Questions to Ask Before Marriage as a Christian
Christian questions to ask before marriage, for a couple who are engaged and want to talk about more than the wedding day, and for two believers still weighing each other as a potential spouse. The 86 questions run in six groups: your faith and how you practise it, church and the people around you, roles and money, children and family, trust and conflict, and the vows themselves, including illness, doubt and divorce. Eight are written for before you get engaged, while "not yet" is still an easy thing to say. Take a few at a time over several weeks.
The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Faith
How did you come to follow Christ, and what is different about you because of it?
Why ask it
You have probably heard the short version. Ask for the long one, including the years it went cold, because that is how you learn whether this faith has come through anything yet.
In a normal week, when do you actually pray, read the Bible and get to church?
Why ask it
Stated beliefs and lived habits often differ, and a plain timetable is the gentlest way to see the gap. Someone who describes what they really do, including the weeks it slips, is easier to plan a shared life with than someone who answers with what they intend.
What do you believe marriage is for?
Why ask it
Companionship, children, a picture of Christ and the church, two people being made holier: Christians lead with different answers. None is wrong, but the one a person puts first tends to be the thing they will think has failed when a hard year comes.
What makes you believe God is in this, and not only the two of us wanting it?
Why ask it
People point to a settled peace, advice from others, a list of reasons, sometimes a sign. Whichever it is, ask what would have told them no. A sense of leading that could only ever have said yes is hard to tell apart from a wish.
How do you want us to pray together once we are married: when, and who starts?
Why ask it
Get the actual shape: morning or night, out loud or silently side by side, and what happens on the night one of you is exhausted. If either of you has never prayed aloud in front of another person, say so, because that shyness is easy to mistake for reluctance.
What could the two of us do for God together that neither of us would do alone?
Why ask it
Some couples have a ready answer: a spare room for foster children, a youth group, work overseas. Having none yet is fine. What you are checking is whether your partner already has a picture you do not appear in, or one that needs you to give up something nobody has asked you about.
How were faith and marriage handled in your parents' home, and what do you want to carry over?
Why ask it
Most of what people expect from a Christian marriage was absorbed rather than chosen. The parts they can identify and reject are usually fine. The parts they describe as simply normal are the ones that will surprise you.
Do you want us to read the Bible together, or keep that as something each of us does alone?
Why ask it
Plenty of strong couples never manage a joint study and feel guilty about it for years. Settle whether it is a real wish or an inherited ideal. If one of you wants it and the other dreads it, a short shared reading once a week is a better promise than a daily one nobody keeps.
What do you do with a Bible passage you dislike or cannot make sense of?
Why ask it
The answer shows how your partner treats an authority they find inconvenient. Skipping the passage, asking a pastor and deciding it no longer applies are three different habits, and the habit will matter the first time a verse is quoted in one of your own arguments.
Where do we believe different things, and which of those could you live with for fifty years?
Why ask it
Baptism, the gifts of the Spirit, women preaching, how to read Genesis, what happens at communion. Sort them into the ones that would change how you raise a child and the ones that only make for a good debate. Do not count on the other person coming round.
Which of us is further along in faith right now, and does that bother either of us?
Why ask it
Being equally yoked gets treated as a yes or no about belonging to the faith, but couples feel a gap in pace far more often. The one who is ahead should say whether they are waiting to be caught up with, and the other whether they feel marked.
What did you pray for in a future husband or wife, and where am I not what you pictured?
Why ask it
Plenty of people raised in church kept a list, written or not, of what a godly spouse would be. Ask for the items you do not match. You want to know before a proposal whether your partner has let those go or is quietly waiting for you to grow into them.
Before we get engaged, what do you still need to know about what I believe and how I live it?
Why ask it
A ring makes a searching question sound like second thoughts, so the months before one are the easiest time to ask. Invite the awkward ones: a doctrine you have dodged, a stretch when you stopped going to church, what you really think of their tradition.
If you saw me drifting from God, how would you tell me, and how should I tell you?
Why ask it
A spouse is the first to notice and the worst placed to say so without sounding like a nag. Agree on the form while nobody is drifting: a question, a note, an invitation to pray. Ask what has backfired when other people tried it.
What do you pray for when you pray for me?
Why ask it
A warm question in a list of hard ones, so save it for when the evening needs lifting. The answer shows what they see in you and what they worry about on your behalf. If they have never prayed for you by name, better to hear that kindly now.
