150 Important Questions You Should Ask Before You Say “I Do”

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For example, I had a good sense of most of those without explicitly discussing them. However, I needed to know about children. I don't want them. I never want them. It's important that my wife and I be on the same page about it. So we talked several times about it before we got married. The other stuff is important. Don't get me wrong but you have to prioritize like anything else in life or you will get overwhelmed.

Understand that you should know the answer to most of this but you should have time to find it out if you're not rushing. This is absolutely brilliant, but I would add I think all people need to have a frank and honest conversation about Drugs and Alcohol. For most people this conversation can be super straight forward, but with others it is more tricky.

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It is especially important for these conversations to take place before commitment if one person in the couple is taking drugs or drinking a lot and the other person assumes this will naturally go away with the onset of more responsibility, "maturity" or just age. You - Strengths and weaknesses as a person, what do you need? What are your biggest fears? Is there anything important about your history that I should know?

This is perhaps one of the last major conversations to have before taking the leap. The last opportunity to bring up the dealbreakers and doozies. Hopefully this will be top comment soon. My SO and me have been talking marriage for a while kinda casually, kinda "eventually we will" Also, there are no guarantees, but you may, at this stage in things, have a sense of what kind of spenders you are, or what kind of spenders you want to be.

We have to establish some ground rules yet, but the general idea is in place. What can we do as a couple to divide the routine chores and responsibilities so that each feels they're making an equal contribution to the relationship and daily living? This is actually a totally valid question, because habit and assumptions can get in the way. I was in a relationship with a guy for almost three years.

We went to different universities, but spent summers together because I had a job in his town. The first couple of summers I did the majority of the housework because he worked more hours than I did, and I did it because it made sense we also lived in a communal house with about 10 other people, so some of the load was lessened. After graduation, I moved in with him and was working crazy long hours at a physically demanding job, often not getting home until midnight.

He refused to do laundry, wouldn't make lunches for me, and I figured out that he had really patriarchal expectations of household labor. Dumped him when the job ended and moved on. Could have been avoided by talking about it earlier instead of assuming he would do the logical thing. For me this is not even a question to be asked. I would never marry someone I haven't lived with for several years. I would know before the marriage how we would deal with chores.

I know people who don't want to commit to people financially shared house, shared finances, shared utilities, shared space until they're married. I have pretty much lived with my SO since we were together for 3 years, but it really depends on living arrangements and financial situations and independence. This is so important. I think it's somewhat taboo to ask directly about it but it shouldn't be left unspoken. Yep, this is an embarrassing subject for many and thus a secret kept until after the wedding, where it then becomes an even bigger issue that erodes trust.

You can't hide it so talk about it openly as soon as serious wedding talk starts. If there's a problem then you can come up with a plan together. It's often one of the most important things that come out of premarital counseling. This should be discussed even before the wedding. Knowing the amount of debt you both have will allow you to create a realistic budget for your wedding. I'm not saying you have to be extremely cheap, but you don't need to spend hundreds of dollars on the "save the dates.

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And how you each handle finances. I probably would hesitate on someone who has 60k in car or credit card debt over someone with 60k in student loans. Living debt free important to you? You may not be directly paying for it but indirectly you're very effected by it.

I live in tristate New York, dated a girl who was adamant about moving to California in the future - not on my agenda for life at all. If parents think they can force a couple to do anything, that is a huge problem on its own. Family and friends are important, but they should not be controlling your spouse and trying to dictate their life.

You and your spouse are two adults. Your privacy and choices need to be respected. This is a guy I work with - her parents made it a requirement that he convert from Christianity Actually he is already Catholic, they are some kind of Southern Baptist. Their wedding was awkward and no booze, no dancing, her family dictates every part of their relationship.

For people who are religious, things like this make sense to a certain extent. I'm evangelical and I probably wouldn't marry a Catholic — not that Catholics aren't Christian or anything, just that if that kind of thing's important to you, then you should be on the same page as your spouse as much as possible. If I have a son who is active in his faith, I would counsel him the same way. That said, if my son isn't especially active, I'd realize that caring about his wife's denomination wouldn't do anything to address the root of the issue.

