At this point in my life, we’re (my husband and I) have been attending many weddings and while this makes me happy for our friends, it makes me reflect on love and what that means. In the U.S. the divorce rate is high, I remember growing up I was told that 50% of marriages ended in divorce. I saw my friends parents break up and divorce and I always worried about my parents would do so (never happened). When I reflected on how I wanted my life to turn out, I wanted a constant in my life other than family so I decided I would do everything in my power to have a relationship and marriage that wouldn’t end in divorce. My husband and I have been together since we were children, I would say that we knew each other fairly well when we became engaged. As we were figuring out and preparing for marriage, we talked and talked a lot. We truly sat and listened to each other and asked each other really hard questions. We wrote answers down so we could better explain and articulate our feelings and so we felt more able to share our thoughts, we were committed to our thoughts and beliefs.
Going through the process of planning to get married we needed to have marriage counseling by the Chaplain who would marry us. We were super nervous about everything concerning it, letting a stranger in on our lives, sharing our plans for the future, sharing our fears and being truly honest to ourselves about our relationship. Despite our concerns, it was a blessing and we were so happy we went through with it. We were able to work through disagreements and celebrated in our shared hopes and goals for the future. After our meeting with the Chaplain, we actually went through a list together of over 100 questions that would allow us to have an even deeper conversation.
As I’ve been writing this post and putting together these questions, the list has gotten so incredibly long! So I decided to break this post into five different posts, which makes it honestly a little bit easier to tackle with your partner. The questions I put together leaves very little to the imagination and hopefully, leaves no stone unturned. There are some questions that could be triggering (mental disorders, abuse, sex, etc), however, I do believe that even though it could be triggering to discuss these things, they’re important for your partner to know about and vice versa. Take your time while going through these, some questions are very heavy so put aside a few hours to work through them. Be honest and be genuine, these are the conversations that you need to have if you’re going to have a successful marriage.
Here’s what to expect.
Part 1:
Past relationships, physical and mental health history, work, & finances
Part 2:
Home, everyday life, meals, communication, gender roles, parenthood, education, appearance, & sex
Part 3:
Extended family, holidays, friends, pets & fur babies, community, & charity
Part 4:
Religion, politics, race & ethnicities, legal history, & military
Part 5:
Media, leisure & free time, travel, & vacations
Past Relationships
In relationships, have you ever felt insecure and if you have how come? What could be done to prevent insecurities?
What is a fear that you have in relationships?
When was the first time you felt like you were truly in love and what was the outcome?
What has been your longest relationship and what was the ending factor?
Were you ever married before? Tell me about it.
How should past relationships be handled? Do you feel they would be better left in the past and not discussed?
Do past relationships matter?
What are your views and opinions on marriage counseling?
Do you have children from other relationships? What role do you play in their lives and future?
Were you ever engaged to get married before?
Have you ever cohabitated with a partner and decided to end the relationship? What were the deal breakers?
Physical and Mental Health History
Do you view your physical health a priority?
Do you view your mental health as a priority?
How often do you exercise?
Do you exercise at home or in a gym?
Do you take any exercise classes?
What genetic diseases or cancers have been in your family or may run in your family?
Have you ever been seriously ill?
Were you ever in a serious accident?
Have you ever needed to get surgery?
Do you have health, dental, and vision insurance through your employer?
Who would be responsible for obtaining health insurance for the family?
Have you ever suffered with or was diagnosed with an eating disorder?
Have you ever had to seek medical help for a mental disorder?
Have you ever seen a therapist or do you currently?
Do you feel that seeing a therapist is important?
Do you take any medications daily? What are they for? How much do they cost?
Do any of your medications cause bad side effects? Including sexual side effects?
Do you have or have ever had an STI or STD?
Do you or anyone in your family struggle with addiction or have an addictive personality?
Have you ever been addicted to anything? Drug and non-drug related?
Are you a smoker or vaper?
Do you drink alcohol? How much and when?
Have you ever used recreational drugs and do you currently use any?
Work
What is your field of work?
Do you consider yourself a workaholic?
Are you still in school to prepare for your field of work?
How many hours do you work in a week?
What is your dream job?
Are you in your dream job?
When do you plan on retiring?
What are your plans for retirement?
When you retire what do you plan on doing?
Have you ever been fired from a job?
Have you changed jobs a lot in your career?
Do you work to live or live to work?
What is your vision of work-life balance?
Has your work ever been a factor in the ending of a relationship?
Finances
Is money an important part of your life?
Would you want to have a prenuptial agreement? How important is this to you?
What is your annual income from your job(s)?
Do you consider yourself frugal?
Do you pay anything like child support or alimony?
Do you have any debt? If so are you paying them off?
Will we help each other pay off any debts?
Do you have any student loans? How much?
How do you feel about budgets?
Do you believe in creating a family budget?
Do you have any views on who the primary breadwinner would be?
How do you feel about joint bank accounts?
How will money be handled?
How will bills be managed between us?
Is there a purchase point where you must know about a purchase? (Ie. Any purchase over $500 we need to discuss)
How were you brought up concerning finances? What matters to you?
Do you gamble at all?
What is your credit score, why is it this?
Would anyone consider you cheap?
When you budget, do you also account for dates or “fun” money or family trips?
Do you prefer to spend money on things or experiences?
Is it important to you to control the money in a relationship?
Can your partner make decisions with their own money? Your money?
Has money ever been a stressor for you?
Have you ever ended a relationship based on differences in financial and money values?
I hope you and your partner enjoy the questions and truly connect as you uncover answers. Who knows you might even learn something about yourself that you didn’t even know! Come back for the next few parts in the series and please let me know how your conversations go!!
Oh darling be open and listen intently.
