Questions to Ask Your Fiance Before Marriage
Questions to ask your fiancé or fiancée before marriage, for the months between the proposal and the wedding. There are 69, grouped by subject: what each of you expects marriage to be, money and the wedding budget, children, families and faith, trust and arguments, and the daily life you are about to share. Among them are the ones to settle before you get married if yours is an Indian wedding, or any marriage where two families are joining as well as two people: whether you will live with parents, how the costs and gifts are divided, and whose customs the ceremony follows.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
The marriage
Why are you marrying me: the real reason, not the one for the speech?
Why ask it
The speech version is about how wonderful you are. The real one is usually plainer and more useful: you make hard weeks easier, you tell the truth, they like who they are around you. If it is mostly about timing, such as age or how long you have been together, ask what they would miss about you in particular.
What do you think a good husband or wife actually does?
Why ask it
Each of you is carrying a job description you have never read out. Listen to the verbs: provides, listens, stays, runs the house, keeps the peace. Then ask which of those they expect from you and which from themselves, because the two lists rarely match.
What do you think will feel different once we are actually married?
Why ask it
Some people expect to feel safer or more settled, some are braced for losing their evenings or their own money, and a few are waiting for the other person to change. Ask whether any of it has already happened since the engagement. If the answer is 'nothing', ask what the wedding is for, and listen kindly: for some people the promise itself is the point.
Which two or three things are not up for negotiation for you, even for me?
Why ask it
Typical answers are living near a parent, keeping a career, having children or not having them, and practising a faith. A short, firm list is easy to plan a life around. Be more careful with 'nothing, I am easy', which tends to mean the list exists and has not been said.
What would you copy from your parents' marriage, and what would you refuse to?
Why ask it
Ask for scenes instead of a verdict: who apologised first, who handled the money, what dinner was like after a row. Whatever they would copy is something they will expect from you without thinking to say so. If their parents separated, ask what they decided a marriage needs that theirs lacked.
What do our weekends look like once we are married: out with friends, at home, or at one of our parents'?
Why ask it
Work decides the weekdays, so the weekend is where two pictures of married life meet. One of you may be planning lie-ins and long lunches, and the other football on Saturday and a roast at a mother's on Sunday. Count how many weekends a month each picture leaves for the other person.
Which of my habits are you expecting me to drop once we are married?
Why ask it
People put up with a great deal during an engagement on the private assumption that it is temporary: the lateness, the weekly night out, the state of the car, how often your mother rings. Better to hear the list now and say which items are staying.
Whose surname do we use after the wedding, and what would children be called?
Why ask it
Keeping, taking, hyphenating and choosing a new name are all ordinary choices, and the answer to watch for is 'I assumed', from either of you. In some places the choice is recorded at the wedding itself, which gives this question a deadline the others lack. Check the rule where you are marrying before the forms arrive.
When you promise 'for better, for worse', what kind of worse are you picturing?
Why ask it
People tend to picture the hardship they have already seen: a parent's illness, a lost job, a house that was always short of money. The kind they have not pictured is the kind more likely to catch them out. Trade answers, then each name a 'worse' the other left off.
Where do you want us to be in ten years, and what are you afraid we will have given up to get there?
Why ask it
The ten-year part produces the brochure: the house, the children, the job title. The fear is where you hear about the band, the city, the friends or the faith they do not want to lose on the way. Keep both answers somewhere, because they are worth rereading on an anniversary.
How much of the decision to marry was yours, and how much was your family's?
Why ask it
Worth asking whether your families introduced you or you found each other, because parents can press for a date in either case. In an arranged match, as many Indian engagements are, 'they chose well and I agreed' is a full answer. What you want to hear is the point at which they said yes for themselves, and what they would have done had they wanted to say no.
Are you having any doubts, and would you tell me if you were?
Why ask it
Some nerves before a wedding are ordinary, and a partner who can admit to them is easier to trust than one who insists there are none. Ask what the doubt is about: you, marriage in general, or the size of the day. A smaller wedding answers the last, and the first two need a proper conversation before the invitations go out.
Money
Which of your parents' money habits have you kept, and which are you running from?
