Premarital Counseling in Marin, San Francisco & the Bay Area
Premarital Therapy
Build the marriage before you need to repair it.
Most couples wait until something breaks to ask for help. This program is for the ones who want to build something that holds, before life tests it.
Premarital counseling in Novato and Marin County, a structured 6-session program completed over 6 to 10 weeks, in person or virtually across California.
The patterns that will challenge your marriage are already present. The question is whether you name them now or discover them later.
The Kodo Approach
This isn't premarital counseling as you know it.
Most premarital programs teach you communication skills. This one goes deeper. Using the Kodo depth-oriented, attachment-based approach, we look at what each of you brings from your history, your family patterns, your nervous systems, your unspoken expectations, and help you build a relationship architecture that can hold the weight of a real life together. Not just scripts for hard conversations, but a real foundation.
Who This Is For
For couples who want to go deeper than "are we compatible?"
Compatibility is the beginning, not the answer. This program is for couples who are serious about understanding each other at depth and building something that lasts not because it's easy, but because it's honest.
Engaged couples doing due diligence
You're excited and you want to go in clear-eyed with real tools and honest conversations before the wedding, not after.
Couples with known friction points
You've already noticed the patterns conflict styles, family tensions, unspoken expectations. You want help working through them intentionally.
High-achieving, high-stress couples
Your lives are full. You want to make sure the relationship doesn't become the thing that quietly suffers while everything else succeeds.
Couples navigating real complexity
Different backgrounds, cultures, religions, family structures. You love each other and you know the differences matter. Let's work with them.
What We Cover
Seven conversations every couple needs to have before marriage.
Each session goes beyond surface-level discussion. We don't just cover the topics; we also look at the emotional layers underneath them, the patterns each of you brings, and how to navigate them together with honesty and care.
How each of you fights, shuts down, or pursues — and how to break the cycles before they calcify.
Desire, expectation, vulnerability, and what each of you needs to feel genuinely close — not just physically, but emotionally.
Not just budgets — the meaning you each attach to money, the fears underneath, and how to build financial trust.
The patterns, loyalties, and wounds you both carry — and how they show up in your relationship without you realizing it.
Where you each want to go — and what happens when your visions diverge. Building shared direction without losing individual identity.
Who does what — and the resentment that builds when it's never named. Explicit conversations about invisible labor and fair partnership.
Navigating real differences in background, belief, and worldview — with curiosity instead of conflict.
INVESTMENT
$1950
Six 75-minute sessions · Completed over 6–10 weeksThis is a complete, contained program, not open-ended therapy. You'll know exactly what you're doing, how long it takes, and what you'll walk away with.
→ 6 depth-oriented couples sessions (75 minutes each)
→ All 7 core topic areas covered
→Attachment and family systems assessment
→ Personalized communication roadmap
→ Reflection prompts
→ Kodo model framework and resources
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Our office is at 7250 Redwood Blvd, Suite 300, Novato, CA 94945, in southern Marin County, about 30 minutes north of San Francisco. We see couples from across the Bay Area: San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Rafael, Mill Valley, Tiburon, Sausalito, Petaluma, Santa Rosa, the Peninsula, and the East Bay.
For couples whose schedules are tight in the run-up to a wedding, the entire program is also available virtually for California residents. Most couples mix and match, some sessions in person at the Novato office, some virtual.
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No. Kodo is a private-pay practice and does not bill insurance for any of our services, including premarital counseling.
The longer answer: insurance plans require an individual diagnosis on one partner — which doesn't apply to premarital work, since neither of you is bringing a clinical condition to the room. The program is a developmental investment in the marriage you're about to begin, not treatment for an illness. We can provide a superbill if your plan reimburses out-of-network couples therapy, but most plans don't reimburse premarital work regardless.
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Premarital counseling costs vary depending on the therapist, location, and format. At Kodo, our premarital program is a complete 6-session package at $1950, and includes post-program materials and personalized roadmap.
Premarital counseling is not typically covered by insurance. Some employers offer EAP benefits that may offset the cost, so that's worth checking before you start.
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No. Many couples who do this program are engaged, but it's equally valuable for couples who are seriously committed and moving toward marriage, even if no ring has been exchanged yet. If you're building a life together and want to do it intentionally, you're a good fit.
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Yes. We offer the full program in person at our Novato office in Marin County, and virtually throughout California. Both formats are equally effective and we work with what makes sense for your lives.
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If you're already in real distress (frequent escalation, recent betrayal, a major rupture you haven't resolved) the premarital program may not be the right starting point.
For couples in active conflict, we typically recommend either weekly couples therapy or a couples intensive instead. The premarital program is designed for couples who don't yet have entrenched patterns to break; it's not built to do repair work on top of preparing for marriage.
We'll figure out the right sequence on your consultation call. Some couples do an intensive first to clear a major rupture, then come back for the premarital program closer to the wedding.
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If your wedding is too soon for the full six-session program, we'd typically recommend a two-day couples intensive instead.
