Questions to Ask a Potential Spouse
Questions to ask a potential spouse while the two of you are still deciding: 70 of them, grouped into the marriage itself, daily life, money, family and children, conflict, and trust. They suit two people who were introduced with marriage in mind as much as a couple talking about getting engaged, and anyone working out what to ask a potential mate before things go further. Daily life opens with the fun ones, on airports, ruined dinners and whose film gets watched, for the meetings when debt and in-laws would be too much. The list is meant to be worked through over weeks or months, not in one sitting.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Marriage
Why do you want to be married, and what do you expect it to change about your life?
Why ask it
Companionship, children, faith, a settled home, or relief from being asked: most people have one main reason and a couple of quieter ones. What they expect to change shows whether they picture a different life or their present one with you added. Give your own answer afterwards and see how far apart the two pictures sit.
What matters most to you in a husband or wife, and what could you not live with?
Why ask it
Kind, funny and loyal is what everybody says, so ask what kindness looked like the last time they saw it. What they could not live with is more useful when it is concrete: a temper, secrecy about money, being mocked in company. Hold their list up against yourself honestly before you give your own.
What does a good marriage look like to you, and whose marriage are you picturing?
Why ask it
People describe a marriage they have seen: their grandparents', an aunt's, sometimes the reverse of their parents'. Ask what that couple did on an ordinary day, since 'they were happy' gives you nothing to set your own plans beside.
What do you believe, how do you practise it, and what would you need a husband or wife to share?
Why ask it
Three parts, because they come apart: plenty of people hold a belief firmly and practise it lightly, or the other way round. The third part is where a marriage gets easier or harder, so ask for specifics such as attending together, fasting, food, or leaving each other alone on the subject. Having no religion is an answer too, and can be held just as firmly.
What do you want your life to look like in ten years, and what would that ask of me?
Why ask it
A doctorate, a business, a move back to their home country or a house full of children each comes with a bill that a spouse shares. Asking what it would cost you keeps the answer honest. A plan that needs you to relocate, wait or earn more is easy to weigh now and hard to hear for the first time in year three.
Why now? What makes this the right point in your life to marry?
Why ask it
Age, a finished degree, a parent's pressure, friends pairing off, or simply having met you: each is a fair reason and each sets a different pace. If the answer is mostly a deadline, find out whose deadline it is. Someone marrying to a timetable can be sincere and still be choosing the date before the person.
What is it about me that made you take this seriously?
Why ask it
The answer to hope for is something only true of you: the way you argued a point, how you were with their niece, a thing you said in the second conversation. 'You tick the boxes' is honest in an introduction that began with a list, but ask which box mattered. Be ready for the same question straight back.
How long do you want to know someone before you decide, and what would you need to see first?
Why ask it
Three meetings is normal in some families and three years in others, so say your own pace early. The useful list is what they need to see: you with your family, you when tired or cross, one disagreement handled. If either of you is being hurried by someone else, name who.
Where do you stand politically, and could you be married to someone who votes the other way?
Why ask it
Plenty of couples cancel each other out at every election and are fine. The harder cases are the one or two issues a person treats as a matter of character, so ask which those are for them. How they talk about people on the other side is worth noticing, since some of those people may be your relatives.
Do you see a husband and a wife as having different jobs in a marriage?
Why ask it
A plain no is one answer; another is a clear picture of who provides, who keeps the home and who has the last word, usually taken from their parents or their faith. Either can suit two people who chose it. Ask what would happen to the picture if the earner lost the job or the one at home wanted to study.
What part of being married are you most nervous about?
Why ask it
Go first with a small true worry of your own and the question stops sounding like a test. What comes back is usually specific enough to plan for: money running short, less time to themselves, being absorbed into someone else's family. A flat 'nothing' more often means they have pictured the wedding than that they have no doubts.
Daily life
Are you at the airport three hours early, or running for the gate?
Why ask it
Two early people or two late ones travel happily. One of each needs a rule before the first trip, such as the more anxious one setting the time you leave. The same split turns up again for weddings, dinners and school runs.