Why ask it
A saver raised by spenders and a spender raised by savers can both be reacting, and neither will call it that. The answer explains behaviour that otherwise looks irrational, like panic at a small overdraft or a refusal to open a statement. Ask what an argument about money sounded like at home.
What exactly do you earn, and what do you owe, down to the last card?
Why ask it
Bring statements, because a figure given from memory is usually rounded in its owner's favour. Include student loans, store cards, tax owed and money borrowed from family, and look up your credit reports on the same evening. Marriage ties two people's debts together in some countries and states and not in others, so ask how it works in yours.
Do we hold money together, separately, or some of each?
Why ask it
Fully joint, fully separate and one shared account for the bills all work for couples who chose them on purpose. Settle it before the first married payday, and say which account the rent or mortgage leaves from. Then test the plan against a bad year: what happens to it if one of you stops earning for a while?
What is the largest amount either of us can spend without checking first?
Why ask it
Each write a figure down before saying it aloud. One of you may be thinking of a pair of shoes and the other of a second-hand car, and the distance between the two numbers tells you more than either one. Agree a single figure, and look at it again whenever your income changes.
Which of us keeps the budget and pays the bills, and how often do we go over it together?
Why ask it
It usually falls to whoever minds more about late fees. That works as long as the other one could take over tomorrow: knows the logins, the due dates and roughly what a month costs. Test it in the first year by swapping the job for a month.
How much are we spending on the wedding, and would we borrow to pay for it?
Why ask it
Treat it as two questions, because plenty of couples agree on the figure and split on where it comes from: savings, parents, a credit card. If you would start married life owing for the day, agree how long the repayment runs. Then name what it pushes back, whether that is a house deposit, a honeymoon or a baby.
How are the wedding costs divided between our two families, and who agreed to that?
Why ask it
Custom often hands one side the larger bill, in many Indian weddings the bride's, and it gets paid without the couple being asked. Find out the real figures on both sides, including anything a parent is borrowing or selling to meet them. If the split embarrasses either of you, the two of you can propose another before the halls are booked.
What gifts, gold or cash do our families expect to give or receive, and are you comfortable with it?
Why ask it
Ask for the list as each family understands it, since one side's 'whatever you wish to give' can be the other side's quiet tally. Settle between you who keeps what is given to the bride, and say it in front of both sets of parents. Anything asked for as a condition of the marriage is a different matter: in India and some other countries the law may treat it as dowry, so find out how that stands where you live.
What do we want to have paid for, or paid off, by our fifth anniversary?
Why ask it
A date turns a wish into arithmetic. A house deposit, a cleared student loan and a long trip may not all fit into five years on two incomes, and seeing that on paper now is kinder than finding it out in year four. Let each of you name one item that is not up for trade.
Is there anyone in your family you expect to support with money, now or later?
Why ask it
In plenty of families, sending money home or bailing out a sibling is an obligation nobody questions. It becomes a problem when it turns up unannounced in a joint account. Ask for the amount, how regular it is, and whether a request would be discussed between you or simply met.
Should we sign a prenup, and what would each of us want it to protect?
Why ask it
The conversation is useful even when the answer is no, because it makes you name what each of you owns, what you expect to inherit and what you would call fair. Raise it months ahead: close to the date it stops sounding like paperwork and starts sounding like doubt. The rules on what one may include differ between countries and states, so take that part to a local lawyer.
If illness or a lost job took one income away for a year, what is our plan?
Why ask it
Go through what you would really fall back on: savings, insurance cover, family, somewhere cheaper to live. You are finding out whether there is any margin at all, and whether you are both quietly counting on the same relative to step in. If the wedding is being paid for out of that margin, say so now.
After the wedding, what paperwork do we change: wills, beneficiaries, insurance, next of kin?
Why ask it
Dull, and it matters most on the worst day either of you will have. Marriage alters wills and inheritance in some places and leaves old beneficiary forms untouched in others, so check how it works where you live. Name the month by which it will be done, because nobody does this on honeymoon.
Children
How many children do you want, if any, and how soon after the wedding would you start?
Why ask it
Trade a number and a year. 'A couple, at some point' and 'one, once the house is bought' can both pass for agreement over dinner, and they are different lives. If either of you is not sure you want any, that has to be said before the wedding and not after it.
