Important Premarital Counseling Questions to Ask Before Marriage

For some, getting married is a key life goal that marks the passage into full-on adulting. It’s a huge decision because you’re committing to do life with one person, and making extravagant promises before your friends and family about what you will and will not do in your life together. A lot of time and energy, not to mention expense, is spent preparing for the wedding day, but how much time do couples spend preparing for their marriage? Premarital counseling questions can help.

The Importance of Premarital Counseling

Far from being a nuisance or an inconvenience amid the whirlwind of wedding preparations, taking the time to prepare for marriage is a crucial step every couple can benefit from. Premarital counseling has as its main aim helping couples attend to questions and issues that may become flashpoints for conflict later on. Additionally, premarital counseling helps couples assess their relational skills and develop the right tools and skills to handle difficult situations.

Just because two people love each other, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t have disagreements and need to have difficult conversations with each other. Couples can find themselves stuck in conflict with no real way to emerge from that conflict whole and still eager to be together.

A couple may struggle to handle conflict well, possibly because they may avoid it, or because they don’t know one another well enough to understand how to speak meaningfully to each other amid conflict.

Premarital counseling places a couple with a trained and experienced counselor who can help them ask the right questions, provide space for them to listen effectively, and show them how to understand and describe their own difficult emotions without being reactive or manipulative. Asking the right questions and being equipped will allow a couple to make a wise decision regarding their future together.

Premarital counseling helps you and your future spouse understand one another with greater clarity. When you understand your history as individuals, when you know your respective strengths, expectations of marriage, and values, you develop deeper mutual understanding and how to manage your expectations, too. The clarity that premarital counseling provides fosters better decision-making and deeper trust as a couple going forward.

Premarital Counseling Questions to Ask Before You Say “I Do”

There are many questions that you and your prospective spouse can ask one another before walking down the aisle and committing yourselves to each other. Some of these questions are the sorts of things that can come up in conversation if you’re being intentional about getting to know each other, and how you think and view life. The premarital counseling space can function as a safe, but intentional, opportunity to explore these issues.

The questions one can ask before making a marriage commitment can be combined in various ways. You don’t have to ask or answer every single one, but it’s important to address the questions that speak to your deepest concerns and highest priorities. You can set aside time to discuss these questions together. Don’t rush through them or give pat answers; instead, be intentional and as clear as you can.

Some of the questions posed may raise some sticking points or they may make you both get a little heated. That’s okay and learning to work through those difficulties is a skill that’s needed in marriage. However, the benefit of doing premarital counseling with a professional is that they can help you navigate those tricky points and keep the conversation going.

The questions below are clustered around a few key areas that tend to be critical between spouses in marriage. These are the issues that many married couples bring to counselors to get help resolving them.

Questions About Marriage And Married Life

• What does marriage mean to you?
• What do you think of divorce, and under what circumstances do you think it’s ok?
• Where will we live after we get married?
• Will you want to live close to your folks after we’re married or as they become older and need support?
• If we need to move, what do you consider a good reason to do so?

Questions About Sex And Intimacy

• What are some things that are off-limits for you?
• How many times a week would you want to have sex?
• How often would you want to have a quiet intimate evening together?
• Do you have any fears about or issues around sex?
• How do we deal with differences or concerns around our desires for intimacy?
• How do I best show you that I love you?

Questions About Money

• Should we have a prenuptial agreement? What are your honest feelings about this?
• Who is responsible for paying the bills or do the taxes?
• Should we have a joint account, maintain separate accounts, or do both?
• Should we have equal access to whatever financial resources we hold?
• How much should we save, spend, invest, and give?
• How much debt is okay?
• What debt do you currently have?
• What does a reasonable monthly budget look like to you? What is it comprised of?

Question On Roles In Marriage.

• What is your understanding of gender roles in a marriage?
• How should we divide the household chores?
• What are your preferences of who does what in the family?
• If we have a deadlock, who has the final say on the matter?
• If we have children, will both of us still work, or will one of us have a primary childcare role?
• What did your parents model for you in terms of how marriage worked?

Questions About Conflict

• How do you deal with conflict when it arises?
• Are you more comfortable discussing issues as they come up, or later when we have more capacity to deal with them?
• At what point do you think we should get counseling?
• How do you express your anger?
• How do you reach out to resolve matters after a conflict?

Questions About Goals

• What are your long-term goals?
• How do you plan to accomplish these goals, and what role do you see your spouse playing in that?

Questions About Children

• Do you want to have children? How many?
• Are you open to adopting, whether or not we have children of our own?
• Do you have a parenting philosophy you subscribe to?
• How will we shape the children’s values?
• What forms of discipline are appropriate or not?
• Will we educate our children in private or public schools or homeschool?
• How much is appropriate to spend on clothing and toys?

Questions About In-Laws

• How close-knit is your family?
• Would you want to spend the holidays with your folks or mine?
• How will we decide which family to spend time with?
• Are there any holiday expectations that the in-laws have?
• Will you support your spouse if your folks are putting pressure on your marriage?
• Are you expected to or willing to take in older parents?
• Is it acceptable to talk with in-laws or relatives about problems in your marriage?

Questions About Spirituality And Values

• What is your faith life like?
• How influential is your faith in your decision-making process?
• Will we participate in the same faith community?
• What are the expectations we will place on our children regarding their spiritual journey?

Questions About Boundaries And Relationships Outside Your Marriage

• What do you consider infidelity?
• Are affairs of the heart as serious as a physical extramarital relationship?
• Will you be open with your spouse about an attraction you may feel toward someone else?
• Will you commit to us seeking professional help if infidelity ever occurs?
• What is a breach of trust as far as you’re concerned?
• How much time do you want to spend alone, together, or with your friends?
• What do you expect in terms of support from your spouse during the ups and downs of everyday life?

Christian Premarital Counseling for a Strong Marriage

Premarital counseling helps you to think – really think – about the decision to get married, and it equips you to follow through on that decision. There may be things you haven’t even thought to ask, but premarital counseling helps you to address those questions and gives you the tools you need to handle the vicissitudes of married life.

Your counselor will help you and your future spouse ask hard and honest questions of each other so that you prepare for life with the person you’ve chosen to be with. Successful premarital counseling doesn’t necessarily mean you decide to get married; instead, it equips you to make an informed decision about the future of the relationship.

A marriage based on a strong foundation of rigorous premarital counseling has a higher chance of success than one without it. Let us help you get started with a faith-based premarital counselor today.