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Questions to ask before marriage: 100 of them, ordered by what couples actually argue about
Questions to ask before marriage are easy to find and hard to finish. Here are 100 of them in ten blocks, opening with the topics married couples log the most disagreements about, and a free contract to write the answers on.
One block, one sitting, one page you both sign.
In short
The best way to use these questions is simple: take one block per sitting, answer it yourself before your partner does, and write the answer where you can both find it later. Disagreeing is fine; leaving the disagreement unnamed is what costs you three years from now.
The first five blocks are the topics that filled the diaries of married couples: kids first, then chores, arguing, time, money. The free printable below turns your answers into a signed page with a review date, in Letter and A4, without an email.
How to ask these without it turning into a test
To ask questions before marriage without it feeling like a test, follow four rules: one block per sitting, write answers down, name the gap, and either of you can call a break. Most of the value comes from writing the answers on a page you both sign.
The last rule is printed word for word on our two-page contract; writing the answers down is why that contract exists.
One block, one sitting
Work through one block below and stop at the end of it, even when the evening is going well. Important questions to ask your partner before marriage need an answer you both remember next week.
Write the answer down
An answer you only said out loud becomes two different memories by spring. Write one line each, in your own words, on a page you both sign.
Name the gap, then sort it
When your answers differ, say which kind of gap it is: one you can live with, or one to settle before the wedding. Questions to ask your significant other before marriage exist to find those.
Either of you can call a break
Rule two on the contract reads: “Either of us can ask for a 20-minute break. The one who asked restarts the talk.” The second sentence is the useful half.
The 100 questions to ask before marriage, by topic
The 100 questions to ask your partner before marriage come in ten blocks. The first five follow one diary study of 100 married couples: children first, then chores, communication and leisure, with money fifth or sixth. Each block takes one sitting.
The numbers run straight through, so you can name tonight’s block and stop there. Most are things to ask your partner before marriage that need one honest sentence back.
1. Kids, and whether you want them (12)
- 1. Do we both want children, and how sure are you?
- 2. If yes, how many, and starting roughly when?
- 3. What if it turns out we cannot have them?
- 4. How do you feel about adoption or fertility treatment?
- 5. Who cuts their hours when a child is sick?
- 6. What did your parents do that you would copy?
- 7. What did they do that you would never repeat?
- 8. What happens if one of us changes their mind?
- 9. Would you want children raised near your family or mine?
- 10. Paid childcare, or one of us staying home?
- 11. What would you let a fifteen-year-old of ours do?
- 12. Who would we name as their guardian?
2. Home, chores and what “done” means (12)
- 13. Who does what at home now, and is it fair?
- 14. What does a clean kitchen mean, in one sentence?
- 15. How often should the bathroom be cleaned properly?
- 16. Who notices we are out of milk, and who buys it?
- 17. Which chore would you happily own forever?
- 18. Which one do you hate, and can we trade it?
- 19. How tidy must a room be before you relax?
- 20. Who books the dentist and the car service?
- 21. Would you pay someone to clean if we could?
- 22. What if I stopped doing my share for a month?
- 23. How do you want to be asked to do something?
- 24. What did housework look like in your childhood home?
3. How you argue and how you make up (12)
- 25. What did arguments look like between the adults who raised you?
- 26. Do you finish a fight, or walk away first?
- 27. How long is too long for silence between us?
- 28. What do I say in an argument that shuts you down?
- 29. Who apologizes first here, and why is it them?
- 30. What does a real apology from me sound like?
- 31. Would you refuse to discuss anything with a therapist?
- 32. Would you tell a friend about our fight first?
- 33. What do you need from me in the hour after?
- 34. Which argument do we keep having again and again?
- 35. What should I do if you stop talking altogether?
- 36. Is there an old argument that never actually finished?
4. Time together and time apart (8)
- 37. How many evenings a week do you want just us?
- 38. How much time alone do you need each week?
