START YOUR MARRIAGE THE SMART WAY
Do you want the 5 year plan or the 50-year plan for your marriage? When it comes to your most valuable relationships, an ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure.
Do you want the 5 year or the 50 year plan?
START SMART IS A COMPREHENSIVE PREMARITAL EDUCATIONAL
PROGRAM WITH TWO OPTIONS TO GO THROUGH THE COURSE
HAPPILY EVER AFTER MENTORING
This option allows couples to go through an in-depth, premarital inventory driven by current research that provides a unique profile of a couple’s relationship, measuring their strengths and growth areas in 13 critical categories needed for a successful marriage.
The couple can use our list of trained coaches to identify a mentor couple to go through up to five mentoring sessions* to process Start Smart inventory answers and workbook exercises through targeted discussion. *Please note: Couples should select a mentor before taking the inventory. Live the Life does not assign mentors.
Through the mentoring, you will be taught specific communication and conflict resolution skills crucial to a healthy marriage
You can choose to print off a workbook or have a professionally printed workbook shipped to you. The workbook is packed with innovative exercises and meaningful content regarding expectations, finances, personalities and perspectives, sexuality and intimacy, communication, and conflict resolution.
FIRST STEPS TO FOREVER CLASS
This 4-hour class includes:
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A workbook
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Two skills for communication and conflict resolution
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A personality assessment to help you understand perspectives
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A group environment for you to get to know other couples in your area
*Please check your region's website below for class availability
Both the Happily Ever After Mentoring and the First Steps to Forever classes of the Start Smart program allow the couple to be eligible for a discount on their marriage license in Florida. Please call your local County Clerk's office to see if your county accepts this discount.
CLICK ON A REGIONAL DIRECTOR TO BE TAKEN TO MORE CLASS INFORMATION
Locations For Start Smart
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
PANAMA CITY
START SMART: MARK AND MISTY
Jessica
"I cannot express to you how much our Start Smart premarital counseling with you and your precious wife have helped us not merely survive these past 6 years but have enjoyed the past 6 years. We were so blessed to have started our marriage with the wisdom and tools you taught us."
"TWO PEOPLE, TWO LIVES"
A section from the article "The case for premarital education, even if your partner is your soulmate"
For Grady and Allison Wright, who live in Pensacola, Florida, that conversation in a marriage preparation class started with exploring how their upbringings shaped their expectations about marriage. The son of a Reformed Presbyterian pastor, Grady, now 22, grew up in a family where his mom took care of most of the chores, so he said he expected the same from his wife. Allison, 24, on the other hand, wanted a husband who did more around the house. Their sessions with a mentor couple through the Florida-based Start Smart program helped the couple address the gap in their expectations. “It could have caused a lot of conflict had we not communicated about it,” Allison said.
At Start Smart, couples can choose a “happily ever after mentoring” option, where they select a mentoring couple and go through up to five individualized sessions, or opt for a four-hour class, where they learn conflict resolution, go through a personality assessment and interact with others in a group setting. “Do you want the 5-year plan or the 50-year plan for your marriage?” the program’s website asks.