Anita Jacob

How many of you would love to see into the future and see just how happy your marriage will be? Will you agree on all the big issues? Will you argue about socks being left on the floor? Will you be good at parenting together? How will you get through arguments? Will you stay together forever?

I know that once you’ve been dating for awhile and are now thinking about marriage, the excitement and optimism can drown out any anxiety and thoughts about what comes after, but in the lulls these questions can come up.

You may well think that you will just deal with these in the moment, but that isn’t the best strategy as many studies have shown that working on these issues before getting married actually lowers the risk of divorce. If you can identify differences between you and talk through these before marriage, when they come up, it won’t be a surprise and you’ll have a frame of reference to ground the conversation.

Some of the types of things that come up in premarital counselling are: communication, finances, intimacy, parenting, recreational activities and spirituality. Let’s go through the types of questions you might want to ask for each of these topics one by one:

• Communication – How do you each of you communicate when you are stressed, angry, tired or sad? Do you know what you need and can you ask for it? Are you able to listen to each other? What is your pattern and does it lead to resolution or further frustration?
• Finances – Will you have a budget? How will money be spent? Is one of you more generous or more conservative with money? What is an okay amount to spend without consulting with your partner? What is considered a necessity and what is considered frivolous? Who is responsible to paying the bills. What are short and long-term financial goals?
• Intimacy – What are your expectations for sex? Do either of you have a history of abuse that could affect this area of your relationship? Can you talk about sex openly with each other or this something that is challenging to talk about? What can make it feel easier or safer to share your thoughts and feelings around this?
• Parenting – Do you both want to be parents? If conceiving is a challenge are you both open to other ways of becoming parents (IVP, adoption, surrogate)? How were each of you parented? Do you want to parent like your parents did or in different ways? What will you do if you disagree?
• Recreational Activities – How do you both like to spend your down time? Do you like to spend the weekends at home watching movies, or going for hikes and playing tennis? Do you expect to do everything together, or are weekly or monthly boys/girls nights okay? What about trips with friends instead of with each other? How many social or family commitments are too many and how many are too few?
• Spirituality – Do you both share the same faith? What traditions do you feel are important to maintain in your family? Do you want to bring up children in a particular faith or tradition?

As you can see, there are so many questions that should at least be thought about prior to marriage. Of course, you won’t be able to resolve many of these until the situation arises and you are faced with the issue. Just thinking through some of these questions can help you prepare for the real issues that can come up later on so that you are better prepared to address them.

Part of me asking these questions now is to set realistic expectations of what the challenging part of marriage really is… but it’s not all stress and anxiety, it is also excitement and connection. Marriage is all about doing life with someone instead of going through life alone. It’s about having that one person you can depend on and engage with through the good times and the bad ones. These types of things shouldn’t get in the way of true connection, but should instead be a playing out of that wonderful dance as you do life together in harmony!