If a baby did not come when we hoped, what would you be willing to try?
Why ask it
Treatment, adoption, fostering and stopping are all positions a person can hold, and someone can be open to one and set against another. Clinics, adoption rules and costs are not the same from one country to the next, so keep this to wishes and limits for now. It is a much gentler conversation as a hypothetical than in the month you get bad news.
What would we do if a pregnancy came sooner than we planned?
Why ask it
Timelines are a preference, and biology does not consult them. You are finding out whether the plan is firm or only tidy, and what would give way: a job, a lease, a course. If the answer sits oddly with what was said about timing, go back over both gently.
How much leave would each of us take with a new baby, and who goes back to work first?
Why ask it
Entitlements vary widely between employers and countries, and one of you may be offered months where the other gets days, so find out the real figures first. Then say what you would each choose if the pay were identical. Where the wish and the entitlement are far apart, you have time now to save or change jobs.
Once the leave runs out, who looks after the baby: one of us, a grandparent, or paid childcare?
Why ask it
Price the paid option where you live before you answer, because for a good many couples the figure settles it. If the plan is one of you at home, ask that person how long for and what they would want protected: a pension, a way back into work, money of their own. If it is a grandparent, check that the grandparent has been asked.
How would you handle a child who lies, hits or refuses to go to bed?
Why ask it
Abstract talk about parenting styles produces easy agreement, and a specific bad evening does not. One of you reaches for a consequence and the other for a conversation, which is how you find out the way each of you was raised. Ask what their own parents would have done, and whether they would do the same.
Which languages will our children speak at home, and whose customs will they be raised in?
Why ask it
A couple from two states or two countries often shares only English, and each set of grandparents hopes for a grandchild who can talk to them. Decide who speaks what to the child, and which naming ceremony, festivals and food rules come from which side. Left alone, it usually goes to whichever grandmother lives nearer.
Family and faith
Do we marry in a religious ceremony, and what does faith look like in our house after it?
Why ask it
The ceremony is often the first test, since one family may assume a religious service and the other a civil one. Couples who agree to be relaxed about belief can still differ on practice: baptism, fasting, which school, what December or Ramadan looks like in the house. Ask what they would do week by week, and what they would mind you not doing.
If our families' customs differ, whose rituals does the wedding follow, and would we hold two ceremonies?
Why ask it
North and south, two faiths, two communities with their own priests: each family tends to assume its own rites are the wedding and the other's are an extra. Holding both keeps each side whole and doubles the cost and the days off work. Pick the parts each of you would be sad to lose, and let the rest go to whoever cares more.
Do our parents get a vote on the wedding, and does that change if they are paying for it?
Why ask it
Ask each set of parents directly what they are hoping for, because guesses about a mother's wishes tend to cause more trouble than the wishes do. Then decide between you which parts of the day are yours alone, such as the vows, the size and who officiates. If money is offered, find out what it is expected to buy before you accept it.
Has anyone in either family objected to us, over community, caste, a horoscope or anything else, and where was it left?
Why ask it
An objection that went quiet when the date was fixed has often only been put off until the first disagreement. Ask who raised it, what was said back, and whether your fiancé was the one who said it. You are entitled to know which relatives you are walking in to win over.
Whose table are we at for the first big holiday as a married couple, and who rings the other family?
Why ask it
The first year after the wedding sets a pattern both families will quote back at you, so choose it on purpose and do not let whoever asked first win. Then each of you tells your own parents. That way no one's new son-in-law or daughter-in-law takes the blame.
Who in your family will have opinions about how we live, and which of us answers them?
Why ask it
Most families have one: the aunt who asks about babies, the father with views on your job, the sister who expects to be consulted. A working rule is that each of you deals with your own relatives, because a no from a son or daughter is forgiven sooner than a no from the person they married. Ask whether your fiancé has ever said that no before.
Will we live with your parents after the wedding, and for how long?
Why ask it
In a joint family the answer is often assumed, most commonly that the bride moves into her husband's parents' home. Ask what 'for a while' means in years, who runs the kitchen and the household money, and whether a closed bedroom door is respected. If the plan is a place of your own later, name what has to happen first.
