Questions to Ask About Marriage
Questions to ask about marriage, for a couple deciding whether to marry, planning a wedding, or years into it. They run from what marriage means to each of you through money, children and in-laws, daily life, trust and hard times. The last group holds the questions to ask your spouse about your marriage once you are living in it, including several to set expectations with a spouse again when the ones you married on no longer fit.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Expectations
What does marriage mean to you?
Why ask it
Two people can want to marry each other and mean different things by the word: a promise made in front of witnesses, a legal tie, a sacrament, the step before children. Ask for the first picture that comes to mind, not a definition. The picture is what they will measure the real thing against.
What did you learn about marriage from the adults who raised you?
Why ask it
People copy or react against what they saw, usually without noticing. The ordinary detail tells you more 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 do you think makes a marriage last?
Why ask it
Whatever they name, whether luck, effort, faith, friendship or never going to bed angry, is what they will reach for when yours is under strain. Different answers are not a problem in themselves. They do mean each of you will be tending something the other is not watching.
What do you expect of yourself as a husband or wife, and what do you expect of me?
Why ask it
Unspoken assumptions about roles sit here: who earns, who cooks, who remembers the birthdays, who gets up in the night. Hear the part about themselves first. A long list for you and a short one for them is a preview of how the work will be shared.
Why do you want to marry me, and why now?
Why ask it
The first half tends to produce a list of your good qualities, which is pleasant and tells you little. 'Why now' does the work. Age, a parent's hints, a lease running out and a summer of friends' weddings all push people towards a proposal, and it is better to name the push than to pretend there is none.
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.
Whose marriage that we both know would you want ours to look like?
Why ask it
A named couple is far more informative than a list of adjectives, because you can both see how those two people actually treat each other. If they cannot think of a single one, that is worth talking about too.
What are you hoping changes once we are married, and what should stay exactly as it is?
Why ask it
Some people expect marriage to settle something that is currently unsettled. Hearing the hope out loud lets you say honestly whether you can deliver it, rather than discovering the expectation when it goes unmet.
What frightens you about marriage, if anything does?
Why ask it
The fear is usually specific and often old: losing independence, repeating a parent's divorce, growing bored, being left. It does not need solving on the spot. Knowing which one it is tells you what to handle carefully for years.
Money
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.
How much can one of us spend on a whim before the other should hear about it?
Why ask it
Naming a figure exposes a mismatch that general talk about money conceals. Without one, the argument tends to arrive later, over one particular purchase, with 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, so swap the figures before you swap opinions about them. If either of you hesitates, ask what makes it hard to say.
What are we saving for first, and what would you give up to get there?
Why ask it
Everyone wants the house. Fewer want three years without a trip away to reach it, and that trade is where two savers turn out to be different people. Put the goals in order, then ask what each of you would go without for the first one.
If one of us earned far more, or stopped earning for a while, how would that change who decides?
Why ask it
Plenty of couples call the money shared and then find the higher earner holds a casting vote nobody agreed to. Settle it before a pay rise, a job loss or a baby makes it personal, and distrust any answer that only works while your incomes stay level.
When a relative asks us for money, what do we say, and who says it?
Why ask it
It might be a sibling's rent, a parent's medical bill or a cousin's business idea, and it usually comes to one of you alone. Agree whether it would be a gift or a loan, where the ceiling is, and that nothing is promised until the other has heard about it.
Do we want a prenuptial agreement, or anything else in writing?
Why ask it
Asking is not a forecast of divorce. It shows what each of you thinks of as mine, ours, or my family's. What an agreement can cover, and whether a court would uphold it, depends on where you live, so take the detail to a family lawyer there.
Which of us keeps track of the bills and paperwork, and how does the other stay in the picture?
Why ask it
One person tends to become the household's finance department, which works until they are ill, away or gone. As a rough test, either of you should be able to find every account and say roughly what is in it.
If one of us lost a job or money got tight, what would we change first?
Why ask it
Couples mostly find out how they handle pressure in the month it arrives. Naming the first cut, which savings you would touch and whether you would ask family for help turns a frightening idea into a short list.
Family
Do you want children, and if so, how many do you picture, and starting when?
Why ask it
Wanting children is the easy part to agree on. Number and timing are where it comes apart, so ask what age each of you would hope to be when the youngest is born. That turns an intention into a plan.
If children turned out to be difficult or impossible for us, what then?
Why ask it
This one usually goes unasked until a couple is already in it. Views on treatment, adoption and a life without children differ a great deal, and they are easier to hear before a diagnosis is in the room.
