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Money, people never seem to want to talk about money before they are married but it is so important that you both be on the same page when it comes to saving vs spending.
No, but a lot of that is because we did one helluva questionnaire and then discussed it.
276 Questions To Ask Before You Marry
I agree money and finances. Be open on how much debt you have, how you plan to pay it back and do up a budget so you are on the same page with saving and spending. I really think money can cause lots of issues if you are not on the same page!
I agree money and finances. Be open on how much debt you have, how you plan to pay it back and do up a budget so you are on the same page with saving and spending. I really think money can cause lots of issues in a marriage.
I would say finances as well. Are you planning to evenly split the bills or is each partner going to pay a percentage?
Also, household expectations if you don't live together already. It took DH and I a good couple of months before we worked out a schedule for cleaning the kitchen after meals, doing laundry, etc.
@AmeliaBedelia: Why didn't you give me this months ago!? Now we've only got four and a half more weeks to discuss all of these questions! Noooooo!
@batwoman: I agree with the money thing. Definitely that and kids, and maybe even some politics and religion to spice it up.
We've been together for over 8 yrs, so we'd covered just about everything (but I'm excited to look over @AmeliaBedelia:'s list).
Some things beyond the 'basic/common' ones (finances, whether or not to have kids, etc) that I'm really glad we'd discussed have been:
views on homosexuality (what if you have a gay child?)
special needs children and carring for them
views on abortion (what if you get pregnant at an inopportune time, special needs child, etc)
views on disciplining children and how to raise them re: religion, sex education, etc.
how each person learns/best understands/argues/resolves issues (then you can set the boundaries of how to disagree/resolve issues as a couple)
I'll chime in to say that the conversation changes as the situation changes. DH and I were together for 5 years before we got married (now married for over a year). We've had tons of conversations about money, about how to handle it, about how much we have, etc etc etc - but even just last night, we got into this HUGE discussion (dare I say: fight - tears were shed! (by me)) about it.... things surfaced that had developed in the last year or two and we had to rediscover ways to resolve the issues.
I honestly thing the biggest thing you can do is learn how to communicate with each other. It's not really the topic that's important... but, do you both listen and understand what the other is trying to communicate. What happens when you don't? How do you resolve conflicts and what is your style of fighting (meaning - how do you typically resolve arguments or how do you respond when you feel wronged).
The better you can be about being open and honest with your partner (and yourself!! ie: knowing what's really bothering you) the better off your marriage will be, IMO.
Thank you everyone! These are all great suggestions, please keep them coming! We already live together so housework is a work in progress already, and we've started to talk about finances a little bit but clearly we need to go over it more thoroughly. Luckily we share the same religous/political beliefs and like to debate over the few things we don't agree on. :)
@AmeliaBedelia: That's quite a list, I'll definitely try to talk SO into going over the whole thing!
I agree with money. We talk about it but not much and ending wedding planning and paying things off we've run into a few 'chats'.
We also just recently had a talk about how we'd raise our child... I just assumed he'd treat them the same way he treats my son but he said he in fact would do things a little differently and my son was already 5 when we started dating. I'm glad I know now and wasn't surprised later.
@batwoman: Do it by section so he doesn't get overwhelmed! haha. That's what we did. And even after being together for 4 years, there are a few questions that went somewhere we might now have thought of explicitly.
I got this link in college, from a class. Now my degree is semi-useful! Yay!
Enjoy guys! haha. And I apologize in advance to your SO's. ;)
@misskoala: Since SO is probably going to end up making more than me we're planning on putting it all in the same pot and then getting equal amounts of "fun" money every month. We don't do that yet because we both feel weird about combining finances until we're married. That's just what we've talked about so far and we know that what works in theory may not work out in reality.
we've discussed parenting strategies and how we think we will raise our children. I am sooo glad we recently had a huge right about expectations we laid it all out there was tears and all but I'm glad we did that.
and we talked about what happens when our parents age because we have to take them in that was a wake up call.
We had been together for a long time, so basically everything came up. The only thing we really didn't talk about, our pastor brought up in counseling, and that was how he and I were going to deal with raising biracial children (he's white, and I'm black), and how to help them develop their identity. We were surprised to realise we had never talked about it.
@oracle: This sounds like great advice! Our pre-marital counseling was centered on effective communication with one another so that we can tackle any difficult obstacle that we will face in the future.
It may seem odd but we had to sit down and 'have a talk' about something we can't get on the same page about which is breast feeding... I don't know if anyone else will ever have to have this talk but I'm so glad we did now and not when I'm pregnant somewhere down the road. He want's me to BF and I refuse so it took a while but we talked it out and came to a nice conclusion. I'm sure had I been pregnant when we talked about this I would have melted down totally! lol
@HappilyEverAfter54: That is a good one! I'm unsure about that topic in general.
@AmeliaBedelia: Holy smokes!
I really do think we've talked about everything but I'm sure that's not possible!
A few off the top of my head would be:
- children (when, how many, parenting ideals & strategies)
- religion & general values
- money, bank accounts, savings
- whether family will ever move in with you (!)
- work/career paths & plans for childcare (if applicable)
- housing & moving timelines
I could not agree more with @oracle. As someone who likes to plan ahead for everything, I thought I brought up every possible topic that we could encounter in life before we got married. And of course, things have come up that I never would imagine dealing with in my life. The way we got through some of these humps was being able to communicate and understand each other, and sometimes yes, sacrifice for each other.
I think I had some fantasies about every conflict coming to a happy compromise and sadly sometimes, that is just not the case! Sometimes there is just not a compromise possible and you end up doing things the other person's way. They never tell you that part!
@Juliepants: Yeah. It went there. Lol.
Yeah, something to keep in mind is that, even if you go through all 45938054 questions or scenarios you possibly could, somehow there will be something. Some argument that is uncharted territory. It's how you deal with it that counts.
Nope, we've talked about everything but of course there are things that come up that you couldn't have possibly thought of beforehand. We've been talking about religion, money, sex, expectations, how we want to raise our kids, etc throughout the entire relationship so nothing has been a surprise.
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Is there anything that you wish you and your partner had talked about before you got engaged or married? Are there any discussions you had that you were really glad you did?
My SO and I have had all of the talks about how many kids, when, life goals and timelines, etc. but I'm wondering if there are any other topics we haven't covered that we should.