Premarital counselling for couples — online across India and in-person in Gurgaon
Premarital counselling is a short set of structured sessions before marriage where you and your partner align on the things that actually decide how a marriage feels day to day — communication, money, in-laws, kids, intimacy, and the unspoken expectations you each carry. It's worth it: research on premarital programmes suggests couples who do this kind of work have around a 30% lower likelihood of divorce. It's especially useful in Indian arranged matches, where couples have often had very little private time before the wedding. Ruchi Makkar, a Counselling Psychologist (MA Psychology) with over 6 years' experience, offers premarital counselling for couples online across India and in-person in DLF Phase 4, Gurgaon. Sessions are ₹3,500 for 50 minutes per couple.
Here's something most couples don't realise until they're already married: you spend months — sometimes a fortune — planning the wedding, and almost no structured time planning the marriage. The lehenga, the venue, the guest list, the muhurat. And then the celebration ends, the relatives go home, and two people who may barely know each other start sharing a life.
That gap is wider in many Indian matches. In an arranged marriage, you might have met a handful of times — often over coffee with the families hovering, or on a few carefully chaperoned calls — before the wedding gets fixed. Even in love marriages, the relationship has often unfolded around busy jobs and family approval, not around the practical questions of running a household together. When do you actually talk about money, or how often you'll visit each set of parents, or what "having kids soon" really means to each of you?
And families don't step away at the wedding. In-laws, the joint family, who lives where, whose traditions you follow at which festival — these aren't side issues in India, they're often the main event. Add the unspoken expectations each of you absorbed from how your own parents' marriage worked, and you have a lot of assumptions that have never been said out loud.
Premarital counselling gives you a calm, private space to say them out loud — before they become the fight you keep having. It's not because something's wrong. It's because you'd rather start as a team.
How do you each argue — shut down, raise your voice, go silent for days? You'll learn how to disagree without it turning into a wound, and how to repair after a fight. Gottman Institute research finds stable couples keep about five positive moments for every negative one — and notice each other's small everyday "bids" for attention. We'll build those habits early.
Joint account or separate? How much goes home to which set of parents? Where will you live, and how do you set kind but clear boundaries with in-laws without anyone feeling rejected? These are the conversations couples avoid until they explode. We'll have them gently, before the wedding.
Who does what at home? When (or whether) you want children. What closeness and physical intimacy mean to each of you — a tender subject for many Indian couples that's rarely discussed honestly. You'll name your expectations so they don't sit unspoken and turn into resentment later.
There's no "right" list. Bring whatever's on your mind — these are the ones that come up most often.
It's not a test, and there are no "right answers" you can fail. It's structured, warm, and entirely non-judgmental — here's roughly how it flows.
You each get space to say what you actually want from married life — money, family, kids, careers, closeness. Often this is the first time you've heard each other answer these questions properly. Ruchi stays neutral and helps surface the assumptions neither of you knew you were making.
The in-laws talk, the money talk, the "what if we disagree about kids" talk. You'll learn how to raise these without it becoming a fight — how to listen, how to repair, and how to handle the family pressure that ramps up in wedding season without turning it on each other.
You leave with something concrete — a clearer sense of where you align, where you'll need to keep talking, and agreed ways to handle the recurring flashpoints. Not a contract; a shared starting point you both helped write.
This isn't only for arranged matches who barely know each other, and it isn't only for love marriages working through family disapproval. It's for both — and the work looks a little different for each.
If yours is an arranged marriage, the focus is often on building genuine understanding quickly and kindly. If it's a love marriage, you might already know each other well but still need to align on in-laws, finances, or whose traditions win at which festival. And if you're an NRI couple marrying across time zones — one of you in Gurgaon, the other in Dubai, Toronto, or London — premarital counselling over video helps you do this real work even when you can't yet be in the same room. Whatever your path to the wedding, the goal's the same: to start the marriage knowing each other, not guessing.
Sessions are 50 minutes. No hidden fees, no intake charges.
Sliding scale fees available. Contact us if cost is a barrier — no couple who genuinely needs support should be turned away.
No. Premarital counselling isn't a sign something is wrong — it's the opposite. It's a deliberate step you take while things are good, so you go into marriage knowing each other properly rather than discovering the gaps later. Most couples who come aren't in crisis at all; they just want to start the marriage on solid ground. Research on premarital programmes suggests couples who do this kind of work have around a 30% lower likelihood of divorce.
Yes — and it can be especially useful for arranged matches. In many Indian arranged marriages, couples have met only a handful of times, often with families present, before the wedding is fixed. Premarital counselling gives you structured, private space to actually get to know each other — your values, expectations, money habits, views on in-laws and kids — before you're living together. It's not about questioning the match; it's about building real understanding so you start as a team rather than as two near-strangers.
There's no fixed number. Many couples do 4–6 sessions to cover the core ground — communication, expectations, money, families, intimacy, and a shared plan. If you're short on time before the wedding, even 2–3 focused sessions help. If bigger questions come up, you can keep going at your own pace, including after the wedding. Ruchi will suggest a realistic plan once she understands your timeline and what you most want to work on.
Yes. Ruchi sees couples online across India and works with NRI couples across time zones. This is genuinely useful when one partner is in Gurgaon and the other is in Bangalore, Dubai, or London, or when families are coordinating a wedding from different cities. Sessions happen over secure video — you can both join from the same screen or from two different places. Many couples find their own space helps them speak more openly.
With Ruchi Makkar, premarital counselling is ₹3,500 for a 50-minute session per couple, or ₹12,000 for a monthly package of four sessions. Sliding scale fees are available — if cost is a barrier, reach out, because no couple who genuinely wants this support should be turned away. There are no hidden fees or intake charges.
A first conversation costs nothing and commits you to nothing. Send Ruchi a WhatsApp message and she'll reply within a day.
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