Conversations to have before commiting
Wedding season is well underway, with no chance of stopping any time soon, and I have been bombarded with wedding gowns, flower men, and beautiful reception spaces up and down my timeline. While I hate to be a realist in all the wedded bliss, I often wonder if couples have spent as much time preparing for married life as they did for the wedding day.
I’ve been in a committed relationship for 27 years, married for almost 17 of them and I just recently realized that we never had a honeymoon phase. When we got married I was pregnant and was suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum, so it was not a fun and sexy time by any means, especially since I had a zofran pump attached to me 24 hours a day (I’ll have to share my baby story one of these days.) Then, obviously when the baby came, I was in full mommy mode. Next thing you know we were married with 2 kids by the age of 25.
While we thought we were prepared for everything that love, marriage, and kids had to throw at us, it became painfully clear that we were not. There were certain assumptions that we had about ourselves and each other that got us in way too many conflicts. Had we just had the knowledge to ask the important questions, we could have saved ourselves a few arguments, and maybe even a few couple therapy sessions.
So here are a few important conversations a couple should have before committing/getting married. And yes, I realize that some of these questions may have been discussed during the dating phase, but things change and what someone had planned last year may not always be the plan now. They are also in no particular order and are all equally important.
Happily ever after is not a fairy tale. It's a choice.
Career plans– So what are your future career plans? Do you plan on staying employed where you are? Do you have hopes to move up the corporate ladder, or do you plan to transition to something else? Or, are you an entrepreneur? How do you plan to maintain your business? If you haven’t started it yet, how do you plan to start your own business? What kind of support will you need from your partner? Will your career plans require you to take a few classes or go back to school? What’s the plan for that? What’s plan B?
Finances– Are you a spender or a saver? What’s your credit score? What do you owe in student loans or credit loans? Have you ever filed for bankruptcy? What are your thoughts on loaning money to family or friends? How will we handle bills? How many bank accounts do you have, and how many should we have as a couple? What is your retirement plan? How will we create a budget to take care of the things we have to do, and also have the funds to do the things we want to do? How much should we put away in our emergency fund?
Health– What is your health history? Do you have any health concerns? Do you need assistance in finding the right medical professionals to help? What type of insurance do you have? Do we need to enroll in both our health plans or will one suffice? Who has the best coverage? Does it include vision, dental, and mental health benefits? Is there a deductible we have to reach? What medication coverage do you have? What type of policies do we have if one of us gets sick or dies? What do you want regarding end of life care? Do you have a living will or advance directive? Who else knows what you would want for end of life care?
Children/pets– Do you want kids? How many? If you already have them, do you want any more? If so, when? If not, how will we be making sure that we are proactive in our prevention styles? Where do we want to raise our kids? What is our discipline style going to be? Do we have a village (family/friends) in place to help? How does having children fit into our career and/or financial plans? What does the relationship with our own parents look like? Do you want pets? If so, what kind and how many? How do you feel about training?
Dating/romance– How important is keeping the romance alive? What does quality time look like? How often will we have date night? What constitutes a date? What is the expectation of intimacy (quality versus quantity)? What are your accelerators? What are your turn offs? What’s your love language? How will you let your partner know that your love tank is empty? What are your desires, and how can your partner be involved?
Past relationship history– What makes you loveable? What makes you hard to deal with? Have you ever cheated or been cheated on and what did that teach you? How did you learn to trust again? What is acceptable behavior in your relationship regarding friends of the same/opposite sex? If you are co-parenting with an ex, what is that relationship like and how can your partner assist you in maintaining cohesion?
Social Life/ Family relationships– How involved will your family be in our relationship? Can we have an understanding that what happens between us stays between us? What do you want our social lives to look like as individuals, and as a couple? How do you feel about trips without your partner? Are there annual vacations or family reunions that we need to plan for? How will we handle family disputes?
Again, this list is not extensive and does not include everything that you could discuss, but hopefully they will open the door to the conversations you should have and lead to a place of understanding. Please remember that with all of the things that we may not understand, or agree on, one of the most important questions could be “how can we find a compromise?”
Good luck to you.
Wishing you love, peace, and healing,
Rhonda Renee