Morning person or night owl, and what happens to anyone who speaks to you before you are ready?
Why ask it
A lark and an owl can share a home happily and still overlap for only part of the day. Find out what their first hour needs: silence, tea, the news, a run. You would be in the room for it.
What is the worst meal you have ever cooked for someone, and did they eat it?
Why ask it
Everybody has one, and the telling shows whether they can laugh at themselves. It leads easily to who cooks now and what they can make without a recipe. Have your own disaster ready to trade.
What is your most stubborn opinion about food, and would you defend it at my family's table?
Why ask it
Pineapple on pizza, rice with every meal, milk in the cup before the tea. There is a real question inside the joke, since eating with each other's relatives would be a regular event. See whether they would hold the line, eat politely, or try to convert your aunt.
What film or series would you make me watch, and how hurt would you be if I fell asleep?
Why ask it
The title matters less than how much rides on your liking it. Some people share a favourite as a present and some as an exam. Propose a trade, one of theirs for one of yours, with no running commentary from whoever picked.
If we had a free weekend and a small budget, where would we go, and which of us would plan it?
Why ask it
A full itinerary and a train ticket with nothing booked are both a holiday to whoever chose them. The planning half is the one to hear: some people love the spreadsheet and some resent being left holding it. Better still, take the trip and find out.
Which chore would you take on for life if it meant never doing your least favourite again?
Why ask it
Dividing the housework is a serious subject, and this is the playful way in. When one of you hates ironing and the other hates the bins, the trade makes itself. When you both name the bathroom, you have found your first negotiation.
What are you good at that you would like to teach me, and what would the first lesson be?
Why ask it
Driving, a grandmother's recipe, chess, changing a tyre, a few words of their first language. How a person teaches is a preview of how they would explain something to a child, or to you when you have got it wrong. Patience is easy to claim and shows inside ten minutes of a lesson.
When you were a child, what did you think married people did all day?
Why ask it
Went to the shops together, argued about the car, sat in separate chairs: each answer is a small window on the house they grew up in. You hear about their parents without having asked about their parents. Notice which parts of the picture they still half believe.
What do you want an ordinary week to look like: how many evenings out, how much time apart?
Why ask it
Ask for numbers. Four nights in and four nights out are both normal lives, and two people who each assume theirs will be negotiating every Thursday. Time apart needs a figure as well, since an evening alone reads as rest to one person and as a snub to another.
What do you do with a day that has nothing planned in it?
Why ask it
Hobbies listed on a profile are intentions; an empty Saturday is the record. Sleeping until noon, being at the gym by seven and spending the day on a game are none of them wrong, but you would be spending a great many Saturdays next to whichever it is.
Who are your closest friends, and how much of your week belongs to them?
Why ask it
Meet them if you have not, and notice how your potential spouse behaves around them: louder, kinder, more careless. Then settle the practical side, since a weekly match or a standing Friday night is easier agreed now than resented later. Having no friends to introduce is not a disqualification, but it would make you their whole social life.
Who would do what at home: the cooking, the laundry, the bins, the bills, remembering the birthdays?
Why ask it
Go through real tasks one at a time, including the ones nobody sees: booking appointments, filling in forms, noticing the milk has run out. Whether they can name any of that unprompted tells you more than a promise to split things evenly. Find out what they do in the place they live now.
How tidy does a home have to be before you can relax in it?
Why ask it
Dishes washed before bed and dishes washed when the sink is full are both a system to the person who keeps it. Whoever has the higher standard ends up either doing the extra or asking for it, and neither feels good for long. The people they live with now can tell you which of the two they are.
How do you show someone you care about them, and what makes you feel cared for?
Why ask it
Most people answer the two parts differently, and the gap is what you are looking for. A person who shows care by fixing your car may be marrying a person who wanted to be asked about their day. Trade one example each of a time it landed and a time it was missed.
How much do you want to work? Is there a version of your life where you work far less?
Why ask it
Ambition is easier to hear about this way than by asking whether they are ambitious. One of you may be planning a demanding decade while the other pictures being home by five, and a marriage can hold both once the plan has been said out loud. See what they would do with the hours if they got them back.
