Questions to Ask Before Marriage?

Question

Hello! 
I’ve been with my bf for a while and he’s expressed that he wants me to be his wife. He didn’t propose just making his intentions clear with me. We both are dating for marriage so I’m excited to hear that from him but I was thinking about what are the most important things to know about your partner before deciding to get married. 
I don’t take marriage lightly, I love him with my entire heart but you can’t simply run a marriage on love by itself lol! I’m sure there’s more to consider!! 
So what do you think are the MOST important questions or things to know/considered before getting married?

Answer

1) Everything kids- how many, hard limits, when, how close together, what about infertility (especially in the case of sterility)?
2) Life goals- where do you want to be in 10, 20, 30 and so on years? What kind of house? Yard? Cities you’re okay with? Work life balance? Salary expectations? Is one of you going to stay home with kids one day? How are you going to make that a reality?
Which brings us to 3) Finances- I can’t stress this one enough. Debts. All of them and how they’ll be tackled. Income potential. Retirement savings. Shared vs. split (I strongly dislike splits of any kind and think they always lead to problems, but to each their own). Major purchases? Minor purchases? Investment plans. Habits. Benefits from jobs (who goes on whose insurance). Lending to others/borrowing from others. 
4) Love Languages- do you know each other’s? Willingness to go to therapy in hard times is another, because these are often misunderstood. 
5) Pets- Do you have any? Want any? How many/what kind/what does that look like for your housing plans? 
6) Death plans- you will now be in charge of each other’s final wishes. Make sure you know what that is, including injuries leading to extreme incapacitation. When do you pull the plug?
7) FAMILY- family is almost always an extreme source of tension, especially in-laws. How do you each expect the other to manage their now extended family? This is imperative to get down before having kids because family matters only get worse from there. I had to get that sorted with my husband well before I agreed to marry him because his mom is a nut and he was a momma’s boy to some degree.

Answer

Things that I think that set my husband and I up on a good foundation before we got married are:
1. Financial expectations: did we want separate finances, fully or partially merged finances? Did one of us desire to stay home with children one day? What was our goal for purchasing a home? 
2. Kids: how many do we think we want? Are we open to more or less? Do we even want kids? When do we think we want them? Are we open to earlier or later? What do we want to do if we have fertility issues?
3. Chores/housekeeping: how will we divide things up? Do we both expect each other to help with chores or will one of us do it all? 
4. Friends/social life: how do we envision our social life both together and separate? 
5. Communication: how do we wish to resolve conflict? What do we see as our communication style/preferences. How do we each separately handle conflict? How does that impact our ability to work together. 
6. Living situation: how open to moving are you/we? Would we ever move for someone’s job? Would we move “far” from family. What is far from family. 
6. Misc. expectations: things like “my mom always did X would you be willing to do that too?” 
If you love a person you should already know that they have the qualities you really like. At that point for at least me and my husband we needed to hash out more logistical stuff. This has NOT by any means saved us from all disagreements. But it set us up on the same page on a lot of things that I don’t think people always think about when dating. Some of these questions we knew the answers to already and others we hadn’t even thought about talking about them yet. 
I highly recommend doing some pre-marriage counseling. A third party person can really help navigate these conversations and keep things productive and civil.

Answer

It’s very  important  to talk about  kids , when you want them , how many ( may change ) , and how you want to raise them .  Communication is also a huge thing , make sure you guys are good with communicating with each other and are able to compromise. There will be times you both have to compromise on things . I’m sure you already know each other’s views and values in life but that’s another thing I feel is important , somethings don’t really need to be agreed on but some I feel it’s important to have the same thoughts about things . Talk about money and what both of you want from each other and the marriage .

Answer

Already good stuff here, but to add- talk about parenting styles (if you want kids). I never talked about that with my husband and we are widely different. Sometimes that’s ok, sometimes, not... and a united front is really important.

Answer

All the questions relating to kids. 
Do you want kids, how many kids, when do you want them, if you have issues with infertility are you willing to pay for treatments, would you be okay with adoption, how would you handle childcare, what are absolutes you have when it comes to things you want to do with your children (family traditions, education, medical decisions etc). 
Literally all the couples I know who have gotten divorced, it’s been over kids/family planning. 
One couple couldn’t agree on kids. He had said he wanted them and then changed his mind, it was a deal breaker for her so they divorced
One couple struggled with infertility and she wanted to spend the money for IV, he didn’t, they couldn’t work it out, so they divorced.

Questions to Ask Before Marriage?

The Top Baby Tracker App: Embrace New Beginnings with Tender Care

The Top Fertility Tracker App: Your Path to Achieving Pregnancy

The Top Pregnancy App: Nurturing Your Journey to Motherhood

The Top Period Tracker for Empowering Your Menstrual Health Journey