Questions To Ask Each Other Before Marriage
You might think you know your fiancé pretty well, and he you. You might have even been living together for years, and expect you know everything there is to know about each other’s life goals, perspectives, hopes and dreams. But all too many people sign on the dotted line and say “I do” without having discussed the most simple of things with each other, like your expectations regarding children, careers and where you will live for the next 50-odd years. Here we’ll discuss some of the vital issues that will either make or break your marriage. You might find it helpful to print off this list and set aside a discussion time with your partner to approach these issues and ensure that you are both on the same page before plunging head on into ‘forever-after!’
1. Children – do we want to have children? If so, when do we plan to have children, and how many do we plan to have? Who will be the primary care-giver?
If your husband-to-be states very clearly that he does not want children, don’t be tempted to think that by marrying him you will eventually change his views. How will you cope in a childless marriage? It’s incredibly important to sort out both your issues on how many children you each want, when you plan to have them, and who you both want to stay at home and care for them as infants (or that you want someone else to do this for you). Ensure that you are both roughly on the same page in regards to your thoughts on children, and agree to some basic time-frames before getting married – i.e. “We will start trying to conceive two years after getting married.”
2. Finances – can we talk about money together? Will our incomes be pooled or separate? Who will be in charge of paying the bills?
These might not sound like important issues but they can become terribly important down the track. If you’ve got a partner who is reluctant to talk money with you at this stage, don’t expect that things will change after you get married! Being able to both talk openly about money, budgeting and finance will become crucial after you get married and start to have children.
3. Sex – can we talk about it openly? Are my desires just as important as yours? Do we agree on matters regarding frequency, duration, contraception, fantasies, pornography and masturbation?
Sex is one of the crucial things that can break up an otherwise apparently happy relationship, particularly if you find yourself already having issues in this area. He might think pornography is harmless, but if it tears you apart to find him viewing it then this is something you need to sort out before tying the knot. There is always a middle-ground where both parties can be satisfied. And don’t forget – what is ‘normal’ in one relationship is not ‘normal’ in another. You might both love participating in swingers’ parties and hey, as long as you’re both enjoying yourselves and there are no issues there, then you’re both doing what makes you sexually happy. Don’t worry about what others say or think - your fiancé’s sexual relationship with you, as long as you are both happy, is strictly your own business.
4. Household jobs – who is responsible for what? Are we both equally as happy to clean toilets, scrub floors, pick up dog vomit etc.?
This is an important issue to broach because if your partner immediately responds with, “No, that’s your job” or “Why should I?” then there are some serious problems here. You might not think it right now, but you might find the entire house becoming YOUR job to keep clean, as well as you working a full time job. Add your first and second babies into the mix and you’ll soon find yourself overwhelmed with household duties and chores, as well as being a 24/7 babysitter to one or more screaming infants. How will you feel then when you ask your hubby to tidy the kitchen or pack the dishwasher while you have a quick nap – only to get a “That’s your job” response? This is yet another of the issues that will not suddenly get better once you sign on the dotted line!
5. Our free time – how do we want to spend our days off? Is one of us heavily into sports or work? How will we juggle time together vs. time alone vs. time spent doing hobbies?
Balancing both your jobs and your free time will not be an easy task. These are some boundaries that you need to establish now, before you both get swept up in your careers and extra-curricular activities and suddenly realise you haven’t seen each other for two weeks. Are you the sort of couple that can quite happily handle having separate social lives, separate hobbies and separate jobs? If you feel that you need more than just a few hours per week together, would one of you be willing to renegotiate your work hours or even find another job altogether to accommodate this? Just how important IS your spending time together each week? What works for one couple will not necessarily work for another, so do what you can to discuss your work-life balance at this stage according to your own needs and wants.
6. Drinking, smoking and drugs – do either of us have any addictive behaviours? How will this affect the other partner?
Generally speaking, if both of you are in the same boat here (i.e. both smokers) you probably won’t find anything to worry about. But what if you get pregnant, and quit smoking – but he continues? Is that something you will be happy to put up with or are you under the impression that when you quit, he quits – or vice-versa? Similarly, if one of you quite enjoys a few glasses of red each night before bed, will that impact the other partner? And what about when you have children – will that affect your substance consumption? These sorts of things might sound trivial and unimportant but depending on your views, it might be a good idea to establish that you want things a certain way (i.e. that you want to continue being allowed to smoke recreationally, or that you abhor smoking and never want your partner to take up the habit).
