Questions to Ask Your Significant Other Before Marriage
Questions to ask your significant other before marriage, for couples who are serious and want the specifics said out loud before anything is booked. There are 66, in six groups you can take one sitting at a time: what each of you expects of marriage, money and debt, children, family and faith, daily life at home and at work, and conflict and trust. Answer each one yourself as well as asking it. The note underneath points out what to listen for, suggests a follow-up, or tells you where the rules depend on where you live.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
Expectations
Why do you want to be married, as opposed to carrying on as we are?
Why ask it
A strong answer names something marriage adds for them: a promise made in front of people, a legal tie, a family begun on purpose. Be wary of reasons that are really a deadline, such as age, parents asking or friends pairing off, because those say nothing about the two of you.
What makes you sure I'm the person you want to marry?
Why ask it
Pleasant to be asked and revealing to answer. Listen for things that are about you in particular, such as how you argue, what you find funny or the way you treat their sister, and not a list any kind person would satisfy. Give your own answer straight afterward so it does not feel like a test.
What do you expect to change once we're married, and what do you want left alone?
Why ask it
Some people assume a spouse will go out less, save more or finally want a baby, and never mention it because it seems obvious. If their list of changes is mostly about you, ask what they expect to change in themselves.
What scares you about getting married?
Why ask it
Common answers are the sheer length of it, turning into their parents, and being responsible for another person's happiness. Knowing the fear tells you what reassurance would land, and it is rarely 'don't be silly'. If the reply is a quick 'nothing', let it go and ask again in a month.
Do you think of marriage as permanent whatever happens, or as something a person can leave?
Why ask it
Faith, culture and a parent's divorce all shape this, and two people in love can hold opposite views without knowing it. One of you may expect to stay and endure anything, while the other expects a serious problem to be fixed or the marriage to end.
Is there a job in a marriage you assume is yours, or mine, because of who did it when you were growing up?
Why ask it
Think of earning, cooking, driving on long trips, getting up with a sick child. Assumptions like these tend to be copied from the home a person grew up in, not chosen, and they only surface when a task goes undone while each of you waits for the other.
What would still be a dealbreaker for you once we're married?
Why ask it
Affairs, addiction, money hidden from each other and violence are the usual candidates, and they are worth naming out loud so nobody can say later that it never came up. A partner with no lines at all is telling you something, and so is one with a very long list.
What did your parents' marriage teach you that you're worried about repeating?
Why ask it
Usually easier to talk about than your own relationship, and it names the specific fear: silence, contempt, drinking, hidden money, two people living separate lives in one house.
Whose marriage do you look at and think, that's how it should be done?
Why ask it
The couple matters less than the detail they pick out, so ask what exactly they admire. 'They still make each other laugh' and 'they never argue' describe two very different marriages, and the second can be a warning.
After the wedding, do we each keep our own name, share one, or hyphenate?
Why ask it
Feelings run stronger here than most people predict, and their parents' feelings stronger still. Settle it between the two of you before anyone else is consulted, including what children would be called. The paperwork differs from place to place, so look up what a change involves where you live.
What do you still want to do in your life that being married must not rule out?
Why ask it
A degree, a business, a year abroad, a book: better heard now than as a complaint at forty-five. Trade answers, and notice whether each of you makes room for the other's plan or starts listing the obstacles.
Money
Was money talked about openly in your family, or argued about behind a closed door?
Why ask it
Childhood sets the default. Someone raised around shouting about bills may go quiet the moment a budget is mentioned, and someone raised where money was never discussed may not see that there is anything to discuss.
Have we shown each other the real numbers: what we earn, what we've saved, and our credit history?
Why ask it
It is quite possible to know someone's coffee order and not their salary. Swap actual figures on the same evening so neither of you goes first alone. Discomfort is normal, and an outright refusal tells you something.
What debt are you carrying right now, and what's the plan for it?
Why ask it
Student loans, credit cards, money owed to family, a car, a business. Whether a debt one of you brings can end up belonging to both varies from place to place, so check the rule where you live. Someone who cannot name a rough total is telling you they avoid looking.