- 39. What do you want to keep doing without me?
- 40. How do you feel about separate trips with friends?
- 41. What does a weekend with nothing planned look like?
- 42. How late can a plan change and still be fine?
- 43. Which friendship do you want protected from married life?
- 44. Which hobby should I never ask you to drop?
5. Money: questions to ask your fiance before marriage (14)
- 45. What do you owe, to whom, and on what terms?
- 46. What is your credit score, and when did you last look?
- 47. Do we pool, split, or run a joint account plus two?
- 48. What can either of us spend without asking first?
- 49. Who pays which bill, and who checks it went out?
- 50. How much in savings before either of us feels safe?
- 51. What are we saving for over five years?
- 52. How do you feel about lending money to family?
- 53. What do we do if one income disappears?
- 54. Do you expect an inheritance, or does anyone expect ours?
- 55. Would you sign anything about property before the wedding?
- 56. How much is this wedding worth to you, in dollars?
- 57. What did money feel like in your house at ten?
- 58. Which day of the month do we check the accounts?
6. Family and in-laws (8)
- 59. How often do you want to see each family?
- 60. Where do we spend the first winter holidays?
- 61. What if my family says something unfair about you?
- 62. Could either of your parents end up living here?
- 63. How much do your parents know about our money?
- 64. Which family tradition do you want us to keep?
- 65. Which one would you happily let go of?
- 66. Who calls whose parents, and how often is enough?
7. Work, earning and where you live (8)
- 67. Where do you want us living in five years?
- 68. Would you move across the country for my job?
- 69. How many work hours a week is too many?
- 70. What would you do with a year off, unpaid?
- 71. How do you feel about one of us earning much more?
- 72. What does stopping work look like, and roughly when?
- 73. Is there a job you would turn down for us?
- 74. What should I say if you wanted to quit?
8. Faith, politics and what you were raised with (6)
- 75. What do you believe now, against what you were raised with?
- 76. How would we raise children if we believe differently?
- 77. Which holidays matter, and how do you keep them?
- 78. Do you expect us to attend anything together regularly?
- 79. How much does it matter that we vote alike?
- 80. What is one value you would never bend on?
9. Health and the hard what-ifs: deep questions to ask your fiance (10)
- 81. What runs in your family that a doctor should know?
- 82. How would you want to be cared for if seriously ill?
- 83. What would you want me to decide for you?
- 84. Who should be told first if something happens to you?
- 85. How do you feel about therapy, alone or together?
- 86. What does your mental health need from me in a bad month?
- 87. How much do you drink in a normal week?
- 88. What should happen to your things and your accounts?
- 89. Have we written down who gets what, and where is it?
- 90. What was your hardest year, and what got you through?
10. Fun questions for engaged couples (10)
- 91. What is the first thing we buy for the new place?
- 92. Which song must never be played at our wedding?
- 93. What would our restaurant be called if we opened one?
- 94. Which of my habits will still be funny in thirty years?
- 95. Where would we go tomorrow if flights were free?
- 96. What is the worst wedding advice you have been given?
- 97. Which of us lasts longer without the other nearby?
- 98. What does our Sunday look like when we are seventy?
- 99. Which animal are we getting first, and who walks it?
- 100. What would you write on the back of our wedding photo?
Blocks one to five follow that ranking, taken from 748 logged home disagreements; blocks six to ten cover ground the study did not rank.
Money: the questions that end with a number
Money was not the topic married couples argued about most, but it was the one least likely to get settled. It came up in 18.3% of husbands’ and 19.4% of wives’ logged disagreements, sixth and fifth by frequency, behind children and chores.
What set it apart was how those arguments ended: money conflicts “remained unresolved, despite including more attempts at problem solving”. In a survey of 4,574 couples, financial disagreements predicted divorce more strongly than any other disagreement type.
So end block five with two numbers said out loud: the amount either of you can spend without checking, and the day you look at the accounts together. Both are printed fields on the contract below.