In what order do God, marriage, children, church and work come for you, and when has that order slipped?
Why ask it
Anyone raised in church can recite the order. The honest part is the season work came first, or ministry did, and what it took to notice. Someone who grew up in a pastor's house may have strong feelings about church outranking family.
Where does your faith shape your politics, and could you be at peace with me voting differently?
Why ask it
Two people in the same pew can read the same Bible and vote opposite ways, each sure it follows from their faith. Find out whether your partner holds their politics as a conviction or as part of who they are. The first can share a breakfast table with disagreement more easily than the second.
Church and community
Which church would we go to, and how would we decide?
Why ask it
Couples from different traditions frequently assume the other will move, and nobody says so until the first Sunday after the honeymoon. If one of you would be giving up a congregation you grew up in, name the cost now.
Would either of us need to be baptised, confirmed or received as a member for us to belong to one church?
Why ask it
Traditions differ on whose baptism they recognise and who may take communion, and some ask for classes before membership. Ask the minister how it works there before assuming. For the person who would have to go through it, being told an earlier baptism does not count can sting more than expected.
Who will marry us, and what does that church ask of a couple first?
Why ask it
Some churches require a preparation course, a set number of meetings, membership or a notice period, and the rules vary by denomination and by congregation. Ask early, since it can decide the date. If either of you has been married before, ask about that as well, because churches differ on it.
What do we want the wedding service to say about what we believe?
Why ask it
Hymns or a band, communion or none, vows from the book or your own words, a dry reception or not. It is the first decision you make in front of both families at once. Watch how the two of you settle it, since the next disagreement will probably be settled the same way.
What does a Sunday look like in our house?
Why ask it
Some families guard the whole day: church, a long lunch, no shopping, no work email. Others treat the service as the commitment and the afternoon as free. Each of you probably thinks your version is the obvious one, so include what happens when a work shift, a game or a toddler's nap collides with the service.
How much serving do you want us doing, and what would you drop if it started costing us our evenings?
Why ask it
Church commitment can quietly become a second job. The useful part of the answer is what they would give up, because someone who cannot name anything is describing a schedule you will be living inside.
How open do you want our home to be to guests, small groups and people who need a bed?
Why ask it
Hospitality sounds lovely until it is the third week running with a group in the living room or a friend from church in the spare room. If a full house rests one of you and wears the other out, say so before the invitations go out. Agree who can say yes without asking.
How much of our social life do you want inside the church, and how much outside it?
Why ask it
A couple whose every friend comes from one congregation loses all of them at once if they ever leave it. A couple with no church friends has nobody nearby who shares what the vows meant. Ask which present friendships each of you expects to keep, including the friends who find your faith odd.
What would make you want to leave a church, and how would we make that call together?
Why ask it
Some people leave over a sermon series and some stay through anything. Ask for the nearest they have come, whether over a new pastor, a teaching or a falling-out. If one of you goes and the other stays, Sunday becomes the loneliest morning of the week.
Who do you talk to about us, and what do you tell them?
Why ask it
Some people process a relationship with a small group, a mentor, or a parent. That can be healthy or it can mean a third party hears about your conflicts before you do. Learn who is in the room before you are married into it.
How much say should a pastor or elder have in our decisions once we are married?
Why ask it
A leader in one church expects to be consulted about a move, a job or a quarrel. In another, nobody would offer a view unless asked. Name what each of you would bring to a leader and what stays between the two of you. If a church's oversight has ever felt like control to either of you, tell that story.
Is there an older married couple we both trust enough to learn from?
Why ask it
A couple twenty years in will tell you things a course cannot, mostly about the dull middle years. If each of you can only name couples from your own side, pick one from each and compare what they say. Ask them what they argued about in year two.
Do you want a parent's or a pastor's blessing before a proposal, and what if it were withheld?
Why ask it
Asking a father first is expected in some families and churches and would seem strange in others, so find out which custom your partner grew up with. The second half is the harder one: whether a no from a parent or a pastor would end things, delay them, or be heard and set aside.
What have our pastor, our parents and our closest friends said about the two of us marrying?
Why ask it
Unanimous enthusiasm is pleasant and tells you little. The useful material is the hesitation someone voiced once and then dropped. Go back to that person and ask them to finish the sentence, then tell each other what they said.
If we get stuck on something, would you sit with a counsellor, and who would you accept?