When a baby comes, which of us goes part-time or stays home, and for how long?
Why ask it
A baby takes more hours than two full-time jobs leave over, so something gives: one career, both careers a little, or a large childcare bill. Leave and childcare costs vary a great deal by country and employer, so look up what each of you is actually entitled to before assuming anything.
What from your own childhood would you repeat with our children, and what would you never do?
Why ask it
Listen hardest to the 'never'. People are firm about it, and it is often exactly what comes out of them when they are tired and a child is screaming. A partner who knows the story can step in without it turning into a fight.
How strict would you be as a parent, and what do we do when we disagree in front of the children?
Why ask it
Bedtimes, screens, pocket money and what counts as rude all sit under 'strict', and few people can place themselves until you give an example. The second half is the one to settle: whether you back each other in the moment and talk it over later, out of earshot, or say so on the spot.
How much time do you expect us to spend with each of our families?
Why ask it
Once a week and twice a year both feel normal to the people who grew up with them, so each of you may be assuming the other shares your number. Compare the ordinary pattern you have in mind: Sunday lunches, daily phone calls, how long a visit lasts and where everyone sleeps.
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 break unwelcome news to their parents, expect the same arrangement for every awkward message after it.
What part do you expect our parents to have in our decisions and in our home?
Why ask it
A key to your front door, a view on where you should buy, money that comes with opinions attached: each needs agreeing before it is offered. Watch for an answer that describes closeness and leaves out who wins when their family disagrees with you.
What happens when one of our parents can no longer manage alone?
Why ask it
Moving them in, moving nearer, paying for care and leaving it to a sibling are four different marriages. The news tends to come as a phone call, so talk while everyone is well, and say out loud who each of you assumes would do the caring.
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 tends to be tested when the first child arrives, so talk about the child now.
Whose surname do we use after the wedding, and which would children carry?
Why ask it
It looks like paperwork and carries family pride, professional identity and whatever each set of parents assumes. Raise it early, since it is far harder to discuss once someone has told their mother. How a name change works differs by country, so check the process where you live.
Daily Life
Where do we want to live, and what would it take for you to move?
Why ask it
Where you live settles a good deal else: the work available, what a home costs, how far away the grandparents are. Asking what it would take separates a preference from a condition, and a condition needs saying before anyone signs a lease.
If one of us was offered a good job in another city, whose career would give way?
Why ask it
Careers rarely stay level, and a general promise to support each other is easy to make. Give the offer a city and a salary and see whether you both answer the same way. Then ask whether the answer would hold the second time it happened.
How do we divide the housework, and who is going to notice when it has not been done?
Why ask it
Dividing the tasks is the easy half. The imbalance that breeds resentment is one person keeping the whole list in their head: what has run out, what is due, whose turn it is. Ask who holds that list in your home today.
In an ordinary week, how many evenings do you need alone or out with your own friends?
Why ask it
People rarely realise how different their baseline is until one of them feels abandoned and the other feels smothered. Asking for a number gets you further than asking whether they need space, which everyone answers with 'a bit'.
What do you want our evenings and weekends to be for?
Why ask it
A couple can agree on every large question and still be unhappy because one wants a full calendar and the other an empty one. Compare last weekend with the one each of you would have chosen, hour by hour if need be.
When the two of us are stuck on a big decision, how does it get made?
Why ask it
Some couples wait until both agree, some let whoever cares most decide, and some find that one person has quietly always had the last word. Try it on a real example, a car or a school or a move, and notice whether 'we decide together' still describes what happens.
What makes you feel loved by me, and what do I do that barely registers?
Why ask it
Most of us give affection in the form we would like to receive it, so a good deal of effort goes unseen. Finding out which of your gestures land lets you put the same energy somewhere it is noticed. Try not to be hurt by the list of ones that do not.
How do we keep time for just the two of us when work and family fill the week?
Why ask it
Time together rarely vanishes in one go. It gets traded away an evening at a time, to overtime, children's bedtimes and whatever is on the screen. Agree something small and fixed, a walk on Sundays or dinner with the phones in another room, and guard it the way you would a work meeting.
Which of my friends or relatives do you find hard work, and what would you like me to do about it?
Why ask it
Nearly everyone has one, and pretending otherwise turns each invitation into a small negotiation. Some people want fewer visits. Others only want you to stop defending that person on the drive home.
What do you still want to do for yourself, and what would it cost us?
Why ask it
A degree, a business, a long trip, a sport taken seriously: a marriage either makes room or admits it cannot. Talk about the cost in evenings and money as well as the dream, so that what you end up with is a plan and not just encouragement.
