A popular concept of marriage in recent times has been hung on meeting someone you like, dating for a year or two, and boom!!! You get married. Every romantic relationship should lead to marriage, but not before covering all your bases by asking the right questions.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not against quick marriages because even long-term pre-marriage relationships still get off on the wrong set of ideas.
Marriage, we all know, is a lifetime commitment, so it wouldn’t hurt to ensure you are going in with all the information you need to make it a success -short-term or long-term, regardless.
Well, true, some marriages may have sailed through without having to deal with these, but have you ever wondered why divorces are currently a household term in marriages across the globe?
The answer is simple. They neglected to ask some important questions before jumping or strolling into marriage. They discovered they could not handle some shocking revelations about their partners.
So they either have to live with the regret of not asking these questions or using the door.
However, while this post may not totally guarantee that your marriage works or not, it sure increases the odds. Building constructive conversations around the questions outlined in this post helps you get the relevant pieces of information you would need to ensure a successful marriage.
Listed below are ten (10) of them;
Important Questions to Ask Before Marriage
What is Your Biggest Fear?
Marriage goes beyond sharing your dreams, ambitions, and hopes. You will also need to share and understand your fears, struggles, and regrets to ensure a balance. This sure is usually a tough nut to crack, but a marriage without this information is 100% unpredictable. You basically do not know what to expect or how your partner would react when confronted with their fears.
So, trust me, you literally need to know what makes them tick. And then figure out ways to deal with them together.
According to Lee, a marriage therapist, “There’s a lot of folks where they grew up in families where marriage was not a positive thing.”
“Be able to have honest conversations around that. Nurture and be considerate of those fears and address them together.”
What are your Deal Breakers?
Deal Breakers range from personal decisions like whether or not you want children, the kind of belief systems you want them to grow up with, and the number of children to life goals like projects you want to pursue, where you want to live, career goals, and so on.
Whichever is your partner’s, this is something you want to know. If they fit together, Lucky you!!! However, watch out for conflicts and sort them out.
On the flip side, a common mistake most couples make is thinking their partners will be able to look past these factors. As a matter of fact, they should, in the name of love.
They fail to realize that the forces behind deal breakers could easily compete with those behind love.
I just heard you mutter, “ Then it wasn’t true love.” “Love is about sacrifices.“
That is true, but a better approach would be to discuss them and reach a compromise. Knowing that you’re both sacrificing and compromising to ensure the best possible outcome is an exhilarating feeling.
What Are Your Financial Goals?
Considering its relevance, you could rank this as the most important question on the list. Money has been labelled the number one source of stress in relationships and marriages. So you would not be out of place if you prioritized money above every other item you need to tick on your marriage checklist.
Asking about financial goals and how you hope to achieve them will help your partners stay accountable to you. It helps you monitor their financial progress and keep them in line if needed.
And most of all, it will help you decide if you are willing to put up your partner regardless of their present financial state.
However, there are other financial-related questions like;
How do you expect to share the expenses? Do you have gender-based financial expectations? Will we merge our accounts? How will we prioritize spending?
How Do We Deal With Our In-Laws?
Research shows that quite a number of individuals in marriage are still attached to their first families. They literally yearn to feel the way they felt as kids. So, to achieve this, they constantly try to please them at any given opportunity.
Taking this into perspective, you will agree with me on how vital it is to set boundaries with in-laws.
Don’t get me wrong, family is the priority, but they join the extended category immediately after marriage. So, questions like;
“If we’re married, how do you plan on prioritizing our relationship?” “If your parent wants something and I want something else, how would you approach that? What are your values around prioritizing our new family as a married couple? How much time do you see us spending with your family?”
should be in order.
What is your Communication Style?
Basically, everyone possesses a peculiar style of communication that best helps them to express their feelings. Understanding your partner’s communication style should be a top priority because of how crucial communication is in every relationship. You do not want to deal with wrongly interpreting signals that may seem true on the surface but with a different interpretation underneath.
Most people usually need time to think things over; others speak directly from emotions and regret it later, while others communicate better in writing.
The bottom line is that a better understanding of your partner’s communication style will trigger a more constructive response when issues arise.
How Can I Help When You Are Stressed?
A common reaction that comes with stress is trying not to feel alone or to feel pampered. In reality, though, not everyone is wired that way.
You should be certain about the category to find your partner when stress comes along. The category of people who need space, those who need reassurance, or those who respond better to pep talks
For the most part, they may not be able to communicate their needs when stressed fully, but the knowledge of how you can help is a step in the right direction.
What Are Your Sex Expectations?
As odd as this may sound to some folks -particularly the very religious ones- it’s an aspect of marriage that cannot be overlooked. You cannot overlook the fact that deep down, you’ve got these fantasies about sex you want to explore in marriage.
There are expectations you want to be fulfilled, so to ignore this is to ignore a vital aspect of marriage. You also want to know how frequent sexual activities will be while assuring each other that less activity will have nothing to do with a loss of interest.
What Does Marriage Mean to You?
Marriage hardly means the same thing to everyone out there. Realizing this early enough helps you clear the air around people’s different perceptions.
Many people either take it as an all-consuming partnership, legal agreement, or obligation. These perceptions about marriage form the bedrock of how events would play out during your marriage.
So, ensure that talking about them is one of your priorities. This will avoid scenarios where either of you feels your needs or expectations did not pan out as planned.
Do You Want Children and What Would We Do if We Struggle to Get Pregnant?
This feels like a popular question couples tend to deal with before marriage, but in reality, that’s not usually the case, particularly how to deal with struggling to get pregnant.
Couples hardly go over options they should consider in the event that they struggle to get pregnant. And that’s because options like IVF and adoption may sound too challenging due to a number of reasons.
In the end, they become real options, but half the time, only one partner wants to go through with the process.
I guess you now see reasons why it should be sorted out from the get-go. A contingency plan is needed.
What Are Your Expectations Around Childcare and Parenting?
Now that you may have decided on whether or not you want children and how many, all that’s left is the decision on how to raise them.
Taking a cue from Lee’s suggestions, the following questions should be asked;
“If we have children, what are your expectations around child care and parenting? Do you have any gender-based expectations? Are you a feminist? Which is your ideal situation—do we both work and take care of the kids? Would you want to stay at home?”
A perfect addition to this will be also to find out how each partner was raised, talking about likes and dislikes.
What are good intimate questions?
The following are categorized under good intimate questions;
- What is something you have always wanted to tell me but couldn’t?
- What is the biggest thing you miss about me now?
- Where would you like me to kiss you?
- When was the time you felt closest to me?
- The next time we are together, what is one thing you’d like me to do to you?
What are the 3 most important things in a marriage?
Three primary elements emerged from statistics: communication, knowledge, and commitment.
What Are Challenging Questions for Couples?
- Who is more romantic?
- Who cooks better?
- Who snores?
- Who spends more money?
- Who is bad at karaoke?
- Who apologizes first in an argument?
- Who is the funny one?
- Who can make fun of themselves?
Conclusion
You may not be able to directly control whether or not your marriage leads to a divorce. What you can do is ensure your marriage has the best chance of thriving and surviving.
Discussing questions on this post automatically increases that chance exponentially. Conversations around these questions before marriage deal with the big issues, needs, wants and expectations that may arise.
You can, however, reach out in the comment section for professional advice.
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