However, if my son were to marry a non-Christian, I'd find that problematic assuming that my son considers himself Christian. As a Christian, I think marriage is meant not only for two people to walk with each other but for them also to encourage each other to walk with God more and more, so our faith would be a central part of the marriage.

There's enough difference in the ways that evangelicals and Catholics live that out that there would definitely be some friction — most notably in how we treat the institutional church and the Holy Scriptures. While I fully believe that Catholics are fellow Christians, there's also Catholic doctrines and practices that I can't support in good conscience, such as the veneration of Mary. I wouldn't say marrying a Catholic is something I would never do — as long as two people truly know God, it can work — but there's certainly challenges.

My now ex and I dated for 4 and half years, and we lived together for 2 and a half. Things seriously started to decline when his family moved back home and he told me he wanted to move to Boston we grew up on opposite sides of Massachusetts, his hometown is near Boston.

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He ended up moving back home while we were dating to help out his family, and I followed him after I failed to make rent for our apartment. Worst month of my life, I was so far away from everything I knew, fell into a deeper depression than I was in originally, and ended up leaving and going back home. As much as we wanted to make our relationship work, we just couldn't make that sacrifice for each other.

A lot of people do indeed convert just for show since they aren't invested in their own religion. But if this is a point of contention I wouldn't want to convert for an SO because I wouldn't honestly believe their religion and so it'd be kind of rude to fake it when they care about their religion that much. Went to a Catholic wedding where the groom had converted for the bride. Kept doing the cross backwards, pretty amusing. I agree with most answers so far about religion, debt, kids, and so on. If any of these things blindside you, you are doing 'dating' incorrectly IMHO. Religion and kids sure.

Debt is a little harder, you might have a clue, you might not. Some people try really hard to hide it even from those who are closest to them.

And a lot of times it's not a trust issue, but instead is well intentioned. That mentality becomes absurd as soon as you plan on marrying the person though. Getting married is dragging them into it, and not telling them before is fucked up. My SO and I were discussing getting married recently and he said "you're the first person I've dated that I could picture myself marrying because we're so honest and up-front with each other all the time, and it's true.

I know all the details about his work, his finances, his life goals, and so on, and he knows the same about mine. I can't imagine marrying someone that I felt compelled to keep things from, even the embarrassing or difficult ones. Then if their standard is lower than yours: Will you up your game? If the answer to this question is no then you need to ask yourself if you're content cleaning up after your partner for the rest of your life. As a currently single guy who bought a house expecting me and my ex would get married and split chores, keeping up on a house is some serious fucking work if you are the only one to do it.

They always need to make sure they both agree on kids. I know someone who never wanted kids and now her husband has changed his mind and does want them. I've seen divorces over one changing their mind later in life. They married not ever wanting kids but on the husbands 30th birthday he wanted to try for kids.

She still didn't want them and didn't have security to have kids. They fought over it and could not work it out. Kinda weird, but something that I have not seen mentioned was having a discussion of how much you intend on maintaining your individuality. We have married friends that can't ever seem to get permission to do anything. I once knew a couple who decided to get a prenup before marriage. It doesn't matter what you ask, if you're not planning to listen really carefully, or if you're going to say "well, we'll work that out somehow". Someone might lie if asked directly because they don't want to lose you.

But watch what they say when a similar situation to what you want to ask comes up in conversation. How often do they prefer to have sex. How they might handle it if one person isn't interested in sex as often. How to manage boredom. Beliefs on porn, masturbation, oral sex, consent. If they want kids. Parenting style in detail. Beliefs on if baby would be raised by a stay at home parent or put into daycare. Beliefs on marriage and divorce. How do they define cheating.

Are their own parents still together? How do they feel about that? How would you handle shared expenses? Can he or she really stick to a budget? Are they drowning in debt? First husband claimed cheating would end the marriage. Then he cheated and legitimately didn't understand why I wanted out of the marriage. Some people think cheating is full-on sex. Some people think cheating is kissing. Some people believe getting too close to someone else is cheating, even if it's family. There are those who believe looking at pornography or going to strip clubs is cheating.