Will we pool everything, keep it all separate, or run one shared account for the bills?
Why ask it
Pick one on purpose and make sure you both know what it covers: which account the rent leaves, what counts as a shared cost, what happens to the split if one of you earns far less for a while. Come back to it after a raise or a baby, because the first arrangement may stop fitting.
Above what price should either of us check with the other before buying?
Why ask it
Ask for a number, not a principle. If your two numbers are ten times apart you have found a real difference in how each of you feels about spending, and it is easier to settle over a made-up example than over a receipt.
Which of us is the saver and which is the spender, and does the other one agree?
Why ask it
Answer for yourself, then for each other, and compare. It is common for both people to think they are the careful one. The labels matter less than whether you can laugh about the difference or are already arguing over it.
Who runs the household money day to day, and how does the other one keep up?
Why ask it
One person usually ends up doing it, which works until the other has no idea which accounts exist or how to get into them. A short look at the numbers together every month keeps both of you able to take over if you ever had to.
What is the first big thing we save for together, and what would each of us go without to get it?
Why ask it
Agreeing on the goal is the easy part, whether that is a down payment, a cleared loan or a few months of expenses set aside. The going without is where you learn that one of you meant fewer dinners out and the other meant nothing would change.
How much is the wedding itself worth to us, and who is paying for it?
Why ask it
For many couples this is the first large sum they decide together, with both families watching. Money offered by parents can arrive with opinions on the guest list attached, so agree what you would accept and on what terms before saying yes to any of it.
If a relative asked to borrow money, would you say yes, and would you ask me first?
Why ask it
In some families covering a brother's rent is simply what you do, and in others a loan between relatives is unthinkable. Set a figure above which it becomes a joint decision. Ask as well whether anyone is already being helped each month.
Could we live on one income for a year if we had to?
Why ask it
A layoff, a return to school, a baby or an illness could each make this real. Work out the monthly figure you would need instead of trading reassurances. If the numbers do not work yet, closing that gap is your first savings goal.
How would you feel about a prenup, whether I asked for one or you did?
Why ask it
Reactions run from relief to insult, and it is better to learn which over dinner than in a lawyer's office. A business, a property or an expected inheritance on either side makes it a practical question, not a verdict on the relationship. What an agreement can and cannot cover depends on where you live, so ask an attorney there.
When do you picture stopping work, and what are you doing about it now?
Why ask it
It feels absurdly early to ask, which helps: nobody is defensive about a date thirty years off. Working until seventy for love of the job and counting on stopping at fifty-five are plans that have to meet somewhere. Pension and retirement account rules vary by country and employer, so check what each of you really has.
Children
Do you want to be a parent, and if you do, how many children and how soon?
Why ask it
Broad agreement that children would be nice can hide very different timelines. Ask for a number and a year, because 'someday' can mean two years or ten. If the honest answer is no, or not sure, now is the time to say so.
What happens if one of us changes our mind about children later?
Why ask it
People do, in both directions, often after a friend has a baby or a milestone birthday arrives. You cannot settle the outcome in advance. What you can agree is that whoever changes says so early, and that it is heard as news and not as a broken promise.
If we struggled to have a baby, would you want to try treatment, adopt, foster, or stop?
Why ask it
These are separate choices, each with its own cost in money, time and hope, and a person can be open to one and firmly against another. Talking it through now as a hypothetical is far easier than deciding in a clinic waiting room. Nobody is committing to anything: you only need to know roughly where the other stands.
When a baby arrives, whose work changes?
Why ask it
It is easy to say you will share it. In practice the change tends to land on whoever earns less or has the more flexible hours, so name who that would be and check that person is truly willing. Leave differs by country and employer, so look up what each of you would get.
What kind of parent do you expect to be: the strict one, the soft one, or something else?
Why ask it
Follow it with how they were disciplined themselves and what they would keep. An answer that is only the opposite of their parents means they have reacted but not yet decided. Two upbringings meet hardest here, often in a supermarket aisle with a tired toddler, so compare notes before there is a toddler.
What do you want our kids to have that you didn't, and what did you have that they must?
