36 Helpful Premarital Counseling Questions to Ask Before the Big Day
Takeaway: Embarking on the journey of marriage is a joyous occasion, but it's essential to lay a strong foundation before the big day. In this blog post, I’ll share a carefully curated list of premarital questions designed to enhance communication, deepen understanding, and pave the way for a resilient and blissful partnership. Explore these invaluable insights to ensure your journey into marriage is built on a solid and fulfilling connection.
Many loving couples spend an incredible amount of energy and money on the big day. It is beautiful to celebrate this joyous occasion; it is even more valuable to ensure that this level of investment has long term results. Couples can invest quality time in broadening their understanding of the quality of the relationship both people would like to sustain in their married life.
Pre marriage counseling studies have shown that premarital counseling can reduce the likelihood of a divorce by about 50%. It shows that it is more effective to engage in quality premarital counseling for about six to nine months than living together as a couple before marriage!
Premarital counseling supports couples to build a healthy and solid foundation ahead of a marriage commitment. Premarital counseling also supports couples in identifying areas of conflict in the relationship and provides effective tools to address those areas to prevent them from becoming serious issues in the future.
In this post, I will speak to the benefits of premarital counseling and provide a premarital counseling questionnaire that can help guide you and your future spouse.
The importance of premarital questions
Asking the right questions becomes important.
Premarital questions help you zero in on what issues you will need to address sooner rather than later. Together you both can start building a safe space to address disagreements and better understand and settle these before they become bigger arguments in the future.
The right questions can help enhance your and your partner's quality of communication. Good communication is of course always a work in progress with every relationship and in every aspect of our lives. Communication is an area in which most of us have some limitations. When you join your life with someone else's, differences in how you both manage certain aspects of life will become more highlighted. Having a head start in getting to know the different styles of communicating between you two, can help you gain compassion and communication skills that can support you during difficult periods throughout your marriage.
Setting the foundation: General premarital questions
Asking the right questions can also help you plan for the future. Uncomfortable conversations are all too common in any healthy relationship for all of us! Nervousness around certain topics can shed light on your ongoing self-work as well.
You do not have to manage all of these questions in one sitting. You can tackle one topic at a time.
Holiday expectations. How are you planning on managing the holidays? Do you plan to take turns with each other's families, or not? Do your families live in the same area or a different state or country; how important is it for each of you to see family members during certain holidays? What holidays are important for each of you and how have you celebrated these in the past separately? How would like to incorporate some of these past experiences into your present? or would you like to add your own rituals, especially in that first year of marriage? These can and will of course change over the years, having a beginner's road map can increase your comfort levels in your first year of marriage and set a strong foundation for the future.
Money related questions are important. How do you view the importance of having joint or separate accounts? Are there any graduate school loans or credit card debt? What do you believe each of your responsibilities are toward this debt? What are your mutual expectations regarding spending money? Would you want to set up a monthly budget for your household? Would you want to hire a financial planner? How would you handle a job loss? What are your career goals? How much influence does money have on the quality of life you expect in your marriage?
Gender role expectations. Do you have an independent blueprint based on your family of origin as to what each gender's responsibilities are? Are these roles important to you or are you planning on experiencing something different in your relationship? Do you want to have children? and if so, what are your beliefs around child rearing and parenting? Do these align? and if not, is there a path to compromise and honor both perspectives?
What are your spiritual beliefs? Is organized religion important to you and your soon to be spouse? If there are marked differences in beliefs or religion, discuss how you plan to honor both in your relationship.
What does intimacy mean to each of you? what level of physical intimacy are you expecting in your marriage? what living arrangements are you envisioning for yourself? Do you have any sexual concerns or preferences that have gone unexplored? What does a fulfilling marriage look like for each of you?
Building compatibility and trust in marriage is an every day, every minute-of-the-day endeavor. When people come to my office for couples counseling after many years of marriage it is always striking to hear that so many of these topics were under-explored and are the main sources of struggle or ongoing conflict.
Communication is key: Effective premarital communication questions
Developing a healthy dialogue by enhancing strong communication skills is the first order of business when it comes to starting on a together forever path. You will face challenges along the marriage road and paying close attention from the outset to how you communicate as a couple is the key to getting through those difficult patches any couple will face in years of being together. Working with a professional premarital counselor can help facilitate this kind of dialogue.
What are your communication patterns and style? Does your partner see you as you see yourself?
How do each of you resolve heated conflicts? What have you learned from these experiences and how do you go about practicing behaving in a way that aligns with how you both would like to be treated when potential conflict arises?
What kind of emotional support, when expressing important needs to each other, do each of you need?
How do each of you remain present when your partner is sharing something important to them? What will show each of you that the other is listening and paying close attention?
Have you discussed what strategies you both would like to put in place for checking in regularly throughout your relationship about the state of your relationship? For example, setting time aside each week, intentionally, to check in about how you are relating to one another.
Navigating finances together: Financial premarital questions
Just like enhancing strong communication skills sets the initial building blocks to a strong foundation in a marriage, so does having a strong view of how you plan to wield the resources around you to make all of your plans for the future appear before you.
Financial transparency is important. Full financial disclosure and expectations about money spending and resourcing play an important part in making your dreams become a reality. Navigating finances is one of the main sources of stress in a marriage.
