Questions to Ask About Marriage
Twenty questions for a couple to work through before marrying, or years into it: money, children, careers, in-laws, faith, conflict, illness, and the point at which either of you would ask for outside help.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What did marriage look like in the house you grew up in?
Why ask it
People copy or react against what they saw, usually without noticing. Ask for ordinary detail rather than a summary: who cooked, who apologised first, whether arguments happened in front of the children.
What do you want from marriage that we would not get from living together?
Why ask it
If the answer is only about family expectations or a wedding, that is worth knowing now. Fuller answers involve commitment, legal protection, children, or how it changes the way you both behave in a hard year.
What does a good ordinary Tuesday look like for us in five years?
Why ask it
Weekdays are what a marriage mostly consists of, and people plan a wedding without ever picturing one. Disagreements about where you live, what evenings look like and who is home for dinner surface here rather than in questions about values.
How do you want money handled: joint, separate, or a mixture?
Why ask it
The mechanics matter more than the principle. All joint, separate accounts with a shared pot, or proportional contributions can all work, but only if both of you describe the same arrangement when asked separately.
What is the largest amount either of us should be able to spend without asking?
Why ask it
Naming a figure exposes a mismatch that general talk about money conceals. Couples who never set one tend to have the argument later, about a specific purchase, with far more heat than the sum deserves.
What debts, savings or financial obligations should each of us know about?
Why ask it
Student loans, family loans, card balances, money sent to relatives, obligations from a previous relationship. This is a disclosure rather than a discussion, and reluctance to answer is itself the answer.
Do you want children, and if so when, and how many?
Why ask it
Timing and number are where couples who agree in principle turn out to disagree. Ask what age each of you would want to have finished by, since that turns an intention into a plan.
If children turned out to be difficult or impossible for us, what then?
Why ask it
Most couples avoid this until they are already in it. Views on treatment, adoption, and accepting a life without children vary widely, and the conversation is much easier before a diagnosis is in the room.
Whose career moves for whose, and how would we decide?
Why ask it
Careers rarely stay symmetrical. Ask what you would do about a specific offer in another city, because a general commitment to supporting each other does not survive contact with a real decision.
How much time do you expect us to spend with each of our families?
Why ask it
Frequency of contact with in-laws is a steady source of low-grade conflict. Ask about the weekly pattern, holidays, and what happens when a parent needs care, since that is the version that eventually arrives.
Where do we spend the holidays, and who tells the families?
Why ask it
This is really a question about who handles their own relatives. If one of you expects the other to deliver unwelcome news to their parents, that pattern will repeat everywhere else.
What does faith or religion require of us as a couple, and of any children?
Why ask it
Differences in practice matter more than differences in belief: attendance, food, holidays, schooling, what a child would be taught. A vague agreement to respect each other usually breaks down when the first child is born.
What do you need when you are upset: space or company?
Why ask it
Practical and immediately usable. A mismatch here produces fights that are actually about method, where one person follows and the other withdraws, and both read the other as not caring.
What did our last serious argument teach you about how we fight?
Why ask it
Reviewing a real argument beats discussing conflict in the abstract. Listen for whether they can describe their own part in it, because that ability predicts more than any stated intention to communicate better.
How long is too long for us to go without sex, and what do we do about it?
Why ask it
Naming a rough tolerance makes the subject raisable later without it sounding like an accusation. The second half matters most: whether the plan is to say something, to wait, or to say nothing at all.
What would count as cheating to you?
Why ask it
Assumptions differ more than people expect: messaging, secrecy, keeping an old relationship alive, physical contact. Ask for the line rather than the label, and be ready to define your own.
Which of your habits would you defend, and which would you change if I asked?
Why ask it
This keeps the conversation concrete and runs in both directions. Anyone who cannot name a single habit they would defend is either exceptionally accommodating or not being straight with you.
If one of us became seriously ill, what would you want the other to do?
Why ask it
Answers cover care, work, money, and where each of you would want to be treated. It is also the natural moment to deal with wills, next of kin, and wishes you would want followed.
What would make you say we need help from someone outside this marriage?
Why ask it
Agreeing a threshold while things are calm is worth a great deal. Couples without one usually reach counselling much later than they should, often after one person has privately decided.
What would have to happen for you to consider leaving?
Why ask it
It sounds bleak and it usually clarifies rather than threatens. Most people name conduct they would consider unrecoverable, and knowing those lines is better than assuming you already do.
How to work through these
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Making the conversation work
Spread them over several evenings
All twenty in one sitting produces exhaustion and then an argument. Three or four at a time, with something ordinary planned afterwards, gets much further.
Answer for yourself before asking about them
The common failure is a conversation about what your partner gets wrong. Answer your own question first, in full, including the part that does not flatter you.
Write down what you agree
How money will work, the plan about children, the point at which you would ask for help. A shared note prevents the version where each of you remembers a different agreement two years later.
Which questions suit which stage
Before getting engaged
- 1What did marriage look like in the house you grew up in?
- 2What do you want from marriage that we would not get otherwise?
- 3Do you want children, and when?
- 4Whose career moves for whose?
Before the wedding
- 1How should money be handled between us?
- 2What debts or obligations should each of us know about?
- 3Where do we spend the holidays, and who tells the families?
- 4What does faith require of us, and of any children?
Already married
- 1What did our last serious argument teach you?
- 2What do you need when you are upset?
- 3What would make you say we need outside help?
- 4What does a good ordinary Tuesday look like in five years?
What goes wrong
Do not use these during a fight
Asked in anger they become accusations with a question mark on the end. If you are already upset, agree a time for the conversation and hold to it.
Do not accept agreement that is only a word
Saying yes to children, or to a city, or to how money works is not the same as being able to describe it. Ask what it would look like in practice and check that the picture matches yours.
Do not treat a disagreement as final on the night
Most couples differ on several of these. The real test is whether each of you can state the other's position fairly a week later, which is what makes a difference negotiable rather than fatal.
If this feels overdue
These work at any stage, and the ones about money, family contact and outside help are the most commonly left unasked for years. Pick the one you are most reluctant to raise and start there, on an evening when nothing else has gone wrong. If a subject keeps ending in the same argument, that is a reasonable thing to take to a counsellor rather than a sign the marriage is failing.