Why ask it
The first half shows what they missed, which is usually the more personal answer. The second shows what they will defend: a grandparent nearby, a second language, summers outdoors, dinner at a table.
Where do you stand on schooling: the local school, private, religious, or teaching them at home?
Why ask it
It sounds years away, and it quietly decides where you live and how much the two of you need to earn. A fixed view on this often comes from their own school days, so ask about those.
How much help do we want from grandparents, and how much of a say comes with it?
Why ask it
Childcare from a parent is worth a great deal and seldom comes free of views on sleep, food and screens. Decide together what you would accept and which rules stay yours, before a grandparent has rearranged their week around you.
If one of us already has children, what should the other one be to them?
Why ask it
Skip this if it does not apply. Where it does, it outranks most of this list: who disciplines, what the children call a new spouse, how time with their other parent works. Go at the children's pace, and expect to revise the answer more than once.
Family and faith
How do we divide the big holidays between your family and mine?
Why ask it
This is the in-law conversation in its most concrete form. Goodwill about family in general tends to give way the first time two households expect you on the same day, so agree the actual pattern: alternate years, split the day, or host. Decide too which of you tells which parents.
When your parents disagree with a decision we've made, what do you do?
Why ask it
Listen for whether they can picture telling their own parents no. Someone who has never done it is unlikely to start just because there has been a wedding. Ask for a time they went against their family's wishes and how it ended.
How often is normal for seeing your parents: every Sunday, once a month, twice a year?
Why ask it
Give the three options and see which they reach for without thinking, then say yours. A gap is easy to live with once it is known, and miserable when it arrives as a weekly argument about the weekend.
Who in your family is difficult, and what do you want from me when they are?
Why ask it
Most families have a critic, a sulker or someone who asks about babies at every meal. Your partner has had decades of practice with that person and you have had none. Find out whether they want you to push back, stay quiet or come and rescue them.
As our parents get older, who do you expect to look after them, and could one of them ever live with us?
Why ask it
Moving them in, moving closer, paying for care and leaving it to a sibling lead to four very different marriages. Culture and birth order can make the answer feel obvious to one of you and startling to the other. Ask what their brothers and sisters are assuming, too.
How much will religion be part of our week, and would we raise children in it?
Why ask it
Two questions on purpose, because people who rarely attend anything often still want their children raised in the faith. Get to the practical parts: services, food, fasting, giving, which days are kept. You are sorting habit from the things that are not negotiable.
Which of your family's traditions do you want in our house, and which end with you?
Why ask it
People defend a birthday ritual or the way a holiday meal is cooked harder than they expect to, because giving it up can feel like leaving the family. This is also the pleasant half of the in-law conversation, so reach for it when the other half has run hot.
How much do your politics matter to you, and could you be married to someone who votes the other way?
Why ask it
Some couples cancel each other out at every election for fifty years and enjoy the argument. For others it wears away respect. Ask which issues sit close to conscience for them, since those are the ones that will not stay polite at the dinner table.
Daily life
Right now, who's doing the cooking, the laundry, the bills, and the remembering of birthdays?
Why ask it
Each write the list separately and then swap, because the two versions rarely match. The gap between what one person keeps track of and what the other notices is the thing to talk about, more than who does the dishes.
How tidy does a home have to be before you can relax in it?
Why ask it
Mess is a small subject that comes up every single evening, which is how it ends up outweighing bigger ones. The tidier partner tends to do the tidying and resent it. Agree a standard for shared rooms and leave each other one space to keep however you like.
How much of the week should be just us, and how much do you need to yourself?
Why ask it
Each of you probably takes your own answer for the normal one. Needing an evening or two with the door shut is not pulling away, but when it goes unsaid it gets read as rejection. Agree a way to ask for a night off that needs no explaining.
Which friendships and routines of yours carry on untouched after we're married?
Why ask it
It might be a weekly game, a yearly trip with old friends or a Sunday call that lasts an hour. Naming them now protects them, and it shows whether either of you is quietly expecting the other's separate life to shrink.