Whose job would we move city for, and what would the other one do there?
Why ask it
Couples say they would decide together, which holds until an offer arrives with a deadline on it. Put a real case to it: the role each of you would most like, in the place it is most likely to be. One career moving nearly always means another one pausing, so give what the other person would do there as much time as the move itself.
Do you drink, smoke, vape or gamble, and has anyone close to you ever said it worried them?
Why ask it
Ask it as a plain inventory and give your own answer first. People judge their own habits kindly and remember other people's comments exactly, so the worried friend or parent is the more reliable measure. Where there has been a real problem, ask what they do now to keep it in the past.
Money
How would we handle money: pooled, separate, or a mix, and who keeps track of it?
Why ask it
Any of the three can work; what gets skipped is who does the tracking. Whoever pays the bills and watches the balance ends up knowing more and deciding more, often without either of you meaning it. If one of you takes the job, agree a regular time when you both look at the figures.
What do you earn, what do you owe, and what do you own?
Why ask it
Three separate numbers, and couples tend to stop after the first. Debt is the one people are slowest to mention, so ask it plainly and give your own figure. Whether a debt brought into a marriage can ever become the other person's responsibility depends on where you live, so find out how it works there.
How was money handled in the home you grew up in, and which of those habits are yours now?
Why ask it
Whether money was discussed at the table, fought over or never mentioned shapes what feels normal far more than income does. Someone raised in a house where it ran out may save past the point of sense, or spend before it can vanish. Neither is a fault once you both know where it comes from.
If a spare thousand landed in your account tomorrow, what would happen to it?
Why ask it
Saver or spender, without the labels, which people award themselves generously. Clearing a card, putting it away, booking a trip and handing it to a parent are four different people. Follow up with the last time it was real money and what they did then.
At what amount does a purchase stop being mine to decide and become ours?
Why ask it
Name a figure each, separately, then compare. A gap between fifty and five hundred is not a moral difference, but it will produce a row the first time someone comes home with a television. Agree a number and look at it again whenever your income changes.
What does having enough money look like to you: a figure, a house, or simply not worrying?
Why ask it
One of you may be picturing a small flat with nothing owed on it and the other a second car and school fees, and both will call that comfortable. Find out what they would trade to get there: hours, holidays, where you live. Listen too for how much of the picture depends on what a spouse earns.
Would you rather spend on the wedding day or on the first year after it?
Why ask it
A large celebration and a deposit on a home are often the same money. Relatives who contribute sometimes expect a say in the guest list, so establish who is paying and what that buys them. Borrowing for one day is a decision for both of you to make with the figures written down.
How much would we help our families financially, and who decides?
Why ask it
A sibling's rent, a parent's medical bill, a cousin's tuition, or a set amount sent home every month. If either of you already supports relatives, say the figure, since it is part of what the marriage would be paying for. A rough limit and a rule about deciding together stops the more generous one feeling policed and the other feeling overruled.
How do you feel about a prenuptial agreement, and how would you feel if I raised one?
Why ask it
How they react tells you as much as what they decide. People usually raise one where there is a business, an inheritance, children from an earlier relationship or a wide gap in what each owns. What an agreement can cover, and whether a court will uphold it, varies by country, so each of you would need your own legal advice.
Family
Do you want children, how many, and roughly when?
Why ask it
Wanting children and agreeing when are separate things: a couple can be five years apart on timing, and that gap matters more the older you are. Ask what they would want to do if it did not happen easily: treatment, adoption, or stopping. A firm no deserves to be believed, not treated as a position that will soften.
If we have a child, whose work gives way?
Why ask it
Left alone, this gets decided in the first sleepless month, usually against whoever earns less. Talk through leave, part-time work and how the one who steps back would return. Parental leave depends on the employer and the country, so check what each of you would really get before you count on it.
What would you copy from the way you were brought up, and what would you never repeat?