Share of logged home disagreements that involved money
748 conflict instances logged at home by 100 husbands and 100 wives, married twelve years on average, each couple with at least one child aged 8 to 16. Source: Papp, Cummings and Goeke-Morey, Family Relations, 2009, Table 1.
Chores: ask who owns the job
To split chores fairly before marriage, ask who owns each job instead of who will help. “Will you help with the house?” gets a yes from anyone and leaves one of you holding the list. Ask who owns the kitchen, what counts as done there, and which day the trash goes out.
Equal pay slips do not settle it by themselves. Among US marriages where both spouses earn about the same, Pew found wives averaging 4.6 hours of housework a week against roughly 2 for husbands.
Those are population averages and say nothing about your home. Count minutes instead of tasks with the chore split calculator, then answer questions 13 to 24 in writing while the subject is still funny.
Hours a week, US marriages where both spouses earn about the same
Hours per week in opposite-sex US marriages where each spouse earns 40% to 60% of the couple’s combined earnings, which the report calls egalitarian. Husbands’ two figures are given there as “roughly” 5 and 2 hours. Source: Pew Research Center, April 2023.
Write the answers down: a free two-page contract
The Alpacto Relationship Contract is a free two-page printable that gives every decision above a line, a review date and both signatures. It comes in Minimal, Warm and Color designs, in Letter and A4, with no email needed. Print it, fill it in together, and sign it.
- Pages
- Two, ending with two signature lines and a review date
- Sections
- Home · Money · Time together · Time apart · How we argue · Small print we take seriously · Review
- Money fields
- Shared costs and the split; the amount either of us can spend without asking; what we are saving for; the day we look at money together
- Designs
- Minimal, Warm and Color, with the same text in all three
- Fillable version
- 37 fields and 4 checkboxes you can type into before printing
- Small print
- “Not a legal document. A shared agreement between people who trust each other.”
Section five prints four house rules for arguing, each with a checkbox:
- We stick to the topic and leave old arguments out of it.
- Either of us can ask for a 20-minute break. The one who asked restarts the talk.
- We don’t argue over text.
- We talk it through in private, not in front of friends or family.
Questions people ask
What questions should couples ask each other before getting married?
Start with children, money, who owns which job at home, and how each of you fights, because a silent assumption in those four costs the most years. That is blocks one to three and five of the 100 questions. The other blocks cover family, work, faith, health and fun.
When should couples have these conversations?
Before the engagement is ideal, and the months between proposal and wedding still work. One block per sitting over a few weeks beats one long evening: nobody answers question ninety at midnight. For context, the Census Bureau put the US median age at first marriage in 2024 at 30.2 for men and 28.6 for women.
What if we don’t agree on everything?
Almost nobody agrees on everything, and a disagreement by itself is no verdict. Sort each gap into one you can live with and one to settle first, then date the page.
How many of these should we do in one sitting?
One block per sitting, which is six to fourteen questions. Questions couples should ask each other before marriage lose their value as a quiz, and the tenth block ends the evening lightly.
Is there a printable list of things to ask your fiance before marriage?
Yes. The free Alpacto Relationship Contract above is a printable for the answers: the same topics as the list, with a line for each answer, in Letter and A4, free and without an email.
Does premarital counseling or education actually work?
It may help, but the evidence shows a link, not a cause. A household survey across four US states tied premarital education to higher satisfaction and commitment and lower conflict, yet its authors said survey methods allow only weak inferences about causal relations. Use it to find where you disagree, not as insurance.
Is there an app for this?
Alpacto is the app for what happens after the answers. A line such as “we look at our money on the first” becomes a pact you both sign, with a reward in coins. It is on iPhone and Android.
One answer, one pact
Half the answers on that page are promises with a date. Alpacto turns one into a pact between two people: the job, what counts as done, what it is worth in coins. The app reminds, so neither of you has to.