How do you like to spend time off, and what happens when I want the opposite?
Why ask it
A beach with nothing planned and a mountain with an itinerary are different trips, and plenty of couples want one each. Alternating years, splitting the week and taking the odd trip apart all work. Paying for a vacation that one of you merely endures does not.
Are animals part of the picture, and what if one of us is allergic or just doesn't want one?
Why ask it
Someone who grew up with dogs may not count a home as finished without one. A pet means years of cost, hair and early mornings, so the reluctant partner's no deserves as much weight as the eager one's yes.
How do you most like to be shown you're loved: told, helped, given time, surprised?
Why ask it
You may be filling up their car while they wait to be told they look nice. Ask which of the things you already do they would miss if you stopped, and which they barely notice. Most answers turn out to be small enough to start this week.
How do we stop ourselves turning into housemates once life gets busy?
Why ask it
Work, children and tiredness crowd a couple out slowly, and nobody decides it. Choose something small and regular you would both protect, such as a walk after dinner or one evening a week with the phones in another room. Agree as well how either of you can say 'I miss you' without it landing as a complaint.
Where do you want us to settle: near your family, near mine, or somewhere new?
Why ask it
One of you may be quietly assuming a return to a hometown the other has written off. Ask how fixed the answer is, and whether it would change once there are children or a parent who needs help. A firm answer is useful whichever way it goes.
Would you move for my job? Would you expect me to move for yours?
Why ask it
Careers tend to force this at a bad moment, with a deadline attached. Watch whether the answer changes between the two questions, and ask what would make it a no: leaving a parent, a child's school, their own work.
What do you want from your work in the next ten years, and what will it cost us in evenings?
Why ask it
Ambition is easy to admire across a restaurant table and harder to live beside at nine on a weeknight. Get the honest version, whether that is a partnership, a business of their own or a job they are glad to leave at five. Then say what you would need in return for the busy years.
Do you want to own a home, and how soon does that need to happen?
Why ask it
A house can be where adult life begins or a weight a person would sooner not carry, and you may not know which it is for them. Get a rough year as well as a yes or no, because a down payment competes with the wedding, travel and children for the same money.
What about the way I live do you think you'll still mind in ten years?
Why ask it
Asked with a smile, this gets you the truth about the lateness or the plates left by the sink. Do not marry on the theory that it will fix itself after the wedding. Work out whether you can change it or whether they can live with it as it is.
Conflict and trust
When we fight, do you need it settled that night, or do you need to leave the room first?
Why ask it
Often one partner wants to talk it out at once and the other needs to step away, and each reads the other's instinct as unkindness. Naming the pattern beforehand makes it a known difference. Agree how long a break lasts and who restarts the conversation.
After an argument, what do you need to hear before you can let it go?
Why ask it
It might be the words 'I was wrong', a change they can see the following week, or a hug and no post-mortem. Learn which, because the wrong kind of apology sounds like none at all, and the person who offered it is left wondering why it was turned down.
If we were stuck on a big decision and neither of us would budge, how would we settle it?
Why ask it
Taking turns, deferring to whoever it affects more and waiting until both can live with it are all workable rules. 'Whoever cares most wins' sounds fair and tends to reward the louder person. Test your rule on a real example, such as a large purchase only one of you wants.
What are you like after a terrible week, and what should I not take personally?
Why ask it
Some people go silent, some pick a fight about the dishwasher, some need to tell the story twice. Once you know their version, the next bad week reads as a bad week and not as a verdict on you. Ask what helps and what only looks like helping.
Where does being unfaithful begin for you: a message, a lunch kept quiet, something else?
Why ask it
Couples who would both swear they agree can draw this line in different places, particularly around old flames and private messages. Work from examples and not principles. A handy test is whether you would do it with your partner standing beside you.
Are you in touch with any exes, and what arrangement would sit right with both of us?
Why ask it
Shared children, friends or workplaces can make some contact unavoidable, and that is fine when it is in the open. Trust is damaged by contact that is discovered when it could have been mentioned. Agree one rule and apply it to both of you.
Do we share passwords and phone locations, and what about us stays off social media?
