple in your family who have a great marriage, that blueprint is in you already. Even if we only see them a couple times a year, it's passed down.

Women today earn more money, and sometimes make more than their partners. How is this affecting wedding planning and newlywed life?

Money's a huge issue and it often comes up during the engagement. I see it as an opportunity to get to know how you and your partner view money. Are you a spender or a saver? What about your partner? How much are you willing to compromise with your partner? If you are dead set on a location that costs $4,000 and your partner feels uncomfortable with that, where do you place your priorities? Money is usually a metaphor for control, and when a couple is moving towards their wedding day, they're increasingly feeling out of control, because that's the nature of transition: they're about to step into the unknown.

What have you noticed in your work when it comes to in-laws and wedding planning?

For the groom's mother, it's often the case of "Oh, she was a very nice girl ... until now." And suddenly there's this urge to criticize everything the bride does. If the future mother-in-law is being hypercritical, that's the time for the groom to step in and set a boundary and declare his allegiance: "Hey Mom, I know you have these feelings, but you can't criticize my bride." So the line is drawn very early about where he stands. It's a real problem if he starts taking his family's side. That's bad news, because with the wedding comes the birth of a new family -- the husband and wife, and in order for that birth to take place on solid ground, both partners have to transfer allegiance from their families of origin to their partner. If that doesn't take place, and the husband is siding with his mother, the wife is, for sure, going to feel that his loyalties are in the wrong place.

We always hear about how hard the first year of marriage is -- should couples consider counseling at the first sign of trouble, or try to work through it on their own at first?

A lot of that trouble in the first year -- in the work that I've done -- is because people did not do the preparation. Each person has to do the emotional work for this transition -- meaning that they've successfully loosened their ties to their family, they've recognized that there is a shift in identity, and that they have conversations around what their expectations are for each other after they get married. That usually means digging deep into more hidden, unconscious places, because the expectations aren't usually on the surface. Most of us have a host of beliefs about the roles of husband and wife. And instead of talking about it, we end up focusing on the wedding planning. There's been a lot of research and talk about the first year and how hard it is. But when people enter into marriage consciously, it doesn't have to be that way.

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