Why ask it
Willingness in principle is common, so ask for names. Someone who will only see a pastor from their own church, or nobody, is telling you what happens the first time you need outside help and cannot agree on who.
Roles and money
When you hear 'headship' and 'submission', what do you picture actually happening in our house?
Why ask it
The same verses in Ephesians can produce two quite different homes. Ask for a scene, not a definition: a job offer in another city, a large purchase, whose career gives way. If either word makes one of you uneasy, this is the place to say it.
What does spiritual leadership at home look like to you, and who does which part?
Why ask it
The phrase hides a job list. Who suggests praying, who chooses what is read, who notices that it has lapsed for a month? One of you may be waiting for the other to start and reading the silence as indifference.
Who does what around the house, and is any of it settled by being the husband or the wife?
Why ask it
Couples who agree warmly about roles in principle can still be startled by who is expected to iron. Write the real list, from cooking and laundry to remembering birthdays, then look at whether you divided it by conviction, by habit, or by who minds the mess more.
When we disagree about a big decision, how do we tell your conviction from God's guidance?
Why ask it
Watch whether they can describe a way of being wrong. A partner who has no process beyond certainty leaves you no way to disagree, because every disagreement becomes a disagreement with God.
If we have prayed, talked and still disagree, who decides?
Why ask it
One view is that the husband carries the final call, another that you wait until both agree. Whichever you hold, ask how often you each expect it to come up. A casting vote exercised twice in a lifetime and one exercised monthly are different marriages under the same name.
What would we do if one of us felt called to something the other did not want?
Why ask it
A move, ordination, a mission posting, a drop in income. The question is whether a sense of calling in one person automatically binds the other, and couples answer that very differently once it is concrete.
Would one of us stay at home when children come, and is that a conviction or a preference?
Why ask it
In some churches a parent at home is close to expected and in others it is one option among several. Find out which it is for your partner, and whether it is an assumption they have never examined. Then check it against the budget, since a conviction you cannot afford needs a plan.
How much of our income do you want to give away, and does that come off the top?
Why ask it
Giving is where doctrine meets the household budget. Some people mean a tenth set aside before anything else, others whatever is left in a good month, and those two lead to very different arguments. Ask whether the figure is counted before or after tax, and whether all of it goes to the church.
What do you owe, and what do you believe about borrowing?
Why ask it
Figures first: student loans, cards, a car, anything owed to family. Then the conviction, because some believers want every debt gone fast and others see a mortgage as plain prudence. A cautious saver marrying someone relaxed about owing needs an agreed plan more than a verse.
What would you want in place before we got engaged: steady work, a debt cleared, somewhere to live?
Why ask it
Some believers hold that a man should be able to provide before he proposes, and others expect to build from nothing together. If one of you is waiting on a threshold the other has never heard about, the delay starts to look like doubt. Name the condition and put a rough date on it.
Will we put everything into one pot, and what would either of us still want to keep separate?
Why ask it
Many Christian couples assume joint accounts as a matter of principle, and others keep some money apart without feeling less married. Whichever you choose, check that each of you can see all of it. Money one spouse cannot see is a trust problem before it is a budget problem.
How simply do you want to live, and what would feel like too much?
Why ask it
Two people can give away the same share and still disagree about whether a new kitchen is good stewardship or showing off. Go through the house, the car, holidays and Christmas spending with real prices and see who flinches.
If a relative or someone at church needed money, how would we decide whether to help?
Why ask it
Generosity that one spouse learns about afterwards feels like a withdrawal, however good the cause. Agree on an amount above which you ask each other first. Decide too whether it is a gift or a loan, since loans inside a family or a congregation tend to end up as neither.
Family
How many children do you hope for, and what do you believe about planning when they come?
Why ask it
Churches teach different things about contraception, from a firm no to a matter of conscience, and many people have never checked what theirs says. Find out what your partner believes and how firmly. The numbers and the timing are easier to talk about once that is on the table.
What kind of mother or father do you think I would be, and what have you seen that makes you say so?
Why ask it
Ask for evidence: how you are with a niece, a youth group, a tired child in a supermarket queue. Someone weighing you as a potential spouse is also weighing you as a parent to their children, and it is kinder to hear a doubt while it is still only an observation.
What do you picture for our children's upbringing in the faith?
Why ask it
Look for specifics: grace at meals, bedtime prayers, baptism or dedication, youth group, whether attendance would be required at sixteen. Broad agreement that faith matters conceals real disagreement about how much of a child's week it should occupy.
