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.
Pre-marriage counseling questions are generally divided by categories, which include:
- Emotions
- Communication
- Career
- Finance
- Household
- Sex and intimacy
- Family and friends
- Children
- Religion
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?
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?
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 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
- Who will be responsible for what chores?
- What chores do we enjoy/hate doing?
- Who will be doing the cooking?
6. Sex and intimacy
- 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.