Why ask it
Total openness suits some couples and feels like surveillance to others, and neither preference proves anything about honesty. The posting half matters as well: check before sharing an argument, a diagnosis, a pregnancy or a photo the other dislikes.
What haven't you told me because you were waiting for the right moment?
Why ask it
It could be an earlier engagement, a debt, a criminal record, a falling-out you were given the tidy version of. Say beforehand that you would sooner hear it tonight than discover it in year three. Then keep your word about how you react.
Is there anything in your health, physical or mental, or in your family's history, that we should plan around?
Why ask it
This is theirs to tell at their own speed, so ask once and leave the door open. Offering your own history first makes it an exchange and not an interview. Anything that could affect having children or the work either of you can do belongs in the conversation before the wedding.
Is there a habit, yours or mine, that already worries you: drinking, gambling, spending, the phone?
Why ask it
Putting it both ways makes it a question and not an accusation. A partner who calls your worry ridiculous has dodged it. If the habit is one they have tried and failed to change alone, look for outside help together instead of accepting a fresh promise.
If one of us got seriously ill, or lost a parent, how would you want to be looked after?
Why ask it
Answer from a real case if you have one: the last bad flu, or the week of a funeral. Did you want soup and company, or the door closed and the phone answered for you? What comforted you then is a better guide than what either of you imagines wanting.
If we got stuck on something, would you go to a counselor with me before it became a crisis?
Why ask it
Listen for whether counseling sounds like maintenance to them or like an admission of failure. A flat no is worth exploring now, calmly, because the moment you need a yes is one when nobody is calm. A few premarital sessions make a low-stakes trial run.
Taking the six groups one sitting at a time
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Setting up the sittings
- Take one group at a sitting and stop while you are both still interested. Tired people agree to things in order to get to bed.
- Both of you answer every question. If only one person is asking, it is an interview, and people being interviewed perform.
- Figures quoted from memory tend to be rounder and kinder than the real ones, so bring statements to the Money group instead of estimates.
- Keep a note of anything you settle, such as the spending limit and the holiday pattern, somewhere you can both find it.
- Skip what does not apply, such as the question about children one of you already has, and say out loud that you are skipping it so the choice is shared.
Which group to take when
- Start with Expectations. Those answers set the tone, and they show which of the other five groups will need the most time.
- Do Children and Family and faith before a venue is booked or a deposit paid. Those are the groups where a firm no changes the plan.
- Give Money an evening to itself, with the paperwork out and nowhere to be afterward.
- Daily life mixes heavy questions (where to settle, whose job moves you) with light ones (pets, tidiness, time off). The light ones are a good way back in after a hard evening.
- Leave Conflict and trust until you have a couple of easier sittings behind you. It goes better once you have both seen that an honest answer is not punished.
Answers worth slowing down for
- "We'll figure it out." On children, money and where to live, that is not yet an answer. Ask what each of you is picturing.
- Nothing at all in reply to the dealbreaker question or the one about what they will still mind in ten years. Either they have not thought about it, or they do not feel safe saying.
- Debt they are hazy about, or an account you have never seen. Ask again with the paperwork on the table.
- A firm no to something you cannot give up. Believe it, and do not plan a marriage around the hope that it changes after the wedding.
- A neat, instant answer to a hard question. Ask what they did the last time it came up for real.
Subjects to add to the list yourselves
- Wills, life insurance and who each of you would want making medical decisions. What marriage changes about these depends on where you live.
- A home, a business or savings one of you already has, and whether it stays that person's or becomes shared. Find out how that works in your state or country.
- Sleep: different bedtimes, snoring, and whether separate rooms would ever be acceptable.
- If you hold different passports, which country you would settle in and what the paperwork involves for each of you.
Getting outside help
If a topic keeps ending in the same argument, a third person may get you further than another attempt on your own. Many therapists and many religious communities offer premarital counseling, and it is fair to ask at the start how many sessions they suggest and what those cover. For debt, taxes and property brought into a marriage, the rules vary by state and country, so a financial planner or an attorney where you live can answer what general reading cannot.