Would you want our children at a Christian school, taught at home, or at the local school?
Why ask it
Each is the faithful choice in somebody's eyes, and each costs something. Home education takes most of one parent's working week, fees and places at church schools depend on where you live, and the local school leaves the teaching of faith to the two of you. Work out which one your partner has been assuming without saying.
How were you disciplined as a child, and what would you do differently?
Why ask it
Christian homes run from very strict to very gentle, and people tend to defend or reject their own wholesale. Listen for what they would keep. 'It never did me any harm' and 'I would never do that to a child' are both the start of a longer talk, best had before there is a toddler in the room.
What will we tell our children about Santa, Halloween and the rest?
Why ask it
It sounds trivial, and plenty of Christian households are divided over it. To some parents it is harmless fun, to others a lie told to a child, or something darker. Settling it over coffee now beats negotiating it in front of a five-year-old and two sets of grandparents.
What if we cannot have children?
Why ask it
Painful to raise while everything is hopeful, and much harder to raise later. Not every church or conscience is at ease with fertility treatment, so ask what each of you would be willing to consider and what you would rule out. One of you may see childlessness as something to accept and the other as something to treat.
Would you consider adoption or fostering, and would it be a calling for you or a second choice?
Why ask it
Adoption is often spoken of in churches as a calling, and one of you may have carried the idea for years. It lands badly when it first comes up as a fallback during a hard season. Ask whether they would want it alongside biological children, too.
What would we do if a child of ours walked away from the faith?
Why ask it
Decades off, and still worth asking, since it shows what each of you thinks parenting is for. One answer keeps the door and the dinner table open and another makes belonging conditional. You are also hearing how they might treat you.
What do we owe our parents as they get older, and would either of them ever live with us?
Why ask it
Honouring father and mother means different things in different families: a weekly call, money sent home, a parent moved into the spare room. Your partner's family may take one of these for granted, particularly if they are the eldest or the only child. Ask what their parents did for their own.
What does leaving your father and mother look like for you in practice?
Why ask it
The old phrase covers more than moving out: who hears news first, whose advice settles a question, whether a parent still has a key. Ask what your partner expects to change. Then ask whether their mother or father would give the same answer.
How should we handle holidays between two families and two church calendars?
Why ask it
Christmas and Easter carry inherited obligations that feel non-negotiable until they collide. Setting a rough pattern now, including who tells which parent, saves an annual argument that gets harder once children are involved.
If one of our families does not share our faith, or practises it very differently, what do we go along with?
Why ask it
Decide which things you would do out of love and which you would politely decline: grace at their table or none, a christening they expect, a grandparent taking the children to a different church. Whatever you settle, each of you does the explaining to your own parents.
Trust and conflict
What have you not told me about your past that you think a spouse should know?
Why ask it
Open-ended and voluntary is the point: you are learning what they consider your business, not conducting an interrogation. Note whether they answer, deflect, or take the chance to ask you the same thing.
Which hard things have we not yet seen each other go through: illness, a lost job, a family row?
Why ask it
Courtships among Christians can be short, and a couple who have mostly met at church and on good evenings know each other's best behaviour. List what is missing, then talk to someone who has watched your partner under strain. A long list is a reason to give it more months before a ring, not a reason to worry.
What are you hoping for, and nervous about, in the physical side of marriage?
Why ask it
Teaching on purity can leave a couple with firm convictions and no words for any of this. Keep it to hopes and worries, not details, and expect it to take more than one conversation. If neither of you can start, ask whoever is preparing you for marriage to raise it.
Is there anything about how we are handling our engagement that sits badly with your conscience?
Why ask it
It covers the physical side without making that the only subject: also what is being spent on the wedding, how much time you spend alone, a parent being shut out. When something troubles one conscience and not the other, the engaged months are the time to sort it out, with help if you need it.
What accountability do you want around temptation once we are married?
Why ask it
Concrete answers involve phones, travel, friendships, alcohol, and who is allowed to ask. An answer that rests only on willpower and prayer says nothing about what happens after a slip, and that is the part accountability exists for.
Is there a habit you are fighting right now that I should know about before the wedding?
Why ask it
Drink, gambling, spending, something on a screen they would not want you to see. In church circles these are often confessed to an accountability partner and never to the person most affected. You are not asking for a spotless record, only not to find out in year three.
