6 MUST ASK Questions To Ask Before Getting Married

To listen to the blog post “6 Absolute Questions To Ask Before Getting Married” over reading it click the play button below. 

Marriage is the end goal for many women BUT I am going to talk to you about the questions to ask before getting married or better yet before you are engaged. Unfortunately, so many people get into infatuation phase in relationships, get into an engagement,  and then to the marriage phase that they forget to ask the right questions and then they are stuck in a marriage wondering what in the world were they thinking with marrying this person.

To prove my point, I actually want to take an excerpt out of my book for single women “Fix It, Jesus! For Single Women Only. The Straightforward No-Nonsense Guide To Dating, Relationships, and Self Improvement” (click here to buy) in which I talk about the case of a couple I used to counsel. I call them the 6 month couple.

I used to counsel a young married couple who wanted to get a divorce after only six months of marriage. They met each other online though a dating app, within a few months they became engaged (because they wanted to be married so bad), a few months after that they spent thousands of dollars on a wedding and then six months later the wanted a divorce.


Want to know where this went wrong? They just wanted a big wedding, a big honeymoon, and a big engagement ring. Once all of that was over then they were left with just themselves and they realized that they did not know each other, they did not have anything in common, and most of all they did not want to be married to each other.

(click here or the picture below to get the first chapter of my book for free). 

This story is sad right? And it is oh so common. The last thing you want to do is to get into an engagement and even marry to someone all to realize that you have made a big mistake. It is better to get to the know the hard stuff up front so that you can know to walk away or to move forward into the engagement.

I personally feel that you should start getting to know someone as soon as the first date and even find out their deal breakers early on. Of course you are not going to ask someone to be your husband on the first date that would be crazy BUT the earlier you determine if a person is worth your time the less time you waste.  You can also check out my video below on how to weed out men on the first date. And don’t forget to subscribe to my channel by clicking here.

But in this day and age conversation is a lost art and has turned to texting and a Netflix and chill. And the bad side to that is that people have really stopped asking the hard questions and stopped REALLY getting to know each  other.  When it comes to engagements it is not like the movies or the Bachelor, where a man just asks a woman to marry him and it is a complete and utter surprise to the woman and this happens in only two weeks. Granted you may not know when a man will propose or how he will propose, but you should have an indication that a proposal is coming, where the relationship is headed, and most importantly it should not just be about a man wanting to marry you BUT you need to figure out if you want to marry him.

So, now that you understand how important it is to be intentional about going into an engagement and actually matching yourself with the right person.  Let’s get into:

1. Questions to ask before getting married ~ How long do you want to be engaged for and when do you want to be married?

This should be one of the first questions to ask before getting married. I know that this may seem like a stupid question but I promise you it isn’t. I have met people who have been engaged for 5 and even up to 10 years. Sometimes the man just asked the woman to marry him with NO real intention of marrying her but he just wanted to pacify her with a ring.

That way she can stop asking him to get married. Sometimes, neither of them really care about being married but engagement seemed like the next logical step. Sometimes people intentionally planned to be engaged for a long time so that they can get their credit in order, save up for a wedding, or buy a house. And sometimes one person wants to get married right away while the other wants to wait.

Either way, you should go into the situation eyes wide open.  If he wants to be engaged for 10 years and you don’t then it is better to know that to see if that is something you want to do. If he is just giving you a ring to shut you up about getting married but has no immediate intentions to marry you then you should know that too. Men who are avoid getting married but will be engaged will be reluctant to pin down a wedding date.

And when you try to come up with a wedding date they may come up with excuses of things they need to do before they actually marry you or tell you that they need to wait YEARS. Once again the decision is up to you. If you are cool getting into an engagement with no real endpoint of when you will be married then OR if you are cool with waiting years and years then that is up to you. But at least you will have a better idea on what you are facing marriage wise and if he actually plans on marrying you in the near future.

2. Questions to ask before getting married ~ What expectations do you have from me as a wife?

The second of the questions to ask before getting married is this one and this is why. It is important to know how your life will change once you get married. For example if one person sees themselves moving to another state or another country once you are married, it is a good idea to know that before you even commit yourself to being engaged if that is not something you are willing to do.

The same can be said if either person has a child by someone else, you want to know what role you are to play in that child’s life, what the situation will be like with the other biological parent, and once again if all this is something you are willing to take on.

Or even if you both have children from previous relationships you want to know how your family will come together as a whole once you are married. I have even seen that both the couple can have a difference of opinion on what married life will look like. And sometimes these opinions are so different that it can MAKE or BREAK a marriage.

He may expect that you stop working and become a homemaker after you get married and you may or may not want to do that. This question is an open ended question and may require that you actually ask some more questions to get the answers that you want to know so that you can actually get a clear picture of what being married to this person means. And if the picture that they are painting is going to make you happy.

For example, you may ask him this question and he may say that he does not see your lives changing at all. And that is probably not true even if he does not realize it.  There are some expectations that he wants from you as a wife. He may not want you to go out as much or vice versa. He may expect you to do all the housework or he may expect you to be more of a submissive wife or have sex with him seven nights a week.