Why ask it
Steer it towards discipline, because that is where tired parents fall back on what was done to them. Someone who can fault their upbringing without bitterness and praise it without defending all of it has done some thinking. If neither of you wants children, the answer still describes the home they regard as normal.
What would we teach a child about religion, and which side of the family would mind?
Why ask it
Couples of different faiths, or of one faith held at different strengths, often manage well until a naming ceremony, a baptism or a school application forces a choice. Decide what a child would be told and who would take them where. Grandparents frequently care more about this than they let on before there is a baby.
What is your relationship with your parents like now, and what was it like when you were fifteen?
Why ask it
The distance between the two answers is what to listen to. Someone who fought with a parent and later mended it has shown you how they handle a long quarrel. If they no longer speak to a parent, let them say as much as they want to and leave the rest for another day.
What does your family make of me, and how much does their opinion weigh with you?
Why ask it
Better heard directly than pieced together from a cool welcome at dinner. What you need is less the family's verdict than what your potential spouse said back to them. A person waiting for a parent's disapproval to fade by itself is likely to leave you to manage it after the wedding as well.
When your parents disagree with a decision of ours, what happens?
Why ask it
Pick a likely case: where you live, how you spend, how a child is raised. Listening to a parent and obeying one are different things, and you need to know which of them they mean by respect. If they have never once gone against their family, ask what would make the first time.
Where do you want to live once we are married, and would you expect us to share a home with parents?
Why ask it
In some families a couple moving in with parents is the default and in others it would be unthinkable, so neither of you should assume. If the answer is a shared house, get down to detail: whose kitchen it is, who can walk into your room, how long it is meant to last. Then ask how firm the plan is and what would change it.
Whose family do we spend the holidays with, and how do we decide that each year?
Why ask it
Eid, Christmas, Diwali, New Year or a parent's birthday: whichever days your families treat as compulsory. A rule holds up better than goodwill here, whether that is alternating years, splitting the day or one festival each. Find out which single day their mother would be hurt to lose and plan round that one first.
What do we do as our parents get older and need us?
Why ask it
A parent moving in is the case to raise by name, because it tends to arrive after a fall or a death with no time to discuss it. Siblings matter too: find out who is expected to do the caring and whether anyone has said so aloud. What the state or an insurer pays towards care differs widely by country, so do not assume the bill is covered.
Would either of us change our surname, and what name would children have?
Why ask it
Custom differs by country and culture: in some places a wife keeps her name as a matter of course, in others changing it is assumed. A surname carries family expectation and a working identity with it, so talk it through alone before relatives offer their view. The children's name is usually where a compromise gets tested.
Conflict
What are you like in an argument: louder, quieter, or out of the room?
Why ask it
Self-portraits here are flattering, so ask what a sibling or an old flatmate would say. The combination matters more than either style. Two people who go silent can lose a week to it, and a pursuer paired with a withdrawer will follow each other round the house unless they agree on a pause and a time to come back.
What did arguments look like in the house you grew up in?
Why ask it
Shouting that blew over by dinner, a week of silence, or parents who never disagreed in front of the children each set a different idea of normal. People tend to repeat it or swing hard the other way, so ask which they have done. If the house was frightening, they may not want to say much yet, and that is theirs to pace.
After a row, who usually speaks first, and what does making up look like for you?
Why ask it
For some people a cup of tea set down beside them is the apology; others need the words and an account of what will change. If each of you waits for your own version, a small quarrel can sit unrepaired for days. Describe the last time it went well.
When we want opposite things and neither of us will give way, how does it get decided?
Why ask it
Taking turns, whoever cares more, whoever is paying, a parent's ruling: every couple ends up with a method whether or not they pick one. Try it on something real, such as where a bonus goes or which family gets the summer. Be wary if the method turns out to be that the same person always folds.
What have we disagreed about so far, and how do you think we handled it?
Why ask it
Even two people who met last month have disagreed about something: a restaurant, a date, how fast this is going. If you each name a different disagreement, you have found the more useful conversation. If there truly has been none, one of you has probably been giving way without saying so, and it helps to know who.