Bottom line is, everyone has different limits. Establish the boundaries, before getting into a marriage. I had a mate in a relationship that poof agreed full on sex is cheating but stuff like kissing, groping yadda yadda. Didn't count BUT it was still a big no, so the excuse "I was drunk" would mean, you can't handle your booze and should learn to drink much less or not at all. But it wasn't end the relationship territory just sort your shit out.

[Serious] What questions should everyone ask their partners before getting married? : AskReddit

It means that the two of you are committed to making this work and going through life together of course there are extreme situations where you need to leave, such as abuse. No, a marriage ceremony will not prevent someone from leaving and hurting you. But a willingness to get married anyway shows your faith and trust in the other person. I initially wanted to marry my partner. She said we should spend the money on travel instead. Nothing about being married keeps you from traveling. Whatever makes you happy. In fact, if someone - general example "someone", not you and your partner - feels that they need marriage to fix the relationship in some way, they already have problems.

A wedding is not a cure-all for issues. My husband and I cancelled our wedding and eloped to a chapel, with no guests. We decided to spend previous wedding money on new furniture and other stuff for our home. Also went on a weekend trip to another city. Or what does a husband or wife NOT do?

So people who change and say "oh, I only did that because we were dating" could be huge. Yeah, get onto the website where you can put in your interests and it makes a list of what you agree on. If you put something and your partner doesn't it doesn't show up so they won't know what a freak you are.

But make sure your intended can be trusted to answer the questions in good faith I knew you were in to that! You said you weren't and you lied! Actually agree on this one, although you may have been joking. This is one thats constantly overlooked and can definitely be a deal breaker. If you aren't fulfilling a part of your partners sexual desires then a part of them is always going to be wanting to find it elsewhere. I'm not saying they will cheat but it does to an extent put a distance in between partners. Say for instance the reply was scat, for me at least i would want out of the relationship as I am in no way into that and want to be satisfying all of my life partner's sexual desires.

Additionally if they found my kinks to be deal breakers then I wouldn't want to spend my life with them anyway, i have things I like and if my partner doesn't like them then our sexual chemistry will never fully match. I don't think it matters so much whether or not you like your partners fetishes though it helps but what you're willing to put up with.

If your partner is into getting spanked, it doesn't matter if you get no joy from it, what matters is whether or not you're willing to go along with it. For some fetishes, if you only go with people who share that fetish, you may be waiting a very long time to find someone who shares it, but there may be plenty of people who are willing to embrace it and, with some explaining, can learn to embrace it, even if it does nothing for them. Libido in general is very important. For the vast majority of people that aren't swingers being in a relationship means being monogamous.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that each person has a responsibility to their partner to take that seriously and respect the other's well being. The biggest conflicts I've seen in marriage tend to be around family interactions, communication styles, money, and expectations. Also, you are going to marry that person's ingrained family cycle and way of dealing with things.

So be sure you check how involved they want to be with their family and whose family you'll spend holidays with. Do you want children I think is the biggest one. But ultimately, if you have different core values than your partner you should reconsider a long term relationship with them. It may not be an issue now, but it will be one day. Not even core values, but lots of compatibility issues. I'm watching a dear friend go through an engagement with someone he has little in common with. She likes camping and hiking, he likes weed and video games. Those differences are charming and exciting in the beginning of dating, but, for a lasting marriage, I think as does he, unfortunately that they cause conflict, or at least an uphill roll.

If planning a fun weekend requires that one of you constantly "compromise," bigger things are gonna be rough, too. IMO, you gotta be pretty darn similar- hobbies and interests and temperaments and, well, lots of things- to have a happily lasting marriage. A bit off topic, but related. As someone in a 8.

7 tough questions you must ask before saying "I do"

That was a LOT. Her habits were terrible awesome girl, just pigged out constantly and hated all physical activities. Every 2 to 3 months she had to buy completely new clothes.

I've lost contact with her, but given what she was doing, I can't imagine it changing. I saw a picture of a thin girl at her house once keep in mind this girl was 20 and I asked her if it was a cousin or something. She gave me a funny look and said it was her 3 years earlier. Yes it may sound shallow, but this girl was headed for a hell of a lot of health problems if she didn't change. And no, we didn't break up because of her weight.

