Future & Life Goals

104 Questions to Ask Before Marriage

8 September 2026 · 10 min read

Couples who are about to marry have usually had the big conversations. They have discussed children, money and where to live, reached a broadly reassuring answer to each, and moved on.

The trouble is that the reassuring answer is nearly always the general one. "We both want kids" is agreement. "In about three years, two of them, and I would want to stop working for the first one" is a position — and it is entirely possible for two people to hold incompatible versions of that while both truthfully saying they want children.

What follows is the specific version of the conversations you have probably already had. It is not a compatibility test and it does not produce a verdict. It is a list of the places where couples discover, some years in, that they were agreeing about different things.

How to use this

Do not work through it in one evening. Ninety questions in one sitting turns into a negotiation and everybody gets defensive around question forty.

Take one section at a time, and answer separately before you compare. Written answers are slower and less diplomatic than spoken ones, which is the point — in conversation, the second person's answer bends towards the first, and on a subject where one of you feels strongly, it bends a long way.

Mark anything you disagree on and come back to it. Do not try to resolve it the same evening you find it.

Money

The single most common source of serious marital conflict, and the one where couples enter with the least shared information.

• What do you each earn, exactly?
• What do you each owe, exactly, including anything you have not mentioned?
• What is your credit history like?
• Do you support anyone financially, and are you expected to?
• Will you have joint accounts, separate ones, or both?
• If income is unequal, do you split bills evenly or proportionally?
• What amount would you spend without telling the other first?
• Is that number the same for both of you?
• Who pays attention to the balance day to day?
• How much should be in savings before you feel safe?
• What is your position on debt for a holiday? For a car? For a wedding?
• Would you lend money to a sibling? To a parent? To a friend?
• What would you do if they said yes and you said no?
• Do you expect a prenuptial agreement, and how would you raise it?
• If one of you stopped earning for a year, whose money is it?
• Have either of you ever hidden a purchase?
• What did your parents teach you about money, by example rather than words?
• What is the most you have ever spent on something for yourself?
• Do you want to own a home, and by when?
• What happens to your money if the marriage ends?

Children

• Do you want children? Not in principle — do you?
• How many, and how firmly?
• Starting when?
• What if it turns out to be difficult? How far would you go?
• Would you adopt?
• Who takes leave, and for how long?
• Does either of you expect to stop working, or reduce hours?
• Who is expected to do the night shifts?
• How would childcare be paid for and chosen?
• What would you do if you disagreed about discipline?
• Would you smack a child? Would you accept a partner who would?
• Would the children be raised in a religion, and whose?
• What would you want their relationship with your parents to be?
• What did your own parents get right that you want to copy?
• What did they get wrong that you are afraid of repeating?
• If one of you changed your mind about having children, what then?

Family and in-laws

• How often do you expect to see each set of parents?
• Where are you spending the major holidays, permanently?
• Who tells their family news first?
• What counts as interference, and what counts as involvement?
• If your parent said something unkind about your partner, what would you do?
• If your partner's parent said something unkind about you, what would you expect them to do?
• Would either set of parents ever live with you?
• Are you expected to support a parent financially, now or later?
• Is there anyone in your family your partner should be warned about?
• Do you tell your family about your arguments?
• Whose surname, and why?
• If you disagreed with your family about the marriage, whose side wins?

Work and life

• What does a normal week look like in five years?
• How many hours is too many?
• Would you move cities for a job? Countries?
• Whose career takes priority if they conflict, and is that permanent?
• What would you do if one of you wanted to change career entirely?
• How much travel for work is acceptable?
• What does retirement look like, and at what age?
• Would you rather have more money or more time, honestly?
• What would you do with a year and no obligations?
• Is there an ambition you have not told them about?

Home and daily life

• Where do you want to live — not the city, the actual kind of place?
• Rent or buy, and how soon?
• How clean is clean?
• Who does what, and did you both just describe the same split?
• Do you want pets?
• How much time alone do you each need in a normal week?
• What time do you go to bed?
• Do you want a spare room, and what for?
• How do you feel about guests staying?
• What does a good weekend look like to each of you?

Conflict and repair

• How did your parents argue, and what did you learn from watching?
• Do you raise things immediately or need time first?
• Is walking away from an argument acceptable?
• What does an apology need to contain?
• Have you ever said something you could not take back?
• What is the argument the two of you keep having?
• What would you do if it were still happening in ten years?
• Would you go to counselling? At what point?
• Is there anything that would end the marriage for you?
• What do you do when you are wrong and know it halfway through?

Intimacy and expectations

Written to be answerable without embarrassment, which is also the standard the rest of this site holds to.

• What does affection look like to each of you day to day?
• How much physical closeness do you each want that is not leading anywhere?
• Who initiates, and has that become uneven?
• What would you do if one of you wanted more or less than the other for a long period?
• Is there anything you have never said because you assumed the answer?
• How do you want to be told if something has changed?
• What does faithfulness mean to you, precisely?
• Would you want to know if they were attracted to someone else?
• What would count as a betrayal that is not physical?
• What would you do after one?

Belief and values

• What do you actually believe, if anything, and how much does it govern your life?
• Would you attend their religious events? Would they attend yours?
• What are your politics, and could you be with someone whose were opposite?
• What do you owe people outside your household?
• Is there a cause either of you would give significant money to?
• What would you want done at the end of your life, and does your partner know?
• Have you made a will?
• What do you want your marriage to be for, beyond being together?

The uncomfortable ones

Save these. They are the reason to do this before rather than after.

• What are you hoping will change about them after the wedding?
• What do you think they are hoping will change about you?
• What is the thing about them you have decided to tolerate?
• Is there anything you have not told them that they would want to know?
• Have you had doubts, and did you tell anyone?
• What would you say if they asked you that and the honest answer was yes?
• What are you most afraid of in this marriage?
• Why now?

If you find a disagreement

You will. Most couples working through a list this specific find between five and fifteen places where their answers do not match, and the number is not a measure of anything — it partly reflects how honestly you both answered.

What matters is which kind of disagreement it is. Some are about timing, and timing negotiates. Some are about method, and method compromises. A small number are about direction, and those do not resolve by discussion alone; they resolve by one person changing what they want, which sometimes happens and cannot be arranged.

Knowing which kind you have found is most of the work. That is easier when both answers were written down before either of you saw the other, because then neither of you has to reconstruct what you originally thought before the conversation moved you.

PairReveal covers most of this ground without the paperwork, and adds one thing a printed list cannot: you decide before the first question whether to share everything or only what you agreed on, and that choice locks.