When something I do bothers you, do you tell me that day or sit on it?
Why ask it
Raising a thing within the hour and carrying it for weeks are both common, and a couple with one of each needs a rule. Get the last time they were annoyed with you and whether you ever heard about it. Then agree how each of you likes to be told, because 'just say it' means a text to one person and a sit-down to another.
Is there a way of being spoken to that you will not put up with?
Why ask it
Raised voices, swearing, sarcasm in front of others, being ignored for days: people draw this line in different places and rarely announce it. Say yours as well, then ask what they do themselves at their angriest. If the answer includes breaking things or frightening someone, that is about safety, and worth talking over with a person you trust before you go further.
What do you need from me on your worst day?
Why ask it
Company or a shut door: most of us offer whichever we would want ourselves, which is how a well-meant visit becomes an intrusion. Ask about an actual bad day and what helped, whether that was an hour alone, a meal appearing, or somebody listening without fixing. Then say which of those you find hard to give.
What would you find hard to ask a husband or wife for, even though you need it?
Why ask it
Reassurance, time alone, help with money, being told they are doing well: the needs people are shy of are mostly ordinary ones. Whatever they name is the thing they would go without sooner than mention, so you may have to offer it unasked. Tell them yours in return.
Is there anything about me you are hoping will change once we are married?
Why ask it
Lateness, a temper, how often you see your friends, how religious you are: better named now than waited for in silence. Say plainly which of those you are willing to work on and which is simply you. The same applies in reverse, so if your own list is long, count that as information about the match.
If I asked you to see a counsellor with me, before the wedding or ten years in, would you go?
Why ask it
You are really asking how they treat help. Some people see counselling as maintenance and some as proof that a marriage has failed, and the second group tends to agree only when it is very late. If premarital sessions are offered near you or through a place of worship, ask whether they would sign up.
Trust
Have you been married or engaged before, and are there children from an earlier relationship?
Why ask it
Early and plainly is best; in an introduction it is a fair question for a first or second meeting. A previous marriage or a child changes practical things, from weekends and money to what your own family will say, and none of it is a mark against them. The version to mind is the one you hear later from somebody else.
What ended your last serious relationship, and what was your part in it?
Why ask it
Listen for whether they appear in their own story. 'She was impossible' or 'he changed', with nothing about what they did, suggests how a difficulty between the two of you would be described later. If there has been no earlier relationship, ask the same about a friendship or a job that ended badly.
Have you ever been unfaithful, or come close?
Why ask it
Ask once, calmly, and offer your own answer. Coming close is the part worth hearing about: where they were, what stopped them, what they changed afterwards. A past mistake described honestly tells you more than a quick no, though a no can be simply true.
Where is the line for you between friendly and unfaithful, messages and social media included?
Why ask it
Two people who agree that cheating is wrong can still disagree about a long late-night chat, a lunch kept quiet or a liked photograph. Get an example from each side of their line and give yours. A boundary you first hear about after crossing it feels like an ambush to both of you.
Would you give me the passcode to your phone, and would you want mine?
Why ask it
You are asking about a rule, so nobody has to hand anything over at the table. Some couples share everything and some treat a phone as private in the way a diary is, and both arrangements work when they apply to each of you alike. The answer to notice is the one-way version: open access to yours, none to theirs.
Who has known you longest, and can I meet them?
Why ask it
A friend of fifteen years or a sibling has seen them broke, grieving and in the wrong, which you have not. Where families make enquiries before a match, this is the same thing done openly. Being kept apart from everyone who knows them, month after month, is a reason to slow down.
Is there anything about your health, or your family's, that I should know?
Why ask it
Not a request for records. What you want to hear about is anything that would change plans: a heritable condition, a chronic illness, a mental health history, something known about fertility. Where couples are expected to take a screening test before marrying, ask whether they would do it with you.
If one of us became seriously ill or could not work for a long time, what would you expect of the other?
Why ask it
Nobody knows how they would cope until it happens, so treat the answer as a sketch. A case they have watched is more telling: a parent nursing a parent, an uncle out of work for a year, and what they thought of how it was handled. Notice whether the expectation runs in both directions.
