My Partner and I Tried Ours Premarital Counseling and Had a Great Experience

My partner and I have survived four years together, months of pandemic quarantine (in a studio apartment), and plenty of big changes. With all of that under our belts, we’re confident in our relationship and excited for its future, including marriage. But, like many couples, we fall into some unproductive communication ruts. While we’re down to spend forever together, we’d rather not spend forever in those loops. So, we decided premarital counseling would be a helpful way to fine-tune our relationship before tying the knot.

But, finding a therapist, location, time slot, and budget that works for one person, let alone two, felt impossible, especially since we each own our own businesses and often aren’t on the same schedule.

Ours, an online couples counseling platform, aims to provide people like my partner and myself premarital counseling that fits our tightly (and often irregularly) scheduled modern lives. Ours is now in a “beta” phase, shifting focus to live sessions and away from its self-guided “Loveware,” but its modern approach and casual tone appealed to our sensibilities, so we decided to give it a shot.

I’d never been to couples counseling, and my partner had only been to a few sessions during a previous relationship, so we were a little wary, but optimistic, given the data. While research on the benefits of premarital counseling is somewhat limited, some studies suggest that it can be a game-changer. One found that couples who went to this form of therapy before tying the knot were more satisfied in their marriages than 80% of couples who did not.1 Another study found that divorce rates were 31% lower among couples who went to premarital counseling.2

After trying out Ours, my partner and I could see why that might be the case. Read on to see how just a few sessions helped us set a course for a healthier forever together.

What is Ours?

Ours provides relationship therapy, exclusively. This includes therapy for unmarried couples, couples considering marriage, engaged couples, and married couples. Ours’s website says it’s for “busy, discerning couples looking for experienced, world-class couples therapists.” (I’m in my early 30s and definitely felt like I was the target demographic for this service.)

 Ours uses a combination of traditional, talk therapy-style premarital counseling and interactive online learning activities. Previously, Ours offered “Loveware,” its proprietary, self-guided platform. This service consisted of several modules of learning and activities for couples to do together, with the option of bookending them with video sessions with a therapist. Loveware has now been phased out (though I was able to access it upon request). Ours has replaced it with traditional couples counseling. When we tried it in late 2023, Ours was in a “beta” mode, accepting only a limited number of couples, solely for virtual therapy. This is the service my partner and I received.

It’s unclear from its website exactly how many therapists are now working for Ours. In its initial format, Ours advertised these therapists as “guides” who worked in tandem with its Loveware. However, in our recent experience (as of November 2023), that has changed; more on that later.

Ours offers 60-minute video sessions with therapists—which can be purchased individually (“a la carte”), in a package of four, or through a monthly subscription, which also includes four sessions per month at a discounted rate.

How Much Does Ours Cost?

Ours currently offers three therapy session plans:

• $200 per session, purchased a la carte
• $180 per session for a four-session package ($720 total)
• $150 per session for a monthly subscription (four sessions, for a total of $600 per month)

Ours is also currently offering a discounted first session for $50.

There’s no additional cost if you need to switch therapists. The website doesn’t specify whether these sessions expire after the month they were purchased, but we had no trouble rescheduling ours (and thus stretching our 4-session purchase beyond the initial month).

Ours does not accept insurance. Unfortunately, couples therapy—of any form, premarital or marital, virtual or in-person—is often not covered by insurance, so Ours is hardly alone in this regard.

Frustratingly, we couldn’t see pricing without entering and verifying our email address and, even then, it was never explicitly noted that the company doesn’t accept insurance. As a health journalist, I was prepared for the fact that premarital counseling and couples therapy are rarely covered by insurance. But I was sorely disappointed that pricing wasn’t more transparent. Not only is that a pet peeve of mine, it sows distrust into my relationship with the company at the outset. That said, the price ultimately seemed reasonable and fit into our budget.

How We Signed Up for Ours

Ours’s website is slick and minimal—which is both to its credit and detriment. The website is charming and pretty clearly designed to appeal to my exact demographic (think: warm but minimal design, millennial pink), and it’s effective. Ours takes a conversational, ever-so-slightly hip tone, and, when we tried it, had a notice at the top that it was in beta mode, accepting only a limited number of couples for therapy. (The new full couples counseling program has since been rolled out.)

There were photos of the founders and backers, but no bios for them, nor a list of therapists or number of therapists employed by Ours.  I’d much prefer to be able to learn about the actual therapists than the company’s C-suite. Even if I don’t get to choose my specific therapist, it’s nice to get an overall sense of who my therapist might be and whether the company employs any therapists who match my preferences for factors like age or gender. (We were hopeful that this was a temporary shell website, and that it would be more thorough following this beta phase, but unfortunately that was not the case; in fact, the website now features no information about anyone working at Ours whatsoever.)