What do you believe about alcohol, and about what we watch and listen to at home?
Why ask it
Convictions about drink and entertainment are usually inherited from one church and assumed to be universal. A glass of wine with dinner is ordinary in one family and unthinkable in another. Settle the house rule, and what you will do at other people's tables.
How do you feel about close friendships with the opposite sex once we are married?
Why ask it
Church teaching runs from never being alone in a car with someone who is not your spouse to no rules at all. Skip the argument over which is right and get practical: lunches, rides home, private messages, a colleague who confides in you. Whatever line one of you needs, the other should hear it before crossing it by accident.
If you had done something that would hurt me, would you tell me that day, or once you had worked out how to say it?
Why ask it
Confession is often taught as something between a person and God, which can make telling the injured spouse feel optional. Find out whether your partner thinks it is. Most people say they would want to be told at once, so ask whether they would manage to do the telling.
Do we settle an argument before bed, or is it all right to sleep on it?
Why ask it
Many Christians grew up hearing 'do not let the sun go down on your anger' as a rule about bedtime. One of you may need it resolved at midnight while the other only makes sense after sleep. Agree what counts as enough for tonight, which is often a truce and a time to pick it up.
What do you do when you are angry, and has anyone ever been frightened of you?
Why ask it
The first half brings out habits: silence, sarcasm, a slammed door, a long walk. The second is the one to stay on. If the honest answer is yes, take it to a counsellor before the wedding, and remember that no teaching on submission or forgiveness asks anyone to live in fear.
Can you pray with me while you are still angry with me?
Why ask it
Praying in the middle of an argument softens some couples. For others it turns into preaching at each other with eyes closed. Say which it has been for you, and whether sitting in silence together would be easier than words.
When I have really hurt you, what do you need from me before it feels forgiven?
Why ask it
Some people hold that forgiveness is said once and the matter is closed. Others need to see changed behaviour over weeks before it feels real. Leave that unspoken and one of you ends up feeling unforgiven while the other feels permanently on trial.
Vows and hard years
What do you think we are promising each other when we say the vows?
Why ask it
You have probably never said this in your own words. Read the vows you will use aloud to each other, line by line, and say what each line would ask of you in a bad year. A promise that holds regardless and a promise that holds while things are good can hide behind the same sentence.
Is anything pushing us toward the altar faster than we would choose?
Why ask it
Being tired of saying goodnight on a doorstep, a family's expectations, a visa, every friend marrying this year. None of these is a bad reason to want to be married, and all of them are bad reasons to skip a conversation. Say which ones are at work on you.
How long should our engagement be, and what are those months for?
Why ask it
One church encourages a short engagement and another wants a year and a preparation course, so ask what yours expects. Whatever the length, most of it goes on venues and guest lists. That is the case for having these conversations before the proposal instead of squeezing them in afterwards.
If these conversations showed that we should not get engaged, could either of us say so?
Why ask it
Asking before there is a ring only helps if no is still a possible answer. Tell each other whether you would read a courtship that ended as a failure or as guidance, and who you would each go to that week. If one of you could never be the person to say it, the other has to make it safe.
Is there anything you are counting on marriage to cure: loneliness, temptation, restlessness?
Why ask it
Church culture sometimes presents marriage as the answer to all three. A wedding changes where you live and who you eat with, and leaves most of what you carried in untouched. Hearing the hope said aloud lets the other person say, kindly, that they cannot be the cure.
If one of us needed years of care, what would 'in sickness and in health' ask of the other?
Why ask it
Easy to promise at the front of a church when you are both well. Talk about someone each of you has watched do it, a parent nursing a spouse or a friend whose husband had a stroke, and what it cost them. Say what you would find hardest: the money, the loss of your own plans, or being needed all day.
If one of us struggled with depression or anxiety, would you see it as a matter for prayer, for a doctor, or both?
Why ask it
In some churches low mood is still read mainly as a spiritual failing, and people learn to hide it. This is not about diagnosing anyone. It tells you whether your partner would drive you to an appointment, pray with you, or suggest you try harder, and whether they would accept the same help themselves.
What do you believe God is doing when life goes badly?
Why ask it
Discipline, a test, the ordinary cost of a broken world, something nobody can know: people hold very different views and rarely state them. If one of you believes enough faith keeps trouble away, illness will arrive carrying blame. Talk about a real loss either of you has had, not a hypothetical one.