What would make you consider ending a marriage?
Why ask it
Infidelity, violence, addiction, lies about money, years of contempt: people's lists differ, and a few will say nothing ever could. Both answers need a follow-up. Ask the first group what they would try before leaving, and the second what they would do if they were being harmed.
What would I be upset to learn about you a year after the wedding?
Why ask it
Give this one time, and come back to it more than once over the months. A debt, an earlier marriage, a child, a conviction, a diagnosis, a visa problem: whatever is hard to say across a table is far harder to explain once it has been found out. Answer it yourself before you ask.
Working through these before you marry
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to use the list
Start with the group that fits how well you know each other
Two people introduced a few weeks ago can begin with Marriage, Daily life and Family, which ask about the person and their plans. A handful in Conflict ask about the two of you so far, so leave those until you have a disagreement or two to draw on. A couple of several years can start wherever their last unfinished conversation was.
Fun questions to ask a potential mate
Daily life begins with the light ones: who runs for the gate, whose cooking went wrong, what you would be made to sit through on a Sunday. They suit a second or third meeting, when asking about debt would be strange, and each still says something about sharing a home with this person. One of them is also a way out of an evening that has turned heavy.
Spread them out
Take two or three at a time, in ordinary settings, with no plan to reach a conclusion in one sitting. Working through the whole list in an evening turns a conversation into a negotiation, and both of you will present your best case rather than your real one. If your families expect a decision after a few meetings, pick the ten whose answers could change yours and ask those.
Answer as well as ask
Give your own answer to the money, children and household questions before you ask for theirs. Otherwise the conversation becomes an assessment, and assessments produce careful answers.
Watch as well as listen
An answer is a claim. How they speak to a waiter, a younger sibling or their mother when they are irritated is evidence, and so is whether what they told you in March still holds in June. Where the two disagree, go with what you saw.
Write down what you agreed
Two or three lines in a shared note about accounts, timing for children, and where you plan to live. A year later you will each remember the version that suited you, and the note is easier than the argument.
Consider premarital counselling for the sticky ones
If money, in-laws or children keep ending badly, a few sessions with a counsellor or a premarital course gives you a structure and a third person in the room. Going before there is a crisis is the point. What is on offer, and what it costs, depends on where you live and for some couples on their place of worship.
Paperwork these conversations lead to
Put the numbers on the table once
Pay, debts, savings and any support you already pay to a former partner, a child or a parent, seen rather than described. One awkward evening with statements open is easier than finding out by instalments. Leave it until you are close to deciding: nobody owes a bank statement to a person they have met twice.
Check what marriage changes where you live
Tax treatment, inheritance, next-of-kin rights, liability for each other's debts and the effect on any benefits all vary by jurisdiction. Find out what applies to you rather than assuming, particularly if one of you has children or a business, or the two of you hold different passports.
Wills and medical decisions
Marriage does not everywhere make a spouse the automatic heir, or the person a hospital listens to. Once you are engaged, ask a local adviser what a will and a medical proxy do where you live, under whatever names they go by there.
Common mistakes
Treating agreement as the goal
Two people can want different numbers of children and still marry well if both know it and have decided how to handle it. Be more wary of a quick yes offered to close the subject than of an honest no.
Asking during a bad week
These questions raised in the middle of a fight read as a case being built. Raise them when things are calm, and give the harder ones their own occasion rather than tacking them onto an argument.
Letting a deadline do the deciding
A booked venue, a visa date or a relative's wish can make it feel too late to ask. If someone is angry at being asked, or presses you to agree before you have had your answers, treat that as an answer in itself and talk to a person you trust.
Skipping the ones that feel unromantic
Debt, a prenuptial agreement, health and what would end the marriage are the ones people leave out, and they are the hardest to raise for the first time after the wedding. Take them one at a time, on separate days.
Assuming the wedding settles it
Money, work and care of parents get renegotiated after a move, a baby, a redundancy or a diagnosis. Plan on returning to the same four or five questions every couple of years.