I would totally agree that that's important. If one partner can go hiking and walk quickly through the mall and the other one just physically can't, that's going to put a strain on the relationship. I only dated my husband because he was of similar size as me. We are both working towards the overweight and not obese side of the scale and it's nice that we can do it together. And I can't imagine that's healthy either.

I could see gaining pounds over a year or two. I've done that over college and my relationship. Be upfront about what you have and want - it shows you trust each other. What to do about it: Get a better grasp of his attitude towards money with simple and light-hearted questions, says Judith. Ask him how he would spend a million dollars, or what's the one thing he can buy that would make him happy. It'll give you an insight into what he prioritises. Even if you're not on the same page, acknowledging your different views about money and setting shared goals will mean less friction later.

Does he have a family history of diabetes? Has he ever had a heart attack? Look at health factors that might have long-term effects on your relationship. It's wise to find out how prepared he is for the future so you can plan ahead and ensure you have financial security, says Relationship Matters director Jean Shashi.

If he already has a medical condition, does he have enough resources to manage in the years ahead? Get a financial planner to look at options - like whether he needs life insurance in case he's unable to work later. Even if you're both healthy, talk about what sufficient health coverage means to you. He may not see the point of paying extra for what might not happen.

If you can't reach reach a compromise, ask yourself if you can live with the potential outcome of his decision. If not, you'll need to re-evaluate the relationship.

Be prepared that his parents might expect him to care for them down the line - which will have a direct impact on you, says Diana. Then there's the question of how much financial support you have to give your parents and his, and whether this comes out of a joint account or your own pockets. Don't let this issue lie.

Diana says it can breed conflict and distrust, especially when you feel blindsided by each other's expectations. Talk about options, says Diana. Find out what level of support is comfortable for both of you. If ties between you and your in-laws are strained, discuss whether it's feasible to get them an apartment nearby rather than have them move in.

Things might change over time, but it's more important to set the boundaries first. Check for overlap in your mutual funds using Morningstar's free Instant X-Ray. One of the first tasks newlyweds should tackle is creating a budget. Sit down together and plot out how much you expect to spend on groceries, clothes, eating out and other household expenses. You should also take this time to discuss other spending issues, such as how much each of you can spend without consulting the other.

In my house, I'm the chief financial officer. My husband and I both contribute to cover the bills, but I'm the one who physically writes the checks, rebalances the portfolios and hashes out the taxes. I'm more organized than him, so the task naturally fell to me, though you might find splitting the duties works well in your relationship. Our arrangement doesn't mean I leave my husband in the dark, though. We have a date every month to go over the budget, review our saving strategies and progress, and discuss upcoming expenses, such as vacations and big-ticket purchases.

Paying your bills electronically is a great way to reduce the burden of this task. Or, you might consider using software, such as Quicken, or Web sites, such as Mint , to organize and track your finances. No matter who ends up handling the bills in your marriage, make sure each partner knows where to find all the different account information, including Web sites, passwords and bill due dates in case anything should happen and the other person needs to take over the responsibilities.

One of the biggest culprits in marital money fights is a mismatch of risk tolerance, says Jonathan Rich, author of The Couple's Guide to Love and Money. From investing strategies to career moves, if one of you prefers to take bigger risks in hope of bigger rewards while the other is content to play it safe, you could each end up resenting the other for his or her carelessness or for holding you back, says Rich.

10 Questions to Ask Before Saying 'I Do'

If you're on different ends of the risk spectrum, don't even try changing your spouse's point of view — it won't happen. Instead, try to compromise on financial strategies that both of you can stomach. Adding a spouse to your health insurance may be cheaper than maintaining separate plans. Consider your specific health needs, then look at the costs and benefits of each person's plan choosing. Combining your auto-insurance coverage will probably also save you money. You'll want make sure you have enough homeowners or renters insurance to protect your combined possessions. And what about life insurance?

Do you need it? If you already have some, either privately or through an employer, do you need to change your beneficiary information? The good news is that simply marrying a person with bad credit will not drag down your stellar record.

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