The actual sign-up process for Ours was an easy, surprisingly personal process. I began by taking the company’s brief quiz about myself and what my partner and I were looking for in therapy. I selected premarital counseling, and chose the package that comes with four therapy sessions.

Unfortunately, there were no Ours therapists available to see me and my partner when I first signed up in May of 2023. An Ours customer service representative emailed to tell me that the company was revamping its website and suggested I check back in the fall. To the company’s credit, someone from Ours reached back out to me in early August. I was sent a supplemental questionnaire about myself, my relationships, and my preferences for a therapist, which Ours then used to send me therapist matches.

Within a couple of days, I received my matches via email. Attached was a slideshow—a choice of medium that surprised me and felt both a bit outdated and sort of charmingly nostalgic—about the match process and my two prospective therapists. I was also surprised that both options offered were men, considering that nearly 80% of couple’s therapists in the U.S. identify as women.3 My guess is that clients more commonly request women therapists, while I said I didn’t have a preference in the gender of my therapist, so there were perhaps more male therapists with available time slots.

Both therapists had written relatable introductions to themselves, which was a breath of fresh air compared to the laundry lists of experience, qualifications, accolades, and modalities that often accompany therapists’ profiles. Honestly, they both seemed good, but my partner and I both felt that the older of the two seemed more our “vibe.” I liked that Ours narrowed down our therapist options, but that the choice was ultimately ours. (However, this is no longer the case – Ours now matches you with a therapist.)

I chose our appointment time and therapist on a Friday afternoon, and our therapist emailed me on Monday to introduce himself. His emails were concise and friendly, but there was a fair amount of tedious back-and-forth involved to connect him with my partner and get the Zoom link to all parties. I would have thought there would be a more efficient system than this, especially after seeing Ours’s sleek, modern website.

And then there were the intake forms—a lot of them.

These included standard questionnaires about me and the nature of my and my partner’s relationship (I was happy to see that this questionnaire was inclusive, with selections for identifying as non-binary or trans, and relationship options that included partnered and non-monogamous; however, I was not asked my race, which isn’t really an issue in my relationship but, for other couples, this might be very pertinent). We were each asked to briefly describe our relationship and what we wanted to work on in therapy.

There were also self-assessment questionnaires for both PTSD and adult ADHD. Ours did not mention that these would be part of my sign-up process, and never offered an explanation, so I’m not sure of the utility. “When seeking couples counseling, any mental health diagnoses can absolutely be relevant to the care you receive,” explains Hannah Owens, LMSW and subject matter expert. “It’s responsible of Ours to screen for these issues so that the therapist understands each couple’s dynamics and current challenges, but it’s a little strange that only PTSD and ADHD were singled out (whereas depression and anxiety screenings might also be useful).”

How Our Therapy Sessions Worked at Ours

Forms filled out, we had our first appointment while my partner and I were in separate locations. Right off the bat, this made me feel like Ours was a good choice. We had planned to be in the same location at the appointment time, and I loved that when our plans changed our therapy session didn’t have to. Therapy sessions at Ours take place over Zoom (which is HIPAA-compliant and secure), although they can be done over the phone if necessary.

Live Video Session

Even though I had to connect to the Zoom call from my phone (due to a laptop mishap), the connection was solid, and I arrived to find my partner and therapist chatting (my partner was telling the therapist about his business, and it was sweet to hear the therapist respond that that was “very cool”).

Our therapist was as his bio promised: very laid back, but definitely engaged. He asked questions about our respective backgrounds—where we grew up, what our family structures were like, whether we grew up with married, single, or divorced parents, what we do for work now–as well as good questions to gauge whether we had concerns about getting married, or about things we simply wanted to work on to ensure a successful marriage. He also asked us to each describe ourselves, our relationship, how we met, and why we liked each other to begin with. I don’t know if this had an explicit therapeutic purpose, but I really loved that he asked this. Answering set a warm tone for the rest of the session.

After the initial joint session, we each had a one-on-one session with our therapist. Unfortunately, this is where the technological side of things started to break down.

Email Communications Between Sessions

Everyone we interacted with at Ours was responsive, but it still took too many emails and too long to resolve issues, in my opinion. My partner and I each received reminders about our sessions that were apparently supposed to include links to a secure Zoom room. When I logged on for my solo session, the therapist wasn’t in that room. I contacted him directly, as well as Ours, and learned that the therapist was in a different Zoom room, to which I never gained access. I won’t bore you with the details, but what ensued was a back-and-forth of about 10 emails, from two of the therapist’s email addresses, plus a series of four quick, “did you get the Zoom invite?” phone calls. The whole thing  frustrated both the therapist and me. In the end, we just had a phone call.