What does your family expect of a new daughter-in-law or son-in-law that nobody has told me yet?
Why ask it
The expectations are usually small and daily: who gets up first, who serves, what you wear in front of elders, what you call your mother-in-law, how often a son-in-law is expected to visit. Your fiancé grew up inside these rules and may not see them as rules at all. Ask which ones they would back you on dropping.
How much of our time goes to your parents and how much to mine, and can either set turn up unannounced?
Why ask it
Sunday lunch every week is love in one family and surveillance in another. Count it up for a normal month, daily phone calls included, and see whether the two totals look fair to you both. Then settle the drop-in separately, including who holds a spare key.
What does my family do that you would not want repeated in our house?
Why ask it
A kinder way into the in-law subject than asking who they dislike. Shouting from room to room, remarks about weight, loans with strings attached, phones at the table: every family has customs an outsider notices at once. Take it as a description of the home they want, and offer your own list about theirs.
If your mother or father could no longer manage alone, would you expect them to live with us?
Why ask it
Ask it about a named parent, since a hypothetical one gets a generous answer. In some families a care home is unthinkable and in others it is the plan, and brothers and sisters have often settled between them who will do what. Find out whether anything has been promised on your behalf.
Which of our private business is your mother or your best friend allowed to hear?
Why ask it
Everyone needs a person to complain to, and it matters who. A friend who likes you both will have forgotten it by Friday, while a parent tends to bring it to the next family lunch. Name the subjects that stay in the house, usually money, health and whatever was said in a fight.
Trust and conflict
When we fight, what do you need in the first ten minutes?
Why ask it
The ten minutes matter because that is when the damage is done: a raised voice, a slammed door, a sentence that cannot be taken back. Find out whether they want to be followed or left, spoken to or given quiet. Then agree a time to pick it up again, so that walking away is not mistaken for giving up.
Which argument do we keep having, and what would settle it before the wedding?
Why ask it
Plenty of engaged couples have one that comes round again: the guest list, tidiness, a phone at dinner, one of the mothers. A wedding will not end it. Decide whether it needs a rule, a trade, or an agreement to stop expecting the other to change, and say which out loud.
What should never be said in a fight, however angry either of us is?
Why ask it
Most couples need a short list of things that are off the table: divorce used as a threat, a parent's failings, something told in confidence. Words chosen for effect in the heat of a row get remembered for years. Trade lists, and agree a phrase either of you can use to call a halt when a line is crossed.
What did you get wrong in your last serious relationship that you do not want to repeat with me?
Why ask it
By the time you are engaged you have heard why each ex was difficult, and this asks for the other side. 'I went quiet for days' or 'I kept score' comes from someone who knows how they behave under strain. If there was no one before you, ask it about a falling-out with a friend or a sibling.
Should we do premarital counselling, and at what point would you go back?
Why ask it
A refusal now, when nothing is wrong, tells you what to expect in a bad year. Some faiths and officiants ask for sessions before they will marry you, so find out early whether yours does. Ask too what would send them back later, since going only when it is nearly over is the least useful timing.
Where is the line for you between friendly and unfaithful?
Why ask it
Put names to it: the ex who still messages, the colleague you have lunch with, the friend your fiancé has never met. You will probably agree about most of them and be surprised by one. That one is the reason to ask before the wedding.
Would you mind if I read your messages, and would you want to read mine?
Why ask it
Put this way it gets a truer answer than a debate about sharing passwords. Plenty of loyal people would mind and plenty of open ones would never look, so neither answer is an accusation. If one of you has been spied on or lied to before, this is where it comes out, so ask.
Is there a secret you would be relieved to have told me before the wedding?
Why ask it
Asking about relief works better than asking what is being hidden, because it puts you on the side of the person telling. Whatever comes out, your first minute of reaction decides whether you hear the next thing. Say thank you before anything else, and save your questions for the following day.
What about your health, or the illnesses that run in your family, should I know going into this?
Why ask it
Long-term conditions, mental health, medication and anything hereditary all bear on children, work and ordinary days. Go first with your own, including the parts you find embarrassing. What you hear is for planning, and it stays between the two of you.