Trust and Hard Times
What do you need when you are upset: space or company?
Why ask it
A mismatch here produces fights that are really about method: one person follows, the other withdraws, and each reads the other as not caring. Whatever they tell you can be put to use the same evening.
What did our last serious argument teach you about how we fight?
Why ask it
A real argument is better evidence than any talk about communicating well. Listen for whether they can describe their own part in it as clearly as yours. If neither of you can, start with who went quiet first and who raised their voice.
What does a real apology sound like to you, and when did you last get one from me?
Why ask it
Some people need the words, some need the behaviour to change, and some need to be asked what it was like for them. An apology in the wrong form does not register, which is how one of you can end up certain the other never says sorry.
What have you recently held back from telling me because you thought I would react badly?
Why ask it
The answer shows how safe honesty feels between you at the moment, which is hard to find out any other way. How you take it decides whether you are told the next thing, so thank them before you respond to what they said.
Where does cheating start for 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.
What could I do, other than cheat, that would break your trust?
Why ask it
Hidden debt, a complaint about you confided to their mother, a job accepted without a word: none of these is an affair and any of them can land like one. Each of you has to name your own, because nobody can avoid a line they have never been shown.
What should stay between the two of us, and what is fine to tell friends or family?
Why ask it
One of you may talk a problem through with a sister while the other counts that as exposure. Go by category: money, arguments, health, anything one of you said in confidence. Then each of you knows what you are free to say when someone asks how things are.
How open should our phones, messages and accounts be to each other?
Why ask it
Shared passwords feel like closeness to some people and like being watched to others, and neither view is suspicious in itself. Agree a rule you would both be comfortable having applied to you. Trouble starts when 'private' quietly comes to mean 'hidden', or when only one of you does the checking.
What from an earlier relationship are you still carrying, and how would I recognise it?
Why ask it
An old betrayal or a parent who left can be set off by something small, and a partner who does not know the history takes the reaction personally. You are asking for the warning sign, not the full account. How much of the story to tell is up to them.
What should I know about your health, and what do you want to know about mine?
Why ask it
A spouse is usually the first to notice a change and the one in the waiting room, so family history, medication and any bad stretch with mood or drink are theirs to know. Offer your own first. Pressing for detail they are not ready to give teaches them to say less.
If one of us became seriously ill, what would you want the other to do?
Why ask it
Start with the practical side: who would cut back at work, what the money would look like, whether you would want family close by or kept at a distance. It leads on to wills and to who is allowed to decide for you if you cannot. Those rules differ from country to country, so find out how it works where you live.
What would make you say we need help from someone outside this marriage?
Why ask it
Agree the threshold while things are calm, because in a bad month one of you will think it is too soon and the other too late. It could be the same argument three times running, or a week of barely speaking. Decide as well whether either of you can call it alone.
Is divorce ever on the table for you, and what would put it there?
Why ask it
It sounds bleak, and asked calmly it tends to clarify rather than threaten. One person rules divorce out on principle, and another names conduct they could not come back from, such as violence, repeated lying or an affair. Better to hear which now than to assume you already know.
Years In
What do you think we do better than most couples?
Why ask it
Talk about a marriage leans towards what is wrong with it, so ask this one on purpose. The strength each of you names is what you fall back on in a bad year, and it is good to hear your partner say it aloud.
What has surprised you most about being married to me?
Why ask it
Good surprises and awkward ones both count, and the small ones say the most: how you are before breakfast, what you turned out to be careful or careless about. If you are not married yet, put it to a couple who are and compare what they say with what you expect.
Which stretch of our marriage has been the hardest so far, and what got us through it?
Why ask it
You may well name different stretches, and that alone tells you something: one of you may have had a hard year the other barely registered. Whatever got you through, whether a friend, a routine or plain stubbornness, is the thing to protect before the next one.
What did I use to do that you miss?
Why ask it
Small things go first: a note left out, a walk after dinner, asking how the meeting went. It is a request dressed as a memory, and much easier to hear than 'you never'. Pick one and bring it back this week without announcing it.
What do you need more of from me this year than you did when we married?
Why ask it
Needs move with children, jobs, health and age, and a couple can keep faithfully supplying what was wanted ten years ago. Keeping it to this year makes the answer small enough to act on.
What do you expect of me that you have never said out loud?
Why ask it
An expectation nobody has heard is one the other person can only meet by luck. They tend to be small and daily: a message when you are running late, being asked about the day, who books the dentist. Trade one each, and hold off arguing about whether it is reasonable until both are on the table.
