100 questions to ask before marriage pdf

101 Questions To Ask Before

You Get Engaged

By H. Norman Wright

Chapter One

Warning – Never Marry (or Get Engaged to) a Stranger

Years ago there was a very popular love song, “Getting to Know You, Getting to Know All About You.” Well, that’s probably the best advice to follow if you’re thinking of engagement.

This is not a book about marriage or how to prepare for getting married. It’s more basic than that. It’s designed to help you answer the question, “Is this the one I want to even consider as a marriage partner? Is this the person I want to be engaged to as the next step to marrying them?”

During my years of counseling, I’ve heard so many people say, “The person I married was not the same one I honeymooned with. It’s as though they changed overnight. What happened?”

The answer is simple. They married a stranger. There was either courtship deception, or naiveté or not enough questions were asked. Thus, many marriages falter. That’s why this book was written – to give you some of the questions you need answers to now, not later, in order to make a wise decision.

Let’s assume you have sufficient money to purchase a new car. You go to the auto mall where there are 16 dealerships... with cars of all makes, models, colors, vintages, and prices. You pull into the lot, park, and stroll over to this “great looking” car. It’s a previously owned model (which means used). It’s been around the block a few times. But you really like the way it looks and smells, and it’s comfortable inside. There are a number of gadgets, including a GPS.

A salesperson comes up and asks if he can help you. You respond with, “You sure can. I want to buy this car.”

“Great. What would you like to know about it?”

“Know? What’s there to know? I saw it. I like. I want it – let’s draw up the paperwork.”

“Well, I can do that. Do you have any questions about its warranty, performance, estimated mileage, or the GPS? And since it’s a recent addition, we haven’t even put the price on it. Don’t you want to know that?”

“Not really. All I know is I want it. And you don’t even have to wrap it up for me!”

You can ask them and discover the answers now, or not ask them and discover the answers later. It’s your choice. It’s better for you to be in charge of when you find out because, as I said earlier, you will.

In this introduction, you will find suggestions and guidelines from a number of people. As you read them, they may sound like warnings. They are. There’s no other way to say it. They are cautionary guidelines. Perhaps that sounds better. These resources are gathered from my many years of relationship counseling.

Don’t Ignore The Red Flags

A friend of mine has a particularly powerful statement about his experience with dating. I’ve shared it at many conferences, and people find it incredibly insightful. I’ve asked him to share a few highlights. I believe the following can be very helpful to anyone dating.

In search for the perfect mate, it has taken a long time for me to discover that there really is no such creature out there. Everything is found in degrees of compromise – Can I live with this or can I accept that, and so on? When I have found one that fits most all of my criteria and parameters, then the question is, Will I fit hers? It’s extremely difficult trying to find someone where all the gears seem to mesh into place without a lot of grinding.

I think one of the things I find invaluable in dating now is all the experience I have compiled over the years from different situations. I have reached the point now in my 40s where I feel I finally know some of the answers to the questions that I didn’t even know to ask in my 20s or 30s. But to this day, I am still adding and updating my list of questions.

If there are any bits of advice I could give anyone who is looking for their ideal mate, it is these: Ask questions of anyone you date and store their answers in your memory bank to see if the answers continue to be consistent with their actions. If something appears to be a red flag, confront it and don’t let it slide as “not that big of a deal.” Interact with the other person’s friends (in group settings), such as on camping trips or skiing trips, or play interaction group-type games. If possible, spend time with the other person’s parents (and if any red flags come up, don’t ignore them, because their child is a product of their environment). If there are ways of seeing how the other person will handle pressure situations... put them in it (this way you are able to see how flexible they are or can be, and how they will hold up under pressure). Build a real relationship but stay out of bed, pray together, have similar values and interest in things, come to know the other person’s faults and know that you can accept them, watch to see how they treat their pets, and continue to interview them right up to the last moments before marriage. ..

And as hard as it may seem, if that inner voice tells you that you are making a mistake, at least stop and listen to it. Be willing to pull the plug, or at least put things on hold until issues can be clarified in the relationship – right up to the day of the wedding. It is my feeling that I would much rather be very embarrassed and cause hurt to both of us by putting things on hold – or walking away from the relationship right up to the final days before the wedding – then suck it up, be mad, and live in misery for the rest of my life. Why marry when maybe you know deep down inside that things are not right, or that small things are adding up to be big things but you don’t know how to confront them? Why marry just because you’re afraid you might hurt the other person by confronting her? A lot of this stuff will come to the surface through premarital counseling. Know ahead of time that some people are able to mask or hide things. If you don’t ask specific questions, they may feel, “If you didn’t ask, they didn’t lie.”

