No one gets married thinking, "I really hope we get divorced!" Yet, divorce statistics prove many marriages crumble.
In a national survey, some of the top reasons for divorce included too much arguing, infidelity, unrealistic expectations and lack of preparation for marriage.
These questions below will highlight areas of conflict you need to work on before marriage, communicate expectations, set goals to prevent infidelity and, in general, prepare you for a beautiful marriage.
About family
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How did your family deal with fighting?
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What did your parents do in their relationship (whether married or unmarried) that you like?
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What did your parents do in their relationship that you don't want to do in our marriage?
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Do you like my parents? Siblings?
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How often will we visit my family? Your family?
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If I have a disagreement with your family, whose side would you choose?
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Will you take care of your parents if they require in-home living when they are older?
About marriage
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What do you think makes a happy marriage?
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In what circumstances (if any) do you feel like divorce is an option?
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What do you expect to change when we get married?
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What rules are we going to make to prevent infidelity?
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Are we going to have date nights regularly?
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Where do you see us 10 years from now?
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What's more important: work or family?
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When do you feel the most loved? Do you know my love language?
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What will you do if someone bad-mouths me?
About children
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Do you want children?
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How many children do you want?
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What would do if we accidentally got pregnant?
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If we were unable to have children naturally, would you be open to adoption or in vitro fertilization?
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How do you feel about circumcision?
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Will you help change diapers? (And help with other child-raising responsibilities?)
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How do you think children should be disciplined?
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How do you feel about daycare?
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How will we handle parenting decisions?
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Do you think our children should be in public school or home school?
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Which is the bigger priority: our marriage or our children?
About money
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Are we going to have a joint bank account?
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Who will be the breadwinner, or will we both work?
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Who will be the budgeter?
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Will my debt be your debt once we get married?
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How much would you ever be willing to spend on housing/cars/furniture/shoes?
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Do you donate money to any specific organizations?
About religion
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What do you believe about ... everything?
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How important is attending worship to you?
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Do you plan to raise our children in a specific faith?
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How much religion do you want in your home?
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How much do you expect me to be involved in religion?
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What are your daily personal devotional practices?
About health
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Do you have a history (or family history) of mental illness?
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How do you feel about natural remedies, divine healing and modern medicine?
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How much time do you plan spending on exercising when we are married?
About cell phones
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Can I know your cell phone passcode?
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Would you be comfortable with me being on your phone at any time?
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Do you think it's appropriate to be on your phone during date night?
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Will we allow phones at the dinner table? In bed?
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Are you willing to share all your passwords to your social media accounts with me?
About sex
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How often do you expect to have sex?
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Do you have experiences from the past that will make intimacy difficult for you?
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What will you do if our sex life gets boring?
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Do you look at pornography?
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How would you communicate that you aren't satisfied sexually?
About responsibilities
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How will we split responsibilities: cleaning, cooking, laundry, yard work, grocery shopping, dishes, car up-keep, paying bills, etc.
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How important is it to you to have a clean house? What does "clean" mean to you?
About fighting
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Do you believe in going to couples therapy?
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How do you deal with anger?
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Is it ever appropriate to yell?
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Who will initiate critical conversations?
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Will we go to bed angry?
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How do you feel about telling friends or family about disagreements?
About friends
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Will we go on group dates with couple friends?
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How often do you expect to hang out with your buddies?
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Is it appropriate to spend time alone with a friend who is the opposite sex?
About traditions
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Where will we spend our holidays?
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What family traditions do you want to keep?