21 Questions to Answer Before Marriage

1. Let’s talk about sex, baby. Do you know about your partner’s past sexual partners? I’m not talking just numbers here. 
2. How about long-term or past serious relationships? Has their been a pattern or a type of people?
3. Has your partner ever endured ANY type of abuse? Sexual? Physical? Emotional? Mental? This is a delicate subject and may be something you actually do not know about.
4. What kind of sexual experiences has your partner had? Threesomes, etc. Do they prefer any of these things? Are you comfortable fulfilling these needs?
5. What are your shared childhood experiences? Do you come from similar backgrounds? Keep in mind that your childhood effects your ideals about how you will raise your children (doesn’t mean that you’ll raise them exactly how you were raised).
6. What are your shared interests? Shared interests, btw, have been shown to account for longer marriages. 
7. What are your independent interests? Some time apart is always good as well.
8. Both of you rate your level of insecurity in your relationship on a scale from 1-10. (Be honest.)
9. Do you have mutual friends? Do those friends share your interests?
10. Do you have separate friends? Are they supportive of your relationship?
11. Do you have a support system outside of your relationship? Friends? How does your partner feel about them?
12. How do you each feel about in-laws? Do you get along? How are family get-togethers? Can you maintain healthy boundaries?
13. How do the two of you feel about each other’s career choices and the amount each partner brings home per month? (Some “traditional” partners want the man to bring home more of the money.)
14. What is your next priority after the wedding? Do you agree on these? (Car? House? Child? Etc.)
15. What’s your favorite thing to do on a Saturday night?
16. Do you feel like you’re TOO dependent on each other? This can lead to some resentful feelings eventually. 
17. Do either of you (be completely honest in this survey) feel like you have any red flags about this relationship? Follow this link to find out if you might find some unknown red flags. 
18. What are your religious views and are they the same? Will this affect how you raise your child(ren)?
19. Do you feel like you have a good balance of household responsibilities? Are there clear  and defined responsibilities (she does the dishes and he does the laundry) or is it just whoever has more time?
20. Do you have plans for the changes that having children will bring (if you choose to have children)? Will you both continue to work, etc.?
21. Are you prepared for what you want to do if you are unable to have children? (adoption, etc.) If that’s what you want. Are you in agreement on this?

…And What Did You Learn About Your Partner?

If you already knew all of these answers about your partner, congrats! because these are some pretty important questions to know the answers to. Some of these answers are going to be reasons that, later, you have storms to weather, but knowing the answers now, will help you understand where the Hell the storm came from and, possibly, how to solve some of those issues later on. Or, at least, understand why something is happening. For instance, if you do learn that your partner was abused, but that doesn’t really become a factor in your relationship until later, you might understand why things might change.