20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

Interesting even after getting married! Love her!

Home

What percentage of our income are we prepared to spend to purchase and maintain our home on a monthly or annual basis?

Who is responsible for keeping our house and yard cared for and organized? Are we different in our needs for cleanliness and organization? Is one or both of us neat? Messy? A 'pack rat?' An organizational wizard?


Money

How much money do we earn together? Now? In one year? In five years? Ten? Who is responsible for which portion? Now? In one year? Five? Ten?

What is our ultimate financial goal regarding annual income, and when do we anticipate achieving it? By what means, and through what efforts?

What are our categories of expense (rent, clothing, insurance, travel)? How much do we spend monthly, annually, in each category? How much do we want to be able to spend? Now? In one year? Five? Ten?


Work

How much time will each of us spend at work, and during what hours? Do we begin work early? Will we prefer to work into the evening?

If one of us doesn't want to work, under what circumstances, if any, would that be okay?

How ambitious are you? Are we comfortable with the other's level of ambition?


Sex

Am I comfortable giving and receiving love, sexually? In sex, does my partner feel my love for him or her?

Are we satisfied with the frequency of our lovemaking? How do we cope when our desire levels are unmatched? A little? A lot? For a night? A week? A month? A year? More?


Health and Food

Do we eat meals together? Which ones? Who is responsible for the food shopping? Who prepares the meals? Who cleans up afterward?

Is each of us happy with the other's approach to health? Does one have habits or tendencies that concern the other (e.g., smoking, excessive dieting, poor diet)?


Family

What place does the other's family play in our family life? How often do we visit or socialize together? If we have out-of-town relatives, will we ask them to visit us for extended periods? How often? For what length of time?

If we have children, what kind of relationship do we hope our parents will have to their grandchildren? How much time will they spend together?


Children

Will we have children? If so, when? How many? How important is having children to each of us?

How will having a child change the way we live now? Will we want or be able to take time off from work, or work a reduced schedule? For how long? In the months or years following the birth of our child, will we need to rethink who is responsible for housekeeping?


Community and Friends

Are we satisfied with the quality and quantity of friends we currently have? Would we like to be more involved socially? Are we overwhelmed socially, and do we need to cut back on such commitments?

What are my partner's needs for cultivating or maintaining friendships outside of our relationship? Is it easy for me to support those needs, or do they bother me in any way?


Spiritual Life

Do we share a religion? Do we belong to a church, synagogue, mosque or temple? More than one? If not, would our relationship benefit from such an affiliation?

Does one of us have an individual spiritual practice? Is the practice and the time devoted to it acceptable to the other? Does each partner understand and respect the other's choices?

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

Great!! I didn't even ask him half these questions! We are doomed, LOL!!

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

A lot of these topics were covered in our pre-cana through the RC church.....must say it was rather interesting.

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

verdila - you took the words out of my mouth! I was just thinking that it sounds like Pre-Cana all over again....nonetheless, these are all important issues!!


Thanks for sharing!

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

I think you'd be shocked to know that a lot of couples never even discuss 1/2 of these issues. I also think another important question is how will you handle if you cannot naturally have children (for whatever reason). Marriages end over infertility issues. While some of the questions are not 'fun' to think about marriage is a life long committment and sometimes hard issues come up.

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

It really is 'For Better or Worse'......

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

Another misconception is that have to agree to the answers on these questions - YOU DONT! If there is a couple out there that agrees completely on all of these issues, i dont want to meet them becaue they must be very boring and annoying. The key is being able to respect each others opinions, compromise when necessary and prioritize whats important.

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

I agree with Stef. I discussed alot of these issues with my hubby before we got married and some we are still discussing.

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

Stef, I completely agree with your point about not having to agree with your significant other on every single issue, b/c that is a common misconception - especially for younger couples who may not have a lot of worldly experiences, or just have a very idealistic view of what marriage is about.

But, what is up with this comment - 'If there is a couple out there that agrees completely on all of these issues, i dont want to meet them becaue they must be very boring and annoying. '

Although it's probably *not very common*, there may be some couples out there that do see eye-to-eye on many of these important issues, and (perhaps you'd agree) is probably why they decided to enter into a marriage in the first place. I don't think the object of choosing a life partner is to find someone that disagrees with all your viewpoints and then try to compromise every single issue. It's nice to have some common ground starting out.

And, I definitely don't think a couple's common viewpoints should catagorize them as boring or annoying!

Just my opinion....

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

My comment was really meant to express that I wouldnt want to spend too much time with a couple who agreed wholeheartedly about EVERYTHING - not that its better to disagree on every issue and compromise. In my opinion, normal independent adults have a tendency to disagree on occassion, specifically when you are covering a broad range of life impacting topics such as described above. Hopefully a couple agrees on many of these topics but I would think it very odd if there werent slight differences between a husband and wife on at least one.

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

At least one! We didn't marry our clones!

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

i agree- that to completely agree on EVERY issue or to have someone just nod and agree with you on every issue can be boring. i think that everyone has their own opinion on different subjects and no one person is completley the same as another- but this is the fun of it- getting to know someone elses views and opinions whether the same or different than your own

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

Hopefully some of these were touched on at some point or another. In my opinion no matter how many, pre-cana, pre-marital counseling, asking all the right questions, one does before the actual marriage, does not guarantee that come day 50 a couple will not start seeing things differently than they did on day 1. At least being aware gives you a leg up. We were all raised differently so it is expected that we will see things differently, its how we handle them that is important.

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

Good point Shamma - we all evolve everyday so there are no gaurantees.

Re: 20 Questions to ask before you get married (Oprah)

I guess DH and I covered these topics to one extent or another the 3 years we were living together before getting engaged. That's why I'm so glad we did live together first. This has made the first 6 months of marriage very wonderful. And, no we don't agree on all of these major topics (I agree-it would be boring if we did), but we do think along the same lines for many of them.