Has anyone ever told you they were worried about your drinking, gambling or spending?
Why ask it
It is easier to report what a parent, an ex or a doctor once said than to answer 'do you have a problem'. If the answer is yes, ask what happened afterwards. Then ask whether they would want you to say something if you saw it starting again, and how.
What would have to happen for you to want out?
Why ask it
It is a strange thing to ask someone you are about to marry, so say why: you would sooner know where the lines are than find them. Listen for whether the answer is an act, such as an affair or a lie about money, or a slow thing, such as being ignored for years. If it is 'nothing, ever', ask whether that would hold for the things on your own list.
Daily life
Whose career bends if we have to choose?
Why ask it
Most couples meet this at a relocation, a promotion or a baby, and most have a default they have never said aloud. Be wary of an answer that assumes fairness will sort itself out. Ask which of you has already turned something down for the other, and whether it is the same person each time.
Does anyone expect one of us to stop working after the wedding, or to change jobs or cities for it?
Why ask it
Put it to your fiancé first and then ask what their parents assume, because the two answers are not always the same. A woman moving to her husband's city is so usual in some families that nobody thinks to call it a decision. If one of you is giving up a post, agree what the other gives in return and how soon the search for the next job starts.
Where do we live once we are married, and what would make either of us want to move?
Why ask it
If you do not share a home yet, start with whose place, whose furniture and whose name is on the lease. Then take the longer view, since careers, ageing parents and plain homesickness all move people. Ask whether a good job offer in another city would be discussed or simply accepted, because that is the version that tends to turn up.
If one of us is offered work abroad, what would the other do there, and when would we come back?
Why ask it
The spouse who follows often arrives on a dependent visa, and whether that allows paid work differs by country and by visa, so look it up for the place in question before saying yes. Ask how long 'a few years' is, and who would be near each set of parents in the meantime. A fiancé already living overseas should describe an ordinary week there, not the highlights.
Is buying a home a goal for you, and what would you give up to get there sooner?
Why ask it
Owning is a lifelong ambition for some people and a millstone to others, and the two sometimes get engaged. The trade is what makes it real: a smaller wedding, a longer commute, a year living with parents. If only one of you would make those trades, you know who wants it.
Which decisions do we make together, and which can either of us just make?
Why ask it
Sort a few real ones: booking a trip, lending a friend money, taking a job with longer hours, inviting a parent to stay for a month. Where you disagree about the pile a decision belongs in, you have found a future argument early. For the joint ones, agree what happens at a stalemate, even if the answer is that you wait.
How do we split the cooking, cleaning and laundry, and what happens when it stops feeling fair?
Why ask it
Go through the jobs by name instead of agreeing to share. Standards differ as much as effort does, so ask what clean means to each of you and who cooks on a night you are both home late. Agree to look at the split again whenever hours or income change.
What will be cooked and eaten in our kitchen, and what stays out of it?
Why ask it
Vegetarian or not, eggs or no eggs, onion and garlic, alcohol in the house, fasting days: food rules are where belief turns up three times a day. Decide whether the rule covers the home only or restaurants and your own plate as well. It matters most if a parent who keeps a stricter kitchen will be living with you or visiting for weeks.
Who keeps track of the things nobody sees: dentist appointments, birthday cards, when the insurance renews?
Why ask it
This is the part of running a home that never appears on a chore list. It tends to settle on whoever noticed first, and before long that person is reminding the other. Divide it by whole subject, so that one of you owns the car and the other the families' birthdays, reminders included.
How much time apart do you need, and what does that look like?
Why ask it
Ask for it in evenings, not adjectives: the Thursday football, a Saturday morning alone, a week away with old friends each summer. Someone who needs none and someone who needs three nights will each find the other puzzling. Write the regular ones into the shared calendar, where they stop looking like absences.
What do we keep doing just for the two of us once the wedding is over?
Why ask it
Planning a wedding gives a couple a shared project for months, and its end can leave a gap where the lists and tastings used to be. Name what you did together before you were engaged that the planning has crowded out. Put the first one back in the diary for the week after the honeymoon.
When you are having a bad stretch, how do I help, and what do I do that makes it worse?