Do you believe in joint checking accounts, what yours is mine, and what mine is yours? Our own family of origin and how they managed (or not) their finances play a huge role in how people view this topic. Often, there is some anxiety and doubt when it comes to having these conversations with your partner initially.
How are you currently managing your own debt? Are there any graduate school loans or credit card debt? What do you believe each of your responsibilities are toward this debt?
What are your mutual expectations with regards to spending money? Would you want to set up a monthly budget for your household? Would you want to hire a financial planner?
How would you handle a job loss? What are your career goals?
How much influence does money have on the quality of life you expect in your marriage?
Conflict resolution: Premarital questions for handling differences
The quality of the relationship you have as a couple has led you to contemplate a lifelong commitment. Surely your relationship has amazing strengths and has produced tangible results, enough that you believe this person will be with you in sickness and in health for as long as you both live.
Human beings change and develop throughout their lives; at times, the people that we share our lives with see life through similar lenses, and other times they do not. This does not mean anything is wrong with your relationship more so than you are two human beings ebbing and flowing and growing alongside each other, sometimes in the same ways and sometimes in different ways. Conflict will inevitably arise as ruptures in viewpoints or ways of managing stressful situations differ from your own. There is beauty in repair and these repairs strengthen the level of trust you have in each other as time moves on. The questions below can help you start having these conversations before marriage.
How was conflict handled in your family growing up? what have you learned from these experiences and what are you working on in your adult life to help you handle conflict in a way that transmits the values that are important to you?
How do you feel about expressed anger?
How can I best support you when you're feeling stressed, hurt, or angry?
How do you like to make up after a disagreement? What will help you feel safe?
What do you now understand about me that you didn't before we had this conversation?
Exploring intimacy: Premarital questions about physical and emotional connection
Physical and emotional connections start with a strong open dialogue and continuous communication.
What does intimacy mean to each of you? what level of physical intimacy are you expecting in your marriage?
How do each of you show love and emotional support? How does it feel for each of you to receive this type of demonstration of love and affection? is there anything that you would like that you have been too nervous to ask for?
what living arrangements are you envisioning for yourself? Quality of sleep is important for individuals to be their best selves in marriage. What are your sleeping habits, do these align? Are there any arrangements, even out of the box, that can help ensure both of you have healthy sleeping habits consistently?
Do you have any sexual concerns or preferences that have gone unexplored?
What does a fulfilling marriage look like for each of you?
Family matters: Premarital questions about family planning
Whether this is your first marriage or not, questions about children may have been some of the primary questions you asked each other when starting to date. Children may already be a part of this equation and flushing these expectations out a bit more before your marriage date can help you both have a clearer idea for planning and a framework to make the family you want happen!
What family values are important to you? whether stemming from your family of origin or your own acquired worldview; sharing these values is an important discussion to have ahead of marriage.
Do you want children? (if you already have children) do you want any more children? How many children? In the case of blended families, other questions are important and I can cover these in another post.
What values are important for you to highlight in your household? What parenting styles existed when you were growing up in your family of origin? What style of parenting would you like to continue in the family you are setting out to build? and what would you like to do differently?
When will you know you are ready to start a family? What contraception methods are you currently using and will continue to use before being ready to have a family?
If you are unable to have biological children or it is challenging to do so, would you adopt? would you foster? Would you be open to surrogacy or egg donation?
What type of education is important for each of you to provide your children? Homeschooling, private education, or public education? Would you start saving for your children's college education, if this is important to both of you?
Religion and values: Premarital questions for spiritual alignment
Are you on the same page when it comes to your spiritual life? These questions play a very important role in strengthening the quality of life you both want to have together.
Is religious education important for your children to have?
Is being part of a spiritual community important for you and your partner?
If you have different religious beliefs and practices, how do you plan on honoring both in your household? It is much more common in present day for couples to practice different religious beliefs. It is possible to do this successfully, but will require acceptance, compromise and respect for each other's beliefs and practices rather than trying to find ways to change their position.
Will you pray or meditate together as a couple? Is this important to you?
What holidays are important to you and plan to celebrate in your household?
Explore premarriage counseling questions confidently with Karina Diaz Therapy.
Yes, statistically speaking there are no certain guarantees when it comes to having a "till death do us part" marriage, we have all heard that there is a high divorce rate in this country. There is also statistical evidence that premarital counseling can increment your chances of a long satisfying marriage by about 50 percent. Williamson, H. C., Hammett, J. F., Ross, J. M., Karney, B. R., & Bradbury, T. N. (2018). Premarital Education and Later Relationship Help-seeking. Journal of Family Psychology : JFP : Journal of the Division of Family Psychology of the American Psychological Association (Division 43), 32(2), 276.
It is worth investing in a positive outcome when you decide to set out on a life together with your partner. When you join your life with someone else's, differences in how you both manage certain aspects of life will become more highlighted. Having a head start in getting to know the different styles of communicating between you two, can help you gain compassion and communication skills that can support you during difficult periods throughout your marriage.
The benefits of pre marriage counseling far outweigh the alternative.
It is never too late to take action.
You are valuable and deserve to feel fulfillment and joy in every aspect of your life.
Don't hesitate to schedule a free 15 minute consultation.
