Questions to Ask a Girl Before Marriage
Questions for a couple to work through before getting engaged or married, covering money, children, family, faith, conflict and daily life. Written for the partner asking, with notes on what different answers tend to mean.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What do you picture our ordinary Tuesday looking like five years from now?
Why ask it
An ordinary weekday is a better test of compatibility than a wedding or a holiday. Two people can share a vision of the future and still picture completely different evenings.
Where do you want to be living in ten years, and how attached are you to it?
Why ask it
Geography quietly decides careers, childcare and how close you live to parents. The attachment matters more than the place: a preference can be negotiated, a requirement cannot.
What are you hoping to have done by forty that you have not started yet?
Why ask it
Surfaces the ambition she may not have said out loud, and whether it needs time, money or your relocation. Silence here sometimes means she has already quietly shelved it.
How much do you want to see your family once we are married, and what does that look like?
Why ask it
Ask for the actual frequency, not the sentiment. Weekly Sunday lunch and twice a year are both reasonable, and discovering the mismatch after the wedding is where the resentment starts.
Whose family do we spend Christmas with, and how do we decide that every year?
Why ask it
Being asked to produce a rule rather than a preference is the point. Couples who never agree a method end up renegotiating the same argument annually.
What did money feel like in your house growing up?
Why ask it
Spending habits usually trace back to whether money was scarce, fought over, or never discussed. This explains a partner's instincts better than asking what she thinks about budgeting.
Do you want joint accounts, separate ones, or some combination?
Why ask it
Forces a concrete answer where there is often only a vague assumption. Watch for a strong preference for separateness that she cannot explain, which is worth understanding rather than overruling.
How much debt do we each have, and what is the plan for it?
Why ask it
Naming figures out loud is uncomfortable and necessary, because marriage often joins the liability. Reluctance to say a number is itself the information.
What would we do if one of us wanted children and the other did not?
Why ask it
Asks about the disagreement rather than the preference, which is the part couples skip. An answer that assumes the other person will come round is a warning.
If we do have children, who cuts back at work, and for how long?
Why ask it
Almost everyone agrees on equal partnership in the abstract and then defaults to whoever earns less. Making the assumption explicit now prevents it being decided by circumstance later.
How were you disciplined as a child, and how much of that would you keep?
Why ask it
Parenting style is inherited before it is chosen. Someone who has thought about which parts to keep and which to drop will be easier to co-parent with than someone who has not considered it.
How do you want us to handle it when we disagree about the children in front of them?
Why ask it
Agreeing a rule in advance, such as never overruling each other in the room, is far easier than improvising it during a hard moment.
When we argue, what do you need from me, and what makes it worse?
Why ask it
Some people need to resolve it immediately, others need an hour alone first, and pursuing someone who needs space escalates everything. Knowing which she is saves years of repeated damage.
What is something you have forgiven that you thought you would not be able to?
Why ask it
A concrete example shows whether forgiveness is something she has actually practised or only endorses. Watch for whether she can describe letting it go rather than filing it away.
How important is your faith in daily life, and what would you want for our children?
Why ask it
Personal belief and how children are raised are separate questions, and couples often align on the first while assuming agreement on the second.
How do we split the housework, and who notices when it needs doing?
Why ask it
The second half is the harder question. Most household resentment comes from one person tracking everything and delegating rather than from the tasks themselves.
How often do you want sex, and how do you want to raise it when we are out of step?
Why ask it
Frequency changes over a marriage; the ability to bring it up without either person feeling accused is what has to last. Agree the wording while it is easy.
How much time alone or with your own friends do you need to feel like yourself?
Why ask it
Naming the amount now stops it being read later as withdrawal. A partner who says none at all is worth gently pressing, since that rarely holds.
If I lost my job, or got seriously ill, what would you expect us to do?
Why ask it
Answers here reveal both practical planning and whether she thinks in terms of us. Vagueness is common, but total blankness about a setback is worth noticing.
What would tell you, in twenty years, that this marriage had gone well?
Why ask it
The measure she names, still liking each other, children who visit, work she is proud of, is the thing she will actually be tracking. It is worth knowing before you commit to it.
How to have these conversations well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting them up
Spread them over weeks, not one evening
Working through twenty of these in a sitting turns it into an examination. Three or four at a time, with room to come back, gets more honest answers because neither of you is performing stamina.
Answer first when the question is hard
On money, sex and family, going first sets the level of candour. If you ask about her debt without stating yours, you get a defended answer.
Ask for the number or the example
How often, how much, which weekend. Values talk is easy to agree on and tells you almost nothing; the specifics are where the incompatibility actually lives.
Write down what you agreed
Not as a contract, but because you will both remember these conversations differently in two years. A note on holidays or accounts settles a lot of future disputes.
Common mistakes
Treating agreement as the goal
Some differences are workable once they are known. The aim is an accurate picture of what you are each signing up to, not a matching set of answers.
Accepting we will figure it out
On children, money and where you live, that phrase usually means one of you is expecting the other to give way. Ask what figuring it out would look like.
Asking only when you are already worried
If the first time you raise money is after a fight about spending, the question reads as an accusation. These land better during a calm week.
Skipping the second half of the question
The follow-ups above, who notices, how do we decide, what if we disagree, are where the real answers are. Stopping at the first half gets you the easy version.
Suggested groupings
One evening on money
- 1What did money feel like in your house growing up?
- 2Do you want joint accounts, separate ones, or some combination?
- 3How much debt do we each have, and what is the plan for it?
- 4If I lost my job, what would you expect us to do?
One evening on children
- 1What would we do if one of us wanted children and the other did not?
- 2If we do have children, who cuts back at work, and for how long?
- 3How were you disciplined as a child, and how much of that would you keep?
- 4How do we handle disagreeing about them in front of them?
One evening on families and holidays
- 1How much do you want to see your family once we are married?
- 2Whose family do we spend Christmas with, and how do we decide each year?
- 3How much time alone or with your own friends do you need?