As I look back in my dating over the years, I have come to realize how really naïve I was in not even trying to find out what questions I should ask, or in thinking I really didn’t have the right to be asking certain questions until I really didn’t have the right to be asking certain questions until I was deeper into the relationship. There were some questions that it didn’t even occur to me I should have to ask a “Christian.” I assumed she would never have been into something that would be blatantly wrong. Never assume anything!

These were words of wisdom that helped many people.

If You Have to Talk Yourself into It...

On another occasion, my friend said,

As I reflect back now on six months of dating a very nice woman and think of our first date, I realize now I should have followed my instincts and not had a second date. Even though she was nice, attractive, and liked to do a number of things I enjoy, I still found myself having to talk myself into having another date with her and then another. We reached a very comfortable place in our dating, but there was something missing, I just couldn’t put my finger on those missing ingredients until now. They were common sense and a lack of being sensitive to my needs! It took me this long to figure out what I had summed up subconsciously on the first date – without realizing it. Maybe part of me is just slow at coming to these conclusions when the other part of me already knows the outcome. I wanted to give this person the benefit of the doubt, though... And so, six months later I found things no different than in the first couple of hours – except I have now spent six months of my life I can’t ever recoup.

I hoped because we had a lot in common, everything would eventually come together with a happy ending. Sure, some things were good, but being able to look back now and see the full picture, those few good things were really like settling for crumbs off a plate

a mental-health textbook. In time, you expect to fill in all those gaps for your partner and he’ll become a whole person. (Of course, there may be nothing left of you, either.)  Perhaps the reason he has jumped from relationship to relationship is that no one has ever really cared for him enough, been truly accepting of him, or encouraged him to grow spiritually. Getting him involved in my church and Bible study should make a difference.

If you believe in all of these possibilities, then the problem is not the other person. You know who it is... you!

First of all, you can’t reshape, remake, and reconstruct another person to this degree. You can’t get gold out of a mine that’s filled with lead. I’ve seen people in marriages like this. They end up frustrated, and critical, feeling betrayed and hopelessly trapped. They plead, beg, shout, and threaten their partner, but to no avail.

Why would anyone fool themselves to this degree? Some people feel called to be reformers – they like to reshape others, or at least try to. In doing so, they ease the pain of looking at some of the issues of their own lives.

Every Morning at Breakfast

In the book There Goes the Bride – Making Up Your Mind, Calling it Off and Moving On , the following suggestions were made. Please consider them carefully:

 “If you have mixed feelings about engagement, don’t! You need to be certain. If you get engaged, listen to the feelings, especially numbness or dread or just plain wrongness. These shouldn’t be there.”  “Engagement is a serious state. Listen to these words: ‘Dating is one thing, but signing up for the rest of your life is liable to give anyone a few second thoughts. The challenge is deciding if you’re suffering from garden-variety cold feet or what I call, “frozen footsies” – a much rarer malady’.”  “Don’t feel pressured into engagement or marriage because your biological clock is ticking faster and faster. As one woman said about making a mistake of becoming engaged, ‘I was turning thirty and that expiration date stamped on my forehead was flashing so brightly that is blinded me from all the signs’.”  “If you’re thinking of committing your life to someone for the rest of your life, identify the nonnegotiable. Don’t do this after the fact. Consider these nonnegotiable:  If your partner hurts you physically, don’t proceed. It won’t get better  Emotional abuse is more difficult to identify but it can involve lack of respect, controlling, etc.

 Does the other person put you before their parents’ wishes or are they controlled by their parents? The scriptural teaching of ‘leave their mother and father’ includes emotional as well as physical  Don’t plan on a marriage fixing your current problems. It compounds them. Work on fixing them now, but if you can’t repair them...  If you feel inhibited in what you talk about and can’t bring up your needs and concerns now, it won’t improve. Try new approaches now.  If you find yourself saying ‘I love him or her, but... ‘why would you think of proceeding?

 Remember, a wedding is exciting but it lasts for just one day. Is this the person you want across the breakfast table from you every morning?

Red Lights

There are other red-light warning signs about relationships – warning signs that aren’t based on knowing the other person. Some are just obvious common-sense guidelines, but too many people like to think, I’m an exception. Exceptions only exist in our minds.

Take a look at the following points. They are indications that marriage is not the best direction for you to take right now:

 Are you asking, “Are you really sure you love me?” again and again? It’s an indication of low self-esteem. Counseling would be better than marriage.  If most of your time is characterized by quarrels and disagreements that never get resolved, marriage will make them worse.  If you plan to live together before marriage, don’t. It hurts your chances of a lasting marriage  If your partner is like a parent you don’t get along with, why would you want to marry that person?  If your partner is all for your interests and activities, but then reacts to you spending time on them, this won’t get better in marriage  Don’t marry just for sex. Physical intimacy alone won’t keep a marriage together. You need the emotional, social, spiritual, intellectually, and recreational intimacy as well  How do you feel if you spend a day with your partner just hanging out and talking? If it’s intolerable, why are you together?  If you have recovered from a previous relationship, you’re not ready for a new one.

