Pre-Marriage Counseling Questions You Should Ask Before Engagement

Marriage is the most important relationship in a household. Both research and experience bears this out. Children are more emotionally secure in a family in which their parents are secure in their own emotional connections.

Knowing how to make deep emotional connections is a learned skill. More satisfying marriages are often reported by those who participated in some pre-marital counseling for the insight, honing of relationship skills, and encouragement provided.

Important Pre-Marriage Counseling Questions

The following are typical, key pre-marriage counseling questions which can be addressed by pre-marital or pre-engagement counseling.

These questions can be categorized in the following ways:  

• Questions about Hopes and Purpose
• Questions about Emotional Safety and Trust
• Questions about Communication and Conflict Resolution
• Questions about Family Backgrounds and Ongoing Effects
• Questions about Personalities and Temperaments
• Questions about Finances, Spirituality and Support for A Potential Marriage.

Hope and Purpose

• Why do we want to be married?
• What expectations am I bringing into this marriage?
• What do we believe about the purpose of marriage?
• Do we have a vision for our marriage?
• Do we both want children?
• What values and potential practices would we bring into parenting?

Emotional Safety/Connections and Trust

• Do I feel accepted and emotionally safe with this person?
• Do I feel loved in this relationship?
• Do I feel secure about our relationship?
• Are we transparent with one another?

Communication and Conflict Resolution

• Do we communicate in ways that lead to mutual understanding?
• What happens when we fight?
• How do we resolve our hurts and differences?

Backgrounds/Impact of Past on the Present

• How have I benefited from my past?
• How have I been wounded from my past?
• What ways of responding to others am I bringing into the marriage?
• How have I sought to address any past emotional pain?
• Do either I or my significant other struggle with addictions? If so, how do they affect our relationship? How have we sought to address them?

Personalities and Temperaments

• How do our personalities and temperaments blend?
• What personal strengths do I offer to our relationship and what are my relational growth areas?

Finances

• How do we both manage finances?
• What do we believe about earning, saving, and spending money?
• Can we afford with our combined income to cover our anticipated expenses?

Spirituality

• How does our spirituality impact our lives and relationship?
• What do each of us want regarding the impact of spirituality in our lives and relationships?

Support

• Would those who know and love us support this marriage?
• Who would we turn to for emotional and spiritual support for our marriage?

The answers to these questions can strengthen a couple’s commitment to be married. They could also help a couple discern whether engagement and marriage is desired.

Christian counseling can be the setting in which these questions are posed, addressed, and processed. Christian counseling affirms the primary of the marriage bond in a family.   A Christian counselor can give the couple via interview, use of assessment instruments, their self-report and the counselor’s own clinical perspective, an objective perspective on their relationship, strengths and growth areas.  Christian counselors can reinforce a Biblical worldview of marriage and relationships as well as provide ways to hone relationship skills.   If you think you and your significant other could benefit from a setting in which the questions in this article could be considered, please contact me.