How do you behave toward God when you are angry or disappointed with him?
Why ask it
This reveals whether their faith has room for grief. Someone who has only ever performed contentment will struggle to sit with you through a miscarriage, a lost job or an unanswered prayer, and may need you to perform it too.
Has your faith ever been shaken, and who knew about it at the time?
Why ask it
Listen hardest to who knew. A person who hid a season of doubt from everyone around them is likely to hide the next one from you, which is much lonelier for both of you than the doubt itself.
What happens if one of us stops believing?
Why ask it
Faith moves over decades, in both directions. Listen for whether you would still be a husband or wife to stay married to, or a problem to be corrected. If the honest answer is fear for the marriage, talk about the fear instead of reassuring it away.
What would you need from me on the worst day you can imagine?
Why ask it
Answers tend to split between people who want company and people who want to be left alone, and a couple with one of each can both feel abandoned in the same week. Say which you are, and what that looked like the last time something went badly wrong.
What do you believe would justify ending a marriage, and what would we do if we got near it?
Why ask it
Churches differ here: some allow divorce after adultery or desertion, some for abuse as well, a few not at all, so ask which teaching your partner actually holds. Then ask what you would try first, and with whom. A couple with no plan short of leaving has only one door.
What habit do we want in place so that we notice if we are growing apart?
Why ask it
A weekly walk, a yearly weekend away, a monthly 'how are we really doing'. Pick the one you would both defend when the calendar fills up. Decide who is allowed to say 'we have stopped' without it being taken as an attack.
What are you most afraid of about marrying me?
Why ask it
Ask it last, and answer it yourself first. Almost everyone has something, and a fear said out loud is manageable, while the same fear kept private tends to come out later as a complaint about something else.
Working through these before the wedding
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting up the conversations
Work through one group at a time
The list runs in six groups: Faith, Church and community, Roles and money, Family, Trust and conflict, and Vows and hard years. You do not need every question. Read a group separately, each mark the five or six you most want answered, and start with the ones you both marked. Leave Trust and conflict and Vows and hard years until a few easier evenings are behind you.
If you are asking before engagement
The Christian questions to ask before engagement are mostly the same ones, asked while a no still costs little. Begin with Faith and Roles and money, and with the questions that mention a proposal or a ring by name. The wedding service and who will marry you can wait until there is a date to plan for.
Split them across weeks, not one long evening
Three or four questions in a sitting is enough. The value is in what surfaces afterwards, on the drive home or two days later, and that only happens if there is space between the conversations.
Answer first, then ask
Going first costs you the advantage of hearing their answer before committing to yours, which is exactly why it works. It also keeps the evening from feeling like an examination one of you is administering.
Write down what you actually agreed
Memory reshapes these conversations to fit what each of you hoped was said. A few lines on giving, church, in-laws and timelines, written the same night, prevents a version of the disagreement that starts with "we already settled this".
Where couples usually find real differences
- Money that leaves the household: giving, supporting parents, and who has veto over a large gift.
- Whose church, whose tradition, and who is expected to move, especially where one family is more observant than the other.
- How much of a child's week faith should take up, and what happens when a teenager objects.
- Roles in practice rather than principle, particularly around careers, relocation and money decisions.
- How much access parents and church leaders have to the inside of the marriage.
- Convictions each of you inherited from one church and took to be universal: alcohol, Sundays, contraception, who is baptised and when.
Using premarital counselling well
Ask what the sessions actually cover
Programmes vary widely. Some are largely theological instruction; others use structured inventories and work through conflict, money, family history and expectations. Ask before you commit, and say what you want covered.
Consider someone outside your own congregation
A counsellor who does not know your families and will not see you every Sunday can make it easier to be honest. If one of you is uneasy about being candid with your own pastor, that is worth taking seriously rather than overriding.
Bring the unresolved items with you
Counselling is more useful when you arrive with two or three specific disagreements from these questions than when you arrive with nothing and let the curriculum choose the topics.
Reasons to slow the timeline
- A disagreement that keeps being deferred with the idea that marriage or children will settle it.
- One of you consistently framing your own preference as God's will in a way that ends the discussion.
- Pressure from either family or a church leader that makes the date feel unmovable.
- Refusal to discuss money, past relationships, or counselling at all.
- Discovering that one of you is assuming a change of belief or practice in the other after the wedding.
- Either of you being afraid of the other's anger. Talk to someone you trust outside the relationship before going any further.