101 Questions to Ask

Question One

What makes it easy for you to be open and vulnerable, and what makes it difficult?

The answers to these questions are a road map. First, can you partner be vulnerable? Have you seen signs that they can? You want to respond in a way that makes them feel at ease in your presence and not do anything to put a roadblock in their way. Give them every opportunity. Perhaps this is the first safe relationship they've experienced. If vulnerability and openness can't occur here, how can it occur in marriage?

Question Two

What is your greatest fear or concern about being married? What have you done to address these concerns?

Fears are normal, but are they realistic? Where did they originate? There could be good causes for them or just imagined ones. Has your partner ever talked to someone about these fears to gain insight and put them to rest? If not, encouraging them to do so would be a positive step. It's better for them to identify and face them now than for you to hear on your wedding night, "Oh, by the way... "

Question Three

If you were to marry, in what way would you maintain a healthy "interdependence"? What would you depend upon each other for and what would you take personal responsibility for?

Perhaps you've never considered this part of marriage. "We" doesn't just mean you lose your individuality. There will be both togetherness and separateness. You need to discuss who does what for whom and what one does for oneself. Boundaries do exist in marriage. It's like a property line. It distinguishes what is your emotional and personal property line. If someone crosses the line, you feel violated. Boundaries define and protect you. (If this concept is new, you may want to check out Boundaries in Dating by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.)

Question Four

Describe how you were disciplined as a child. If you have children, how will your discipline be the same and how will it be different than what you experienced?

Question Eight

What are three of the most vivid memories you can recall from birth to age 18?

Whether the memories are positive or negative events, who were the significant people involved? How have these memories shaped this person's life? Who we are today is a reflection of our past experiences.

Question Nine

We hear a lot today about compatibility. What does this mean to you?

Compatibility means being capable of living together harmoniously, or getting along well together. It means to be in agreement, to combine well. It also means blending together so a relationship enhances, instead of interferes with, each partner's capabilities. A couple needs to work on compatibility in all areas of their relationship. Those who become compatible have certain characteristics or skills that help them develop compatibility: They flex, stretch, adapt, and change. There's no other way.

P. Remember this too: Partial compatibility doesn't work very well. It only leads to holes in the relationship. Becoming compatible is a developmental process, but if someone doesn't know what compatibility is, how can it grow?

Question Ten

To what extent do you see the way you both communicate as similar and in what way is it different? What does the phrase "learn to speak your partner's language" mean to you?

Everyone comes to a relationship with their own language style, their own dictionary, and their own patterns of speaking. Some are expanders, and some are condensers. Some are ramblers (they change the subject, don't finish a thought, or go around the barn several times), and some are bottom-line, right-to-the-point communicators. Neither is wrong, just different. People enjoy and relate best to those who are flexible enough to speak their partner's language. A new concept? Think about it.

Question Eleven

When a person marries, they sever the cord of dependency on and allegiance to their parents. If you marry, which of these will be the most difficult to sever and why?

When a person severs the cord of dependency, it means not being dependent upon parents for material or emotional support. Research shows that those who have completed this prior to marriage have a better chance for their marriage to grow. Severing allegiance means a transfer of priorities from parents to spouse. (By the way, are each of you capable of living 2,000 miles away from your parents? It could happen.)

Question Twelve

Is it easy or difficult for you to pray with a person you’re in a relationship with, and for what reason?

Prayer is the foundation for intimacy in a relationship. Praying together builds the other dimensions of intimacy. Author and psychiatrist Dr. Paul Tournier states, “It is only when a husband and wife pray together before God that they find the secret of true harmony, that the difference in their temperaments, their ideas, and their taste enriches their home instead of endangering it. There will be no further question of one imposing his will on the other, or of the other giving in for the sake of peace. Instead, they will together seek God’s will, which alone will ensure that each will be fully able to develop his personality.”

Lines open to God are invariably open to one another. A person cannot be genuinely open to God and closed to their mater. Praying together especially reduces the sense of competitiveness in marriage, and at the same time it enhances the sense of completeness.

Question Thirteen

To what degree are you a saver or a spender when it comes to money?

Major issue! If they’re a saver, to what degree? Is there a lifelong pattern? What do they expect of the one they marry? If they’re a spender, how do they respond to a saver? What about the other way around? Work this one out in advance, or it could lead to disaster.

reserved, or because they sense it would not be received well? That’s something to think about.

Question Eighteen

What do you think are God’s purposes for marriage?

Here are some thoughts on marriage from Scripture:

 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” – Genesis 1:27. Marriage is to mirror God’s image  “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground’” – Genesis 1:28. Marriage is to multiply a godly legacy.  “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him,’” – Genesis 1:28. Marriage is to multiply a godly legacy.  “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him’” – Genesis 2:18. Marriage is to mutually complete one another.

