Well, with my being married before, we thought it would be good, perhaps essential, to have the best marriage counselling we could find. This one is going the distance.
Laurie-Ann has professional experience with "Prepare & Enrich", and we both filled out questionaires. This is a series of personality-typing programmes designed for married couples and couples getting married. We have not yet found a marriage counsellor who was both convenient geographically and qualified in Prepare & Enrich, but we will have the questionaires analyzed eventually, because Laurie-Ann plans to become qualified in this field herself.
So we invested in the services of Counselling Plus in Ottawa, and benefitted from three sessions with George Snure in early 1999. George took me through the Myers Briggs exercise - I am ENFJ - which compares interestingly with Laurie-Ann's INFJ.
On February 20 we both attended an all day remarriage preparation seminar with Ann Chidwick, B.Sc.N., C.F.L.E., founder of the New Beginnings programme at Family Life Education Services in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Supported by her excellent New Beginnings workbook (ISBN 09697856-0-7), and in great company with two other couples, our day proved well worth the investment. The sessions included affirmation of your partner, past history, step family issues, family of origin, intimacy and sexuality, and all of us agreed ithat the course was very beneficial. It may well be the only course available for couples where one or both has been previously married.