7. Anger – do either of us have a problem keeping our tempers under control? Have we ever hit another person in anger? Are either of us physically or emotionally abusive?
These are absolute deal-breakers. If you have seen any sign of violence from your partner during a fight, no matter how trivial, it is vital that you break off your engagement and get your partner to sort out their issues before committing to them long-term. Don’t think things will suddenly improve after the wedding – they won’t! And if anything they are likely to escalate into abusive behaviour. Do you want this man to be a parent to your children? How would you feel regarding physical punishment (smacking etc.) or swearing in front of the children? Anyone who shows a tendency toward violence whilst angry is potentially an abusive personality and must seek counselling before going ahead with the marriage.
8. What do you plan to be doing in 10, 20, 40 years? Do you still see yourself married to me? Where do you see yourself working etc.?
Obviously your partner is not likely to pipe up and say, “No, I don’t plan on being with you in X amount of years!” right before you get married. However if their lifelong goals are different to yours, it’s important you try to establish a middle ground before getting married to make sure you both have the same priorities in life. What if his dream is to spend a year on a yacht at sea, while you’re absolutely afraid of the open ocean? Would you let him go it alone, or would this be something you would be able to compromise one? Or what if your lifelong dream is to work your way up a publishing company to become a magazine editor, whereas he wants you to be a stay-at-home mum and look after the children? If you both have very different ideas about your futures you will find yourselves constantly at odds, especially if one partner is forced to give up their dreams for the other’s. Resentment is inevitable here. If something is very important to you in life (and hey, we only live once!), is your partner willing to help you make your dreams a reality? Are you willing to help his come true too? And are they mutually inclusive goals – that is, are they both possible?
Don’t forget that even if you don’t 100% agree on everything, compromise is what makes a marriage work. Focus on building your marriage through mutually-inclusive goals that will leave you both satisfied and happy. If after going through these issues with your spouse you find that you don’t agree on everything, don’t panic – disagreement is not necessarily a recipe for disaster! You just have to learn to balance your lives or simply agree to disagree, knowing that love is the best basis a marriage can have and everything can be dealt with once that stipulation is in place (because if you don’t have love, you’re doomed from the start!). That very fact that you are able to sit down as a couple and work through these questions speaks volumes. Why not join our forum at Beyond the Bride, where you’ll find other brides discussing the same issues with their husbands-to-be!
1. Children – do we want to have children? If so, when do we plan to have children, and how many do we plan to have? Who will be the primary care-giver?
If your husband-to-be states very clearly that he does not want children, don’t be tempted to think that by marrying him you will eventually change his views. How will you cope in a childless marriage? It’s incredibly important to sort out both your issues on how many children you each want, when you plan to have them, and who you both want to stay at home and care for them as infants (or that you want someone else to do this for you). Ensure that you are both roughly on the same page in regards to your thoughts on children, and agree to some basic time-frames before getting married – i.e. “We will start trying to conceive two years after getting married.”
2. Finances – can we talk about money together? Will our incomes be pooled or separate? Who will be in charge of paying the bills?
These might not sound like important issues but they can become terribly important down the track. If you’ve got a partner who is reluctant to talk money with you at this stage, don’t expect that things will change after you get married! Being able to both talk openly about money, budgeting and finance will become crucial after you get married and start to have children.
3. Sex – can we talk about it openly? Are my desires just as important as yours? Do we agree on matters regarding frequency, duration, contraception, fantasies, pornography and masturbation?
Sex is one of the crucial things that can break up an otherwise apparently happy relationship, particularly if you find yourself already having issues in this area. He might think pornography is harmless, but if it tears you apart to find him viewing it then this is something you need to sort out before tying the knot. There is always a middle-ground where both parties can be satisfied. And don’t forget – what is ‘normal’ in one relationship is not ‘normal’ in another. You might both love participating in swingers’ parties and hey, as long as you’re both enjoying yourselves and there are no issues there, then you’re both doing what makes you sexually happy. Don’t worry about what others say or think - your fiancé’s sexual relationship with you, as long as you are both happy, is strictly your own business.
4. Household jobs – who is responsible for what? Are we both equally as happy to clean toilets, scrub floors, pick up dog vomit etc.?