The intensive covers the same depth territory in a concentrated format, two full days in our Novato office working through the foundational material rather than spreading it across six weeks. It's a different shape, but for couples on a tight timeline it often produces a stronger outcome than rushing the structured program. We'll talk through which makes sense on your consultation call.
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Yes, and the research backs this up. Couples who complete a structured premarital program have meaningfully lower divorce rates than couples who don't. Research by Stanley, Markman, and colleagues has replicated this finding across decades — premarital intervention is associated with roughly a 30% reduction in divorce risk and significantly higher marital quality scores in the early years of marriage.
The mechanism is straightforward: most marriages don't fail because partners are wrong for each other. They fail because the patterns that calcify in the first three to five years (around money, conflict, sex, in-laws, division of labor, parenting) were never named or negotiated explicitly. Premarital counseling is the structured time to do that naming before the patterns lock in.
What most couples want to know before reaching out
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The program is built around seven foundational territories every marriage navigates:
Communication & Conflict — how each of you fights, shuts down, or pursues, and how to break the cycles before they calcify.
Sex & Intimacy — desire, expectation, vulnerability, and what each of you needs to feel genuinely close, not just physically but emotionally.
Money & Finances — not just budgets but the meaning you each attach to money, the fears underneath, and how to build financial trust.
Family of Origin — the patterns, loyalties, and wounds you both carry, and how they show up in your relationship without you realizing it.
Values & Life Vision — where you each want to go, what happens when your visions diverge, and how to build shared direction without losing individual identity.
Roles & Division of Labor — who does what, the resentment that builds when it's never named, and explicit conversations about invisible labor and fair partnership.
Religion, Culture & Difference — navigating real differences in background, belief, and worldview with curiosity instead of conflict.
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We use a blend of Relational Life Therapy (RLT) and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) — the same depth-oriented approach we use across all our couples work at Kodo, adapted for the developmental task of preparing for marriage rather than the repair task of fixing what's broken.
This is intentionally different from more checklist-driven premarital programs (PREPARE/ENRICH, church-affiliated curricula, Gottman-only approaches) that focus primarily on compatibility scoring or skill-building. Those have value, but they tend not to reach the deeper attachment and family-of-origin material that actually predicts how a marriage holds up under pressure.
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Yes. The program includes:
A pre-program assessment for each partner to complete individually before the first session
A workbook with structured exercises, reflection prompts, and conversation tools you'll use throughout the program and after the wedding
A post-program roadmap — a personalized document summarizing what we named together, the patterns you've identified, and the explicit agreements you've built. Something concrete to return to when you hit the inevitable hard moments in the first years of marriage.
The roadmap matters more than couples expect it to. Most premarital programs end at the last session and the work fades over the first year of marriage. Having a written roadmap (in your own words, with the language you developed together) is what makes the work hold when it actually gets tested.
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The program is delivered by any clinician on the Kodo team: Sheena Simpson, LMFT (founder), Allison Waugh, LMFT, and Joanna Karp (relationship coach with 30+ years of experience). All are trained in the program's framework and approach.
During your initial consultation we'll match you to the clinician whose availability and style fit best. If you have a preference, for example, you'd like to work with someone specifically, or with someone closer to your age, we'll do our best to accommodate it.
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Yes. Second and third marriages, blended families, partners with children from prior relationships, all are welcome.
The premarital program is often especially valuable for second-marriage couples, who tend to carry forward unprocessed material from a prior marriage, ex-partner co-parenting dynamics, and step-family complexity that first-marriage couples don't have to navigate. We adjust the territory emphasis to address the structural realities of remarriage and blending: how you'll integrate children from prior relationships, how you'll handle ongoing co-parenting with an ex, how you'll protect the new marriage from being absorbed into family logistics.
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The program is open to any couple seriously committed to a long-term partnership: engaged, planning to be engaged, in a domestic partnership, cohabiting, or in a long-term committed relationship without plans to formally marry. The work is the same regardless of legal status.
If you're not sure whether you're ready for premarital work, the consultation call will help you figure out whether this program fits or whether something else (regular couples therapy, individual work for one or both partners, or a different timeline) makes more sense.
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Yes. Kodo serves couples of all sexual orientations and gender identities. The premarital program is grounded in the structure of intimate partnership rather than gender-specific assumptions, and we adapt content as needed for the specific dynamics each couple is navigating.
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Yes and Religion, Culture & Difference is one of the seven territories built into the program specifically because this material is so common and so often unaddressed.
The program is secular by default but we adapt to your specific traditions when relevant. Common territory we help interfaith and intercultural couples navigate: how you'll handle religious practice (or its absence) inside the marriage, what you'll teach future children, in-law expectations, holiday navigation, and the differing cultural expectations around marriage itself that often show up later than couples expect.
Start your marriage with clarity, not hope
Schedule a 15-minute consultation to talk through whether this program is the right fit for you and your partner.