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Questions to ask before marriage

An engagement is a strange time to discover things. You have decided, publicly, and everyone is asking about venues. It is exactly the moment when a difference of opinion about money or children feels impossible to raise, and exactly the moment when it is cheapest to raise it.

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Most couples who marry have never discussed half of what follows. They are not hiding anything. The subjects simply never came up, or came up once and were settled with a vague agreement that meant different things to each of them. "We both want kids" can cover everything from one child in five years to four starting now.

These questions are practical on purpose. Asking whether you share values gets a yes from everyone. Asking who pays for what, where Christmas is spent and what happens when one of you wants to move gets an answer you can plan a life around. Take a section at a time, over weeks.

Money

The subject couples argue about most and discuss least. Numbers, not attitudes.

  1. 1What do you earn, owe and own, exactly?
  2. 2Will we combine our money, keep it separate, or do some of each?
  3. 3How much can either of us spend without checking with the other?
  4. 4What debts are you bringing in, and how do you plan to clear them?
  5. 5Who will manage the bills and the paperwork?
  6. 6What are we saving for first?
  7. 7How do you feel about lending money to family or friends?
  8. 8What would we do if one of us lost our job?
  9. 9Do you want a prenuptial agreement, and how would you feel if I did?
  10. 10What did your parents teach you about money, on purpose or by accident?

Children

A maybe is not a yes. Be exact about what you each mean.

  1. 1Are we certain we both want children, or is one of us hoping the other will come round?
  2. 2If we do, how many, and how soon after the wedding?
  3. 3What would we do if it did not happen easily?
  4. 4Who would take time off work, and for how long?
  5. 5How were you disciplined as a child, and would you do the same?
  6. 6What do you want to pass on from your own upbringing?
  7. 7What would you want to do differently from your parents?
  8. 8How would we raise children around religion or belief?
  9. 9What kind of schooling matters to you?
  10. 10How would we protect time for the two of us?

Family and in-laws

You are joining a family as well as marrying a person. Better to set expectations before the first Christmas.

  1. 1How much time do you expect us to spend with each family?
  2. 2Where will we spend the big holidays, and how do we decide?
  3. 3How involved should our parents be in our decisions?
  4. 4What would we do if a parent needed care or somewhere to live?
  5. 5Is there anything about your family I should know before I am part of it?
  6. 6How do you want me to handle a disagreement with your family?
  7. 7What boundaries do we need with relatives, and which of us holds them?
  8. 8What traditions from your family do you want to keep?
  9. 9How do your parents treat each other, and what did you take from it?
  10. 10Who in your family do you worry about?

Home and daily life

The texture of every ordinary day for the next several decades.

  1. 1Where do you want to live, and would you move for my work?
  2. 2How will we split the housework, in specifics?
  3. 3Whose career takes priority when they conflict?
  4. 4How much time apart do you need in a normal week?
  5. 5What does a tidy enough home look like to you?
  6. 6How do you want to spend weekends?
  7. 7How do you feel about pets?
  8. 8What are your habits around drinking, and are you happy with them?
  9. 9How do we handle friendships that the other one does not share?
  10. 10What is a holiday for, to you: rest, adventure or family?

Conflict and communication

How you disagree predicts more than how often.

  1. 1How do you behave when you are angry, and what helps?
  2. 2What did arguments look like in the house you grew up in?
  3. 3What do you need from me after a fight?
  4. 4What is something you find hard to say to me?
  5. 5How will we make big decisions when we disagree?
  6. 6What would make you consider counselling, and would you go?
  7. 7What counts as a betrayal to you?
  8. 8How do you want to be told when I am unhappy?
  9. 9What is a past hurt that might show up in how you react to me?
  10. 10What will we do when we start to feel like housemates?

The marriage itself

What you are each actually signing up for.

  1. 1What does marriage mean to you that living together does not?
  2. 2What are you most looking forward to about being married?
  3. 3What worries you about it?
  4. 4What role does faith or religion play in how you see marriage?
  5. 5What does being faithful mean to you, in detail?
  6. 6How important is sex to you, and how will we talk about it when it changes?
  7. 7What would you want us to still be doing in thirty years?
  8. 8What do you expect to change after the wedding, and what should stay the same?
  9. 9What would you want me to do if you became seriously ill?
  10. 10What promise do you most want us to keep?

Keep asking without having to remember

The hard part of this is not the questions, it is the habit. Most couples read a list like this, have one good conversation, and never open it again. HeartTap exists mainly to remove that failure: it sends one question at a time to both of you, and hides each answer until you have both written yours, so neither of you drifts toward agreeing with the other.

If you would rather not choose, the couple question generator picks one at random from every set on this site.

Related question sets

Questions to ask your partner about the future

Fifty questions covering money, children, location and ambition, asked before assumptions harden.

Questions for married couples

Fifty-two questions for the stage where you know the routine by heart and the person less well than you think.

All question sets

Frequently asked questions

What are the most important questions to ask before marriage?

Money, children and where you will live. Those three have the least room for compromise and the largest effect on daily life, and they are the ones most often skipped. After them, how each of you handles conflict, because that decides how every other disagreement goes.

When should we have these conversations?

Before the engagement if you can, and before the wedding regardless. Spread them over weeks. One section in an evening is plenty, and trying to cover everything in a single sitting turns it into an exam that both of you will try to pass instead of answer.

What if we disagree on something big?

Find out which kind of disagreement it is. Some are about timing or detail and can be worked out. Others, such as whether to have children at all, have no middle position. A premarital counsellor is useful for exactly this, and going to one is ordinary preparation, not a sign of trouble.

Should we write our answers down?

It helps. Answering separately before comparing stops the second person adjusting to the first, which is how couples end up believing they agree. HeartTap’s questions do this by keeping both answers hidden until each of you has written one.

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