Why ask it
People tend to offer the comfort they would want themselves, which is why kind help can land badly. Get an answer specific enough to use: sit with me, give me an hour, do not suggest anything yet. Whatever they say makes it worse, take it without a defence.
What do we do when one of us wants more intimacy than the other?
Why ask it
At some point in a long marriage one of you is likely to be more tired, more stressed or less interested than the other. Saying nothing and keeping count is how that turns into resentment. Agree a way either of you can raise it that sounds like neither a complaint nor a demand.
What small thing do I do that tells you I love you, and what do you wish I did more?
Why ask it
The small thing is usually one you did not know counted: turning up at the station, remembering a colleague's name, a hand on the back in a crowded room. What they wish for more of is a request, however lightly it is put. Act on it within the week and you have shown the conversation was worth having.
Working through these before the wedding
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How to run the conversations
Several sittings, not one evening
Four or five of these questions is a full conversation, and the six groups make natural sittings. Attempting the whole list at once produces fatigue and agreement for the sake of getting to bed.
Answer separately, then compare
For the money and children questions, write your own answers down before hearing the other person's. Otherwise the second person quietly adjusts toward the first.
Not on a wedding-planning night
Keep these apart from seating plans and supplier calls. With a date set and deposits paid, it is tempting to settle every difference in whichever direction keeps the wedding on track, so give these conversations their own evenings.
Write down what you agree
The spending threshold, the arrangement about accounts, who tells which family what. In two years you will both remember the agreement differently and both be certain.
The ten to ask if you ask nothing else
- What each of you thinks a husband or wife is there to do.
- What exactly each of you earns and owes.
- Money held together, separately, or some of each.
- Whether you want children, how many and how soon after the wedding.
- How far each of you would go if children did not come easily.
- Whether the ceremony is religious, and what faith looks like at home afterwards.
- How much of your time goes to each set of parents.
- Whose career bends when you have to choose.
- What each of you needs in the first ten minutes of a fight.
- What would have to happen for either of you to want out.
If the wedding is only weeks away
Start with the questions that have a deadline or are hard to undo: the surname, the wedding budget and any borrowing for it, the real figures on income and debt, children, and any doubt either of you is carrying. Holidays, chores and the spare key can wait for the first year. If an answer makes one of you want more time, say so plainly: moving a date is expensive and awkward, and it is still a smaller thing than marrying around a question nobody asked.
For Indian couples, and anyone marrying into a joint family
Most of this list treats a marriage as two people's decision. In many Indian engagements, arranged or not, two households are joining as well, and a few questions carry more weight: whether you will live with parents and for how long, how the wedding costs and gifts are settled between the families, what is expected of a new daughter-in-law or son-in-law, and whether anyone objected to the match. Put them to your fiancé alone before the parents are in the room, since what you need to hear is their own view and whether they would say it at home. Customs vary a great deal between regions, communities and families, so take the ones that fit yours and leave the rest.
The financial disclosure to actually make
- Income, including anything variable or seasonal.
- Every debt with the balance and interest rate, including money owed to family.
- Credit history, and anything on it that will affect a mortgage application.
- Savings, pensions, and anything either of you owns already.
- Money you send to relatives, and whether that is expected to continue.
- Anything either of you supports that the other does not know about.
What a disagreement here means
Finding a difference is the point of asking, not a sign of a problem. Most differences, about money, holidays, time apart, are negotiable once they are visible. A few are not, and the ones to take seriously are children, faith as practised rather than professed, and monogamy, because those tend not to yield to compromise and tend not to change after a wedding. If you find yourself hoping something will resolve itself once you are married, treat that hope as the finding. Premarital counselling exists to work through exactly this, and it is often a short run of sessions: ask the counsellor or your officiant how many.
Signs the conversation is going badly
- One of you answers every question with what would be reasonable rather than what you actually want.
- Concrete questions keep getting deflected into reassurance about love.
- The same question has ended in a row twice and neither of you has gone back to it.
- Anything is postponed until after the wedding on the grounds that it is not urgent yet.
- You are avoiding one particular question and have started to notice which.
- You are leaving questions out because you are afraid of how your fiancé will react. Take that to someone you trust before the wedding.