We got married on a Monday, and our next scheduled [couples counselling] appointment was on a Wednesday,” this singer-actor Shibani Dandekar shared on Rhea Chakraborty’s podcast, Chapter 2, about the couples therapy sessions she and husband Farhan Akhtar have been attending. Dandekar added that they had actually begun couples therapy soon after they were engaged. “It’s like going to the gym. You have to keep working on it [the relationship],” she explained.

This is not just a story of the rich and famous. Increasingly, couples are seeking pre-marital counselling across India, to gauge how ready they are for the big step. The government, too, is in support of it becoming a part of the pre-wedding checklist. On February 7, the chairperson of the National Commission of Women (NCW), Vijaya Rahatkar, announced that Nashik would get a pre-marital counselling centre on March 8. Based on the NCW’s recommendation, Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi on February 12 announced that the eastern state, too, will establish pre-marital counselling centres.