Your marriage will last more than just one big fun-filled day. It'll be
a lifetime commitment.
To ensure that you and your future spouse are on the same page in your
plans for
the future, take a look at our evergrowing
list of pre-marital questions that you should ask each other.
Family
Planning
• Will we have children?
• If so, when?
• How many children will we have?
• What religion will we raise our children?
• What last name will we give the children, the father's last
name or the mother's and father's last name hyphenated?
• Who will be the disciplinarian?
• Will we send them to private or public school?
• Will one of us stay at home to raise the children?
• If we are having a hard time conceiving, will you be opposed
to artificial methods of conception?
• Would you be willing to adopt?
• What birth control methods will we use if we decide to wait?
• What values do we want to instill in our children, and how
will we do so?
• How will we discipline our children?
• What would be the consequences for…?
• How will we reward our children?
• Will we give them allowance?
• Will we set limits on privileges?
• Where do we stand on junk food, video games…?
• How much family time is appropriate?
• What do you consider quality time as a family? With each
other?
• What is our long-term daycare plan? What's our back-up? Can
we afford it?
• How much time will we spend with the in-laws?
• What will we do for holidays?
• If something happens to the both of us, who will take care
of our children?
Who will take care of the children from our previous relationships?
Finances
• Who's going to handle the finances?
• Will we have separate or joint accounts?
• Will we split the bills or pay them together?
• Will we have a pre-nuptial agreement?
• Who will be responsible for the budgeting?
• What is your spending style? Are you a spender or a saver?
• How are you financially preparing for retirement?
• What are your views on debt (credit cards, loans, etc.)?
• How much can we spend each month?
• How much do we plan on saving each month?
• What our our long-term goals? Saving for a house? College?
Retirement?
• How much do you spend shopping each month?
• Would you be able to curb discretionary spending?
• Do we create a house budget and write down everything we
spend?
• Do we have a certain amount of money that's individual or
are we pooling everything?
• If one of us lost our job, what would we do?
• Does one of us want a career change in the future? How would
we finance that?
• Do you have credit card or student loan debt?
• If it came time to buy a new car, what kind would you get?
How much would you spend?
What are your plans now for saving
towards that?
• Do we have emergency money? How can we save that? What
constitutes an "emergency"?
• Is there a spending limit that we should check with each
other before making purchases over a certain amount?
• What are our priorities? Is college money more important or
is a new kitchen, etc.?
• Will each of us draft a will? What should the will say?
Home Life
• Where will we live after the wedding?
• Will we rent or purchase?
• What chores are expected of each other?
• Where will we live after we retire?
• What will the bride's last name be after the wedding?
• What will we do when both sets of our parents are in their
advanced ages?
Careers
• Will both of us work?
• If I get a career opportunity in another city or state or
even country, would you be willing to move?
• When are we planning on retiring?
Religion
• What religion will we practice, if any?
• Will you be willing to convert to my religion?
• Will it be okay if we each practice our own religion?
• If we practice our own respective religions, will we expect
the other to attend services with us?
Communication Style
• Are you willing to talk about issues or do you brood?
• How much communication is too much and leads to overload?
• Would you be willing to seek help from a third party
(counseling) if we are unable to resolve
our issues on our own?
Temperament
• How do you handle stress and crises that suddenly occur? Do
you explode or do you step back and
approach the issue calmly or somewhere in between?
Medical
• Does your family have any history of serious medical
problems?
• Do you have a history of serious medical problems?
• Have you ever been, or are now, addicted to: drinking,
smoking, drugs, gambling?
• Would you be opposed to the both of us getting tested for
sexually transmitted diseases?
• What should we do if the other is on life support? Will we
draft a Living Will/Trust?