God chose to reveal a part of who He is and His character through our relationship. Actually, marriage gives us a picture of what God is like. It definitely is a sacred union.

Question Nineteen

What are you beliefs about prenuptial agreements?

Prenuptials usually reflect a lack of trust as well as an incomplete commitment. When you marry, you need to go into marriage with your eyes wide open, but with the intent you will be together ‘til death do you part

Question Twenty

In a relationship, what part of giving of yourself do you struggle with?

Some are gifted at giving of themselves, while for others it’s a challenge and chore. Many relationships are out of balance since one does all of the giving and the other takes. This isn’t healthy. There needs to be a balance. For some, it’s difficult to give of

their time or money. Others find it difficult to share personal possessions, friends, or the limelight. Yes, it’s a strange question, but one which needs to be explored.

Question Twenty – One

What are your beliefs about pornography, and to what degree has this ever been a part of your life? How recently?

A pattern of involvement is a problem. Most people today have run across soft – or Hard-core pornography out of curiosity, or inadvertently because of inaccurate film ratings. The choice to pursue this will destroy a marriage. If your partner has struggled with pornography, recommend they seek help now, not promise to do so “later.”

Question Twenty – Two

If I was a doctor and you were describing your medical history for me, what would it entail? (Accidents, hospitalizations, diseases of any kind including HIV/AIDS, syphilis, herpes, or others)

Some individuals have been shocked to learn this information after they’re married. That’s when you feel deceived. Some conditions could limit having children or where you live. Everyone’s imperfect physically. Learn about it now. Many people many knowing about their partner’s limitations and accept them fully.

Question Twenty – Three

If something really bothered you about me, how would you go about expressing it to me?

The way we express our concerns to one another is the issue. Delivery is everything. If you feel attacked, you’ll probably be defensive. Some tend to bottle up their feelings and concerns, but these can accumulate, and often there is a blowup later. Proverbs give us some guidelines:

 “A man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful. But if he confesses and forsakes them, he gets another chance” – Proverbs 28:13 TLB

life like? These are lots of questions but they’re very important. Have the two of you read a Christian book together? If not, it’s a wonderful journey to begin even now.

P. Some of my favorite authors are Ken Gire, Max Lucado, and John Ortberg, just for starters. You may also want to read a couple’s devotional I’ve written, such as Starting Out Together (Regal Books) or Before You Say “I Do” Devotional (Harvest House).

Day Twenty – Seven

How would you keep romance alive if you were to marry?

What appears to be romantic to one person might not be to another. Your partner may have several ideas, but they may not light your fire. It’s important to discover what type of romance each of you enjoys – that will give you a good road map for keeping the flame alive. And by the way, it won’t just happen. There needs to be a commitment to make it happen. And it helps to look your partner in the eye and say “I love you” every day.

Day Twenty – Eight

What are five habits you’re glad you have and five you wish you didn’t?

Everyone has some habits or patterns. Are yours the same or similar? How do you feel about your partner’s? Can you live with them? Accept them? Do they want you to help “get rid of the ones they don’t like?” Habits you find annoying now will only be intensified after marriage.

Day Twenty – Nine

Who are the people in your life that have influenced you the most and in what way?

We all have significant people in our lives. Some have been mentors who have helped us grow. Unfortunately, sometimes we are influenced in dysfunctional ways that can hamper relationships. When we identify people and their impact, often what we do and why we do it takes on a new meaning.

Day Thirty

Could you describe the people in your life who are the easiest to get along with and those who are the most difficult?

Which list is longer? Is your partner someone who has people skills? If they struggle with others, are the two of you getting along well? If so, what is the difference? Is your partner a person who accepts responsibility for difficulties – or projects blame on others? Does your partner have characteristics similar to the people they have difficulty with?

Day Thirty – One

Ten years from now, where would you like to be emotionally? How about spiritually? How about economically? What about family size?

Has your partner thought about their own personal growth? If they’re content with the way they are, be cautious. It’s easier to answer the last two questions, but the first two are more important for your future. If you’re given general answers, ask for specifics.

Day Thirty – Two

What was your family’s economic level and emotional environment like when you were growing up? In what way do you see this affecting your life today?

Are you economic levels similar? If not, spending habits and lifestyle expectations could be quite different. How would you solve this? The emotional environment in your family may have been positive, but with many it’s a mixture. How would this affect your marriage?

Day Thirty – Three

When you are sick, how do you want others to respond to you? When a significant person in your life is sick, how do you respond?

Illness is not something you think about before marriage. Everyone has a pattern of response they’ve developed over the years, as well as a mixture of expectations and needs when they’re sick. Many conflicts have occurred because of not discussing this in

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