Which of my expectations of you feels unfair or out of date?
Why ask it
Something agreed when you both worked the same hours, or before there were children, can go on being enforced long after the reason for it has gone. Hear it without defending it. Whether to drop it or renegotiate it can wait for another evening.
What have you ended up responsible for that we never agreed on?
Why ask it
Jobs settle on whoever did them first: the school emails, the car, presents for both families, the calls to your mother as well as theirs. Some of them your spouse may be glad to keep. Go through them one at a time and say keep, swap or share, so that the arrangement is chosen this time.
What should we expect of each other in a week when one of us is stretched thin?
Why ask it
A deadline, a sick child or a run of bad nights changes what is fair to ask. Decide in advance what is allowed to slip, such as cooking or tidiness, and what is not, such as saying goodnight properly. It saves the tired one from having to plead a case on the worst day.
When I let you down over something small, how would you like me to hear about it?
Why ask it
Some people want it said at the time, some later that evening, and some would save it for a calm moment at the weekend. With no agreed route, a forgotten errand gets stored up and comes out as a remark about what kind of person you are. Give each other the wording that would be easy to take.
How often should we check in on how the marriage is going, and what would make that easy to keep up?
Why ask it
A fixed half hour once a month suits some couples and feels like an appraisal to others, who do better on a walk or a long drive. With no habit at all, the subject tends to come up only in the middle of a quarrel. Choose the lightest version you would both actually turn up for.
When do you feel most like we are on the same side, and when least?
Why ask it
The 'most' tends to be a project, a crisis handled well or a joke nobody else gets. The 'least' is usually a repeating scene such as school mornings, the monthly bills or one particular relative, and a scene that repeats can be redesigned.
What are we putting off talking about?
Why ask it
Most marriages have a subject both people steer around: a parent's care, a debt, whether to have another child, how much one of you is drinking. Naming it is not the same as having the conversation. Agree a day for that and stop there for tonight.
What do you want the next ten years of our marriage to hold?
Why ask it
Before a wedding this checks that your pictures match. Twenty years in it matters more, because children leaving, retirement or a move can take away the routine a marriage has been running on. Ask again every few years and expect the answer to have shifted.
What is one thing you would want us to promise never to do to each other?
Why ask it
What a person picks tends to point at something they have already lived through: being mocked in front of friends, the silent treatment, a threat to leave made in the middle of a row. Write both answers down. They are worth reading again in a few years.
How to work through these
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Making the conversation work
Pick a group, not the whole page
The list runs in six groups: Expectations, Money, Family, Daily Life, Trust and Hard Times, and Years In. Start with the one that fits where you are: a couple talking about getting engaged with Expectations, a couple planning a wedding with Money or Family, a couple ten years married with Years In.
Spread them over several evenings
Working through the whole list in one sitting is a good way to end up tired and short with each other. Three or four questions 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.
Put a few to a couple you admire
Some of these travel outside your own relationship. Ask a couple whose marriage you respect what they think makes one last, how they settled money, what surprised them, or what their hardest stretch was. Their answers give the two of you something neutral to react to before you answer for yourselves.
Which questions suit which stage
Before getting engaged
- 1What does marriage mean to you?
- 2Why do you want to marry me, and why now?
- 3What do you want from marriage that we would not get from living together?
- 4Do you want children, and if so, how many do you picture, and starting when?
- 5Where do we want to live, and what would it take for you to move?
Before the wedding
- 1How do you want money handled: joint, separate, or a mixture?
- 2What debts, savings or financial obligations should each of us know about?
- 3Do we want a prenuptial agreement, or anything else in writing?
- 4Where do we spend the holidays, and who tells the families?
- 5Whose surname do we use after the wedding, and which would children carry?
Already married
- 1Which stretch of our marriage has been the hardest so far, and what got us through it?
- 2What did I use to do that you miss?
- 3What did our last serious argument teach you about how we fight?
- 4What are we putting off talking about?
- 5What would make you say we need help from someone outside this marriage?
To set expectations with your spouse
- 1What do you expect of yourself as a husband or wife, and what do you expect of me?
- 2What do you expect of me that you have never said out loud?
- 3Which of my expectations of you feels unfair or out of date?
- 4What have you ended up responsible for that we never agreed on?
- 5What should we expect of each other in a week when one of us is stretched thin?
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 easiest to leave unasked for years. If you are already married, the Years In group was written for you, and nothing in the earlier groups expires on the wedding day. Pick the question 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.