Building a Marriage: Questions to Consider
To build a strong marriage, questions can be a good first step. Does that seem like a strange statement? Think about it. Marriage, the long haul of it, takes a lot of work. The dating, the finding of the perfect spouse and the organization of the wedding are all easy compared to making the relationship last through a life time. It is important to enjoy the romance of the early stage of the relationship but it is also important to understand each other clearly and to know what each person seeks from the marriage. Questions and searching for answers together is a good foundation for working together through life’s future ups and downs.
Couples in love think in terms of aligned musical taste, food preferences and even political ideology but sometimes living together and conducting everyday life is about some fairly mundane details. Marriage questions should address these basics:
Do you like the idea of dividing household chores? What will be your contribution?
How often do you drink?
How often do you like to get together with your friends?
How many shared interests do we have?
How much time should we set aside each week for our individual interests?
Do you like the idea of having family over?
Are you comfortable with the idea of spending a special holiday with your spouse’s family and adopting new traditions, if needed?
These questions will help get the couple thinking in terms of the nitty-gritty of life together as a married couple.
There are also some long-term questions that will help think of the future in concrete terms:
Do you want to have children?
How many children would you like to have?
Do you see one of us taking time off to take care of the children?
What are your views on adoption?
What do you think your parenting approach will be?
Where do you see our lives 20-30 years from now?
What do you feel about care-giving for your parents?
What is a major crisis you have handled?
How did you feel when you were dealing with it?
Other than these questions, the other big picture questions should also be covered - the question about what each of the partners is looking for from the marriage and how they each feel about the basics such as fidelity and commitment. These questions should lead to a philosophical discussion about the meaning of marriage and will help each person articulate their expectations and their reservations.
Marriage questions should ideally be asked and analyzed in an environment of trust and mutual respect. These are not questions with right and wrong answers and it is best to not seem judgmental when listening to responses. The idea is to be open and understanding – even when some of the answers are not what you want to hear. The idea is to see if there is a tremendous disconnect, but not to expect absolute alignment. That is an unrealistic expectation.
It is imperative that both partners give each other the courtesy of absolute honesty. To pretend to agree or to not express disagreement is not in either party’s best interest in the long run. There are some issues that each of you can decide is not that big a deal and figure out a way to compromise but it is still good to know each person’s starting point.
Marriage questions are an acknowledgement that any two adults hoping to spend a meaningful life together need to invest time and effort into the enterprise. By asking the questions and working through the answers, each of the adults indicates their willingness to make the effort, to search for solutions. If it seems like an overly pragmatic approach at a time of romance, it is a good idea to remember that this touch of pragmatism may help the romance last a lot longer!