This is an important issue to broach because if your partner immediately responds with, “No, that’s your job” or “Why should I?” then there are some serious problems here. You might not think it right now, but you might find the entire house becoming YOUR job to keep clean, as well as you working a full time job. Add your first and second babies into the mix and you’ll soon find yourself overwhelmed with household duties and chores, as well as being a 24/7 babysitter to one or more screaming infants. How will you feel then when you ask your hubby to tidy the kitchen or pack the dishwasher while you have a quick nap – only to get a “That’s your job” response? This is yet another of the issues that will not suddenly get better once you sign on the dotted line!
5. Our free time – how do we want to spend our days off? Is one of us heavily into sports or work? How will we juggle time together vs. time alone vs. time spent doing hobbies?
Balancing both your jobs and your free time will not be an easy task. These are some boundaries that you need to establish now, before you both get swept up in your careers and extra-curricular activities and suddenly realise you haven’t seen each other for two weeks. Are you the sort of couple that can quite happily handle having separate social lives, separate hobbies and separate jobs? If you feel that you need more than just a few hours per week together, would one of you be willing to renegotiate your work hours or even find another job altogether to accommodate this? Just how important IS your spending time together each week? What works for one couple will not necessarily work for another, so do what you can to discuss your work-life balance at this stage according to your own needs and wants.
6. Drinking, smoking and drugs – do either of us have any addictive behaviours? How will this affect the other partner?
Generally speaking, if both of you are in the same boat here (i.e. both smokers) you probably won’t find anything to worry about. But what if you get pregnant, and quit smoking – but he continues? Is that something you will be happy to put up with or are you under the impression that when you quit, he quits – or vice-versa? Similarly, if one of you quite enjoys a few glasses of red each night before bed, will that impact the other partner? And what about when you have children – will that affect your substance consumption? These sorts of things might sound trivial and unimportant but depending on your views, it might be a good idea to establish that you want things a certain way (i.e. that you want to continue being allowed to smoke recreationally, or that you abhor smoking and never want your partner to take up the habit).
7. Anger – do either of us have a problem keeping our tempers under control? Have we ever hit another person in anger? Are either of us physically or emotionally abusive?
These are absolute deal-breakers. If you have seen any sign of violence from your partner during a fight, no matter how trivial, it is vital that you break off your engagement and get your partner to sort out their issues before committing to them long-term. Don’t think things will suddenly improve after the wedding – they won’t! And if anything they are likely to escalate into abusive behaviour. Do you want this man to be a parent to your children? How would you feel regarding physical punishment (smacking etc.) or swearing in front of the children? Anyone who shows a tendency toward violence whilst angry is potentially an abusive personality and must seek counselling before going ahead with the marriage.
8. What do you plan to be doing in 10, 20, 40 years? Do you still see yourself married to me? Where do you see yourself working etc.?
Obviously your partner is not likely to pipe up and say, “No, I don’t plan on being with you in X amount of years!” right before you get married. However if their lifelong goals are different to yours, it’s important you try to establish a middle ground before getting married to make sure you both have the same priorities in life. What if his dream is to spend a year on a yacht at sea, while you’re absolutely afraid of the open ocean? Would you let him go it alone, or would this be something you would be able to compromise one? Or what if your lifelong dream is to work your way up a publishing company to become a magazine editor, whereas he wants you to be a stay-at-home mum and look after the children? If you both have very different ideas about your futures you will find yourselves constantly at odds, especially if one partner is forced to give up their dreams for the other’s. Resentment is inevitable here. If something is very important to you in life (and hey, we only live once!), is your partner willing to help you make your dreams a reality? Are you willing to help his come true too? And are they mutually inclusive goals – that is, are they both possible?
Don’t forget that even if you don’t 100% agree on everything, compromise is what makes a marriage work. Focus on building your marriage through mutually-inclusive goals that will leave you both satisfied and happy. If after going through these issues with your spouse you find that you don’t agree on everything, don’t panic – disagreement is not necessarily a recipe for disaster! You just have to learn to balance your lives or simply agree to disagree, knowing that love is the best basis a marriage can have and everything can be dealt with once that stipulation is in place (because if you don’t have love, you’re doomed from the start!). That very fact that you are able to sit down as a couple and work through these questions speaks volumes. Why not join our forum at Beyond the Bride, where you’ll find other brides discussing the same issues with their husbands-to-be!