Important Questions to Ask During Engagement

Engagement is such an exciting & special transitional season for couples. Official steps have been taken to move from a dating relationship to the life long commitment of marriage. This can be a stressful time for couples as they navigate wedding preparations and the merging of two families. Often the focus remains on the wedding day & while this is a beautifully important day that deserves time and attention, the true purpose is generally neglected. The real meaning of the wedding day is that two become one and enter into marriage together.

Listed below are 12 topics, each including questions to guide you in having important conversations with your future spouse. I originally came across this list of questions during my couples counseling class in graduate school. I have edited & added to the list only slightly, but for the most part it is not my own. I have found these questions extremely helpful both in my own relationship and with my clients.

These are all areas that will necessarily be present in your marriage & your future selves will thank you for discussing them ahead of time. You can approach these questions in various ways; there is no right or wrong. What I personally did throughout my own engagement was discuss one question at a time during our evening phone calls until we worked our way through all of them. It allowed us to spend time thoughtfully sharing and listening to one another on each topic, and it led to some really meaningful conversations. So let’s jump in!

1. Meaning of Marriage

A. Describe what marriage means to you?

B. Of all of the persons in your life that you have met, why are you choosing to marry me?

C. What attracted you to me initially and what do you hope I will help you become?

D. What is the goal and ultimate purpose of marriage in your eyes?

2. Life Long Goals

A. What do you hope to achieve in the near future and the distant future (including career, family, etc.)?

B. How do wish to impact and care for our community together and/or individually?

C. Do you hope to leave a legacy after you die? What would that be ideally?

3. Mutual Expectations

A. What do you expect from a spouse regarding emotional support during exciting times, sad times, periods of illness and job loss?

B. Will you set aside one night just to be together alone to catch up with each other and have fun? What would one of these nights look like ideally?

C. What size house is important and in what kind of neighborhood do you hope to live in both now and in the future?

D. Are you both clear how much alone time the other needs?

E. How much time does your spouse need to spend with friends separately and together?

F. Do you agree on how much time is appropriate to give to work? Discuss expectations for traveling for work & working at night/on the weekends.

G. Do you both expect to support the family financially and will that be different when kids arrive?

H. Are you both comfortable with the salary differential between you?

I. How will you deal with times when one or both of you has reached a midlife career point, and you need to change some aspects of your life?

4. Living Arrangements

A. How do you plan to live together?

B. Where will you live after the arrival of children?

C. How will you determine if a new career path, job, or other reason is reason enough to move?

D. Do you hope to live in the same house or area for a long time?

E. Will you need to be close to your parents either as you get together now or as they get older?

5. Family Planning

A. Do you hope to have children and if so, how many?

B. When would you like to start having children?

C. How far apart would you want our kids to be in age?

D. Would abortion ever be acceptable before or after that?

E. What method of family planning are you comfortable with (natural family planning, artificial birth control methods, etc.)

F. If we were to struggle with infertility, what next steps would you like to take? (are you open/closed to IVF, IUI, fertility testing, NaPro Technology, fostering, adoption? what is on or off the table here?)

G. What kinds of philosophies did your parents have about child raising and do you agree or disagree?

H. How do each of you intend to shape your children’s values?

I. What kinds of punishment are appropriate or not appropriate?

J. What kinds of expectations do you each have about money spent on toys, clothes, etc.?

6. Money

A. Will you have separate or joint bank accounts or both?

B. If you do have different accounts, who will be responsible for which expenses?

C. Who will take care of paying the bills?

D. Do you agree to have full financial disclosure about each of your personal financial situation at all times?

E. How will strong disagreements about spending money be resolved?

F. Is there any debt that either spouse has incurred before the marriage (college or graduate school loans or credit card debt, etc.)? What is the plan for this debt?

G. What amount of available money does each of you need to have to feel comfortable?

H. Will there be a savings plan for a house, car, others?

I. Do you plan to keep trading houses as you can afford it?

J. How much credit card debt, home loan debt, car payment debt is acceptable?

K. Agreement about taking care of financial needs of parents if likely?

L. Do you plan to send your kids to private school, public school, or homeschool?

M. What will be the plans for children’s college education?

N. When do you hope to begin saving for retirement?

O. Will you use a financial planner?

P. Who will complete the taxes?

7. Parents and In-laws

A. How much time does each of you need to spend with your parents and how much do you expect your spouse to join you?

B. How do you plan to spend holidays?

C. What will be the holiday expectations of each of your parents and how will you deal with those expectations?

D. What kind of support do you expect from your partner when the parents are putting pressure on you?

E. Is it okay for either of you to talk with parents about the problems of the relationship?

F. What kind of relationship do you expect your kids to have with your parents?

G. Do you anticipate that you will ever want a parent to live with the two of you when you grow old?

8. Gender Role Expectations

A. What did your parents model for you concerning who did what in the family?

B. Did you feel that was fair and do you expect something different?

C. Does each of you have some preferences that might be unrelated to gender?

D. How will you deal with household or yard maintenance? How will you divvy up these responsibilities or hire someone?

E. Do both of you expect to work if you have children?

F. When the children get sick, how will you decide who stays home with them?

9. Physical Intimacy

A. How often do you want to enjoy an intimate evening with each other?

B. How do you intend to resolve differences in sexual preferences?

C. Can you work out an agreement about how to deal with differences in frequency of sexual desire?

D. Are there certain things that are clearly off limits?

E. Do you agree to talk about your sexual concerns at a time when you both are feeling creative and relaxed and not during sex?

F. How do you both feel about pornography and its role in the relationship? Does either spouse currently or have they previously struggled with a pornography addiction?

10. Conflict

A. How will you resolve heated conflicts?

B. What can you learn about how your spouse deals with conflict based on their experience in their family of origin?

B. What feels comfortable to each of you, as your spouse gets upset? How do you naturally respond, how would each of you like the other to respond when you become upset?

C. Can either of you ask for a time out to calm down and be creative in your problem solving?

D. What rituals will you develop to reach out to each other & repair after a big fight?

E. Are we open to going to counseling together and/or individually? What do we feel would be good reasons to make an appointment?

11. Spiritual Life

A. What does spirituality mean to each of you? Are you religious, what does this mean?

B. What kind of participation do you expect from each other in some form of spiritual community?

C. How will you share meaningful faith experiences, thoughts, etc. with your spouse?

D. Will your children be expected to attend any regular services or religious education?

E. Will the children go through certain rituals, ceremonies or sacraments (baptism, first communion, confirmation, bar or bat mitzvah, etc.)?

12. Extramarital Relationships

A. Do you want to establish from the beginning that affairs are not an option?

B. Do you agree that emotional affairs are equal to a physical affair?

C. Will you talk to your spouse about someone that you feel drawn to as a colleague or erotically since this can build the bond between you and your spouse rather than the outside person?

D. Will you commit to never talking to a person of the opposite sex (except a therapist or clergy) about your relationship with your spouse since this builds a bond outside of your relationship?

E. What will you do to guard yourself and your marriage from other relationships forming & causing harm to the marriage?

God bless all of you in your marriages! Have favorite questions to add? Comment them down below for others to benefit from! Xx