Pre-Marriage Counseling Questions to Answer Before Saying I Do
Counseling before marriage presents an opportunity for couples to address potential conflict areas in their relationship. It enables couples to prevent petty issues from becoming a crisis and also helps them recognize their expectations from each other in the marriage.
Marriage counseling before marriage is usually provided by a licensed therapist or in some cases even religious institutes offer pre-marital counseling.
While answering your questions before marriage a pre- marriage counselor will help you to reach an agreement over problematic issues and establish an open and honest communication with each other.
Pre-marriage counselling is becoming more common, which may be in part due to the high divorce rates that have plagued us in recent years. Most relationship therapists begin with a list of pre-marriage counseling questions.
While your answers give the therapist more insight into you as individuals and as a couple, they also open up communication about issues that will be a part of married life.
Eventhough, no pre-marital counseling questionnaire can help you perfect your marriage, but it sure can help you to build a strong and compatible marriage.
Pre-marriage counseling questions categories
- Emotions
This category of premarital counseling questions is where the couple examine the emotional strength of their relationship and how compatible they are emotionally. Marriages with strong emotional compatibility thrive as the spouses are able to comprehend each others emotional needs.
- Communication
Pre–marriage questions about communication helps a couple to realize how they would reciprocate to their partners exchange of emotion, desires, and beliefs. Furthermore, answering these pre–marital questions aids them in resolving any past, present or future conflicts.
- Career
Many people compromise their career aspirations for the sake of their marriage, however, it impedes their personal and professional growth. Couples who fail to understand how demanding their career can be, often find themselves fighting and arguing with each other. Discussing pre-marriage counseling questions about their career aspirations allows them to set some expectations, and save them from the troubles and hassles of giving explanations.
- Finance
Before embarking upon marriage couples should indulge into some financial planning and discuss each others financial habits and expectations. Avoiding financial planning before marriage might help you save some time and money, but these questions to answer before marriage will help you and your spouse to be, to prepare for any unexpected crisis.
- Household
As insignificant as it may sound but answering marriage counseling questions before marriage about the allocation of household chores and duties can help you manage the stress level in your marriage. Improving marital satisfaction is contingent open how efficiently a couple is able to share and execute their household responsibilities.
- Sex and intimacy
From understanding what is intimacy in a marriage, to knowing your spouses sexual desires, pre-cana questions about sex and intimacy can help you familiarize with your partner on an emotional and physical level. Improving intimacy and sex in your marriage can not only help you to strengthen you relationship but also relieve you from stress and boost your immune system and confidence.
- Family and friends
Answering marriage counseling questions before marriage about how each of you would manage your time between your spouse and your respective family and friends can help you set certain expectations and avoid uncomfortable conversations in the future.
- Children
Pre-marriage counseling questions on family planning can help you weigh in the issues that might serve as an obstacle to childbearing. Analyzing your values and motives of either having or not having kids can prepare you and your spouse for future challenges.
- Religion
Christian pre–marriage counseling questions can aid couples to understand the extent of their religious compatibility. Christian premarital counseling questions would also be helpful for couples to differentiate between faith and religion and guide them on how to respect their partners choices and express their spirituality.
Going over these questions with your soon-to-be spouse can help you both gain valuable insight into how you feel about important issues and how each of you will handle them.
Pre-Marriage Counseling Questions
The following are a sampling of important pre-marriage counselling questions worth answering together.
1. Emotions
- Why are we getting married?
- Do you think marriage will change us and how?
- Where do you think we will be in 25 years?
- Do you have any pet-peeves?
- How would you describe yourself
- What do we want out of our life’s
2. Communication and conflict
- How will we make decisions?
- Do we face difficult topics or avoid them?
- Do we handle conflict well?
- Can we talk openly about everything?
- How would your help each other improve?
- What things do we disagree about?
3. Career
- What are our career goals and what will we do to reach them?
- What will our schedules be like and how might they impact our time together?
4. Finances
- How is our financial situation, i.e.; all debt, savings, investments?
- How will we manage our finances?
- How will we divide the household bills?
- Will we have joint or separate accounts?
- What will our budget be for fun stuff, savings, etc.?
- What are our spending habits like?
5. Household
- Where will you and your fiance live?
- Who will be responsible for what chores?
- What chores do we enjoy/hate doing?
- Who will be doing the cooking?
6. Sex and intimacy
- Why are you attracted to each other?
- Are we happy with our sex life, or do we want more?
- How can we make our sex life better?
- Are we comfortable talking about our sexual desires and needs?
- Are we satisfied with the amount of romance and affection? What do we want more of?
7. Family and friends
- How often will we see our families?
- How will we divide the holidays?
- How often will we see our friends, separately and as a couple?
8. Children
- Do we want to have children?
- When do we want to have children?
- How many children do we want?
- What will we do if we cannot have children? Is adoption an option?
- Which one of us will stay home with the children?
9. Religion
- What are our religious beliefs and how will we include them in our lives?
- How will we maintain/combine our different religious beliefs and traditions?
- Will we raise our children with religious beliefs and traditions? If so, which if our beliefs are different?
These are just some of the questions that couples are asked when they attend pre-marriage counselling. Talking about these issues before marriage can help you both feel better prepared for marriage and the responsibilities and issues that come with it. Answering these questions together lets you learn more about each other to help avoid any surprises later that could lead to serious conflict in your marriage.
Want to have a happier, healthier marriage?
If you feel disconnected or frustrated about the state of your marriage but want to avoid separation and/or divorce, the marriage.com course meant for married couples is an excellent resource to help you overcome the most challenging aspects of being married.
Sylvia Smith loves to share insights on how couples can revitalize their love lives in and out of the bedroom. As a writer at Marriage.com, she is a big believer in living consciously and encourages couples to adopt this principle in their lives too. By taking purposeful and a whole-hearted action, Sylvia feels that every couple can transform their relationship into a happier, healthier one.