Really there are no right or wrong answers here, but you do want to talk about them to see if what he wants is the same things that you want and to see if you are willing to give him what he wants and vice versa.  As long as you two are willing to agree and/or compromise on your roles if you two were to get married then you are all good.  Also check out my video down below to help you pick a good spouse.

3. Questions to ask before getting married ~ How Will We Handle Our Finances?

The third of the questions to ask before getting married are about money. Once again this is not a yes or no type of answer. This is something that is meant for discussion. Who will pay what bills, how much will you save, will you have a joint bank account, separate one or both. This is also a good time to have a good understanding of each other’s credit, salary, debt, and even their spending habits.

Questions to ask before getting married ~ Case in point:

I once had a friend who was thinking about getting married to her boyfriend who  made six figures a year. It sounds great right? WRONG. So for whatever reason the man was always broke and she could not figure out where any of his money was going. The reality was that he was in a large amount of debt, had taken out multiple mortgages on his home, and he had a gambling problem. I get that marriage is not all about money  but lets  not pretend that money is a HUGE reason why people get a divorce.

The last thing you want to do is get married to someone who may gamble away your house in a game of poker or sneak money out of your joint account to just buy the latest gadgets because they have an impulsive spending problem. For some of you this may not be a deal breaker, but at least you want to address the issue and make sure it is fix before getting engaged to this person.  Give them or yourself an opportunity to fix your money problems before getting engaged. And if they are not able to do so then you may ask yourself if their habits with their money is something you are willing to take on.

4. Questions to ask before getting married ~ What Are You Thoughts On Children?

The fourth of the questions to ask before getting married is this one. It shocks me that many people I know or counsel that are already married and do not agree on children.  One may want children and the other does not. And it is even more shocking that most people do not know their stance on children until they are actually married only to find out that the need to have nor not have children are a big deal.

Or even the ability to have children can be a big deal.  I once knew a woman that could not have children and she did not want to tell her fiance because he may not want to marry her.  And even if you feel that he should love her no matter what, you should still be honest with that person and allow them to make that decision. It could be possible that they don’t care, they may suggest you can adopt, or they may care a lot and may not want to marry that person. Either way, it is better to go into the situation being honest with situations such as these because the truth is going to come out either way.

And what may not have been a big deal can turn into a big deal if you lie about wanting or not wanting children OR your ability to have them. And if either of you are going into the relationship with children it is also good to know what your family will look like, if they want more, and what role each person will play in the child’s life.  Some people may want the other person to take on the FULL role of a parent, some may just have their children for visitations on the weekend and do not expect their spouse to have a lot of interaction with the child. Some may expect to take on full custody of the child once they are married. It is good to know what that situation is as well to determine if this is something you are willing to do.

5. Questions to ask before getting married ~ What’s Your Religion & What Do You Expect Our Religion to be

This may not seem like one of the important questions to ask before getting married but it is. Religion is very important to me. I am a Christian and would also like a husband to be  Christian because that is how much it plays apart in my life.  For me, my spouse not having a relationship with God is a deal breaker. But for you it may be different. You may not care. You may not have a religion at all.

He may not care OR like that one episode of Sex and the City, he could expect for you to covert to his religion before you get married. Once again, it is good to know this things and determine if this is something you are willing to do instead of waiting to the last minute and finding out that you are not compatible. Also, if you plan to have children this is something you want to discuss as well. Like if he says he comes from a religion where if he has a daughter he is going to marry her off at 12 years old in an arranged marriage because he is the religion of some strange cult. I mean that is probably not going to happen but still you get my point.

6. Questions to ask before getting married ~ Do you feel you can change?

The last of the questions to ask before geting married is this. Many people will see certain types of behaviors in their boyfriend and they think that if they were to only get married then marriage would CHANGE the person. Which is not true, marriage will not change anything but will only intensify what is already there.  If you have concerns about the person then bring them up before even getting engaged so that they can start working on it now. That way before you get engaged you will be able to see they have actually changed.  This is much easier then getting engaged, seeing they have not changed, and then calling off the wedding.

Such issues include, the way they handle their money, the fact that they have an overbearing mother who butts into your relationship, or the fact that they work too much and you fear that it will not change once you get married. I once had a friend whose boyfriend worked 3 weeks out of the month traveling which only left a week for her. She told him that she did not feel that she could go into a marriage like that.

And he did indeed get a new job, propose, and they got married.  In this case she got exactly what she wanted, which was more time with him and more time to start a family, which is much better than waiting until it is too late to say something and finding out that they can’t or won’t change xyz about themselves.

I hoped that you enjoyed the questions to ask before getting engaged. And like I keep saying that all of these questions are open ended questions. Do not just ask once and leave them to give you a yes or no or one word answer and be satisfied.  Once you are married you actually have to live with this person and share your entire life with them. Don’t be the case of my six month couple and figure out that they are not what you want when it is too late and money has been spent on both a ring and the wedding. Go into your relationship with your eyes wide open NOT shut. You do not want to waste your time AND so that you do not find yourself in a marriage that you hate.  Be proactive not reactive.

If you know someone who is in a relationships and talking about getting married then share this post with them to make sure they are asking the right questions.