To Ours’s credit, its customer service representative reached out apologetically and really tried to solve the issue. But my partner experienced the same series of problems when he tried to log in for his solo session, and our final shared session wound up being a phone call too. At the time that we signed up, Ours stated clearly that it was in a beta testing phase while it overhauled its website and implemented various changes (it’s not entirely clear to me what they are, or how the website changed).

I really want to give Ours the benefit of the doubt and remain optimistic that the company will address these problems as it continues to hone its platform. But, I have to say that the logistical issues didn’t instill much confidence in Ours and ate up 30 minutes to an hour of time for my partner and me, each.

Ours also has an online dashboard you can log into using your account details, from which you can securely message your therapist. It seems like a good feature to have but, because we received (what we thought were) links to our Zoom calls over email, I honestly didn’t even use this platform during our therapy sessions.

(Back-up) Phone Sessions

In spite of the tech troubles, I continued to enjoy our Ours therapist, who still did an entire 50-minute session (and then some, in my case) with each of us over the phone, even after the considerable delays, and was always gracious and flexible about rescheduling.

In my solo session, the therapist’s demeanor remained casual but professional as he asked me about my family and childhood background, past relationships, and current concerns as I look ahead to married life. He quickly spotted patterns between my past and present and reassured me that—with patience—my partner and I could learn to manage our respective and shared issues, and did so without pandering. My partner felt much the same about his one-on-one time with our therapist and noted that the conversation was easy, meandering pleasantly into topics like his work life without becoming unfocused.

Our final therapy session—to be done together—was plagued as ever by technical issues, but was nonetheless cathartic. Our therapist reviewed the issues he’d heard from us and asked us to talk about some specific examples where they’d arisen. While I don’t think that we exactly resolved anything during our therapy session, our therapist helped us hear one another and deftly left space for us to express ourselves while creating new spaces for us to say what emotions came up as we recounted the conflict. Thanks in part to the therapy session, one of those emotions, for us both, was “hopeful.”

Our therapist’s easygoing demeanor put both me and my partner immediately at ease, but also meant that the sessions sometimes felt more like we were talking at the therapist than being guided through premarital counseling, and we weren’t really given any homework (which I would have liked but, admittedly, I’m not sure we would have had time to focus on). That said, I’m not necessarily convinced that premarital counseling should be that prescriptive.

Other Features: Self-Guided “Loveware” Sessions and Future Content

There’s also the simple limitation of the company’s couples therapy format: Unless you opt for a monthly subscription, the standard package includes four counseling sessions, only two of which my partner and I completed together. That’s where Ours’s Loveware, or a similar supplement, could come in.

While Ours is changing tacts and moving away from the self-guided educational modules of Loveware, I was able to access it upon request. Confusingly, it exists at a separate URL, app.withours.com, which was eventually sent to me after an email exchange.

Loveware opened with a “roadmap,” which summarized the modules my partner and I would work through. It started with a session on “mindful communication,” which set the stage for the rest. We were asked to sign an agreement that we would speak and listen to one another, and kindly take space if we got overwhelmed (we were taught a term for this: “flooding”).

Each session started with a warm-up exercise, like a minute of eye-gazing. Pre-recorded videos of a guide walked us through the concept in each module in digestible segments. These were split up by activities to help my partner and I practice these strategies, or to have potentially challenging discussions through a new framework.

At the very least, the techniques in these modules were good reminders of fairly obvious practices (like not using your phone while your partner is talking, tuning out). At best, they prompted some uncomfortable “ah-ha” moments (I have a tendency to make the unfortunately-acronymed “WAP”—”worst assumption possible,” not the Cardi B lyric).

Unlike our therapist, I did find the Loveware tone and exercises a little hokey and pandering at times. But I also think I genuinely learned from them, in spite of myself. And, for better or worse, no one was there to force me and my partner to do eye-gazing in this self-guided process.

Currently, Ours offers access to “digital tools” that you can use between sessions. These include a weekly reflection exercise for you and your partner called “Rose Bud Thorns” (the new website has a “rose” theme) and conversation facilitators called “Card Decks” that are meant to encourage discussions about what can be difficult topics. There’s also a section on the website called “Prose” (or “P(rose)”) that has interviews with “success story” couples and blog posts about various relationship-related topics, such as “When are you ready for marriage?” and “How can I get the most out of premarital counseling?”

Switching Therapists at Ours

Ours says that it’s rare that couples need to switch therapists, but there’s no fee for doing so. We did not switch therapists, but any time issues arose, customer service representatives would offer this as an option.

This seemed both accommodating and a little odd—as if they were expecting we’d be unhappy with our therapist. We weren’t, but each of these messages planted a little seed of doubt in my mind.

Pros and Cons

Despite some serious technological snags, my partner and I really loved the flexibility and quality of therapy that we received through Ours and are hopeful that some of these issues are now resolved since the company has transitioned out of its beta phase. Here’s what we loved, and what we didn’t so much: