101 Questions To Ask Before You Get Engaged

101 Questions To Ask Before You Get Engaged

Author : H Norman Wright

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The book is essentially a series of 101 useful questions to ask your partner before getting engaged to them (to decide whether or not to), along with some useful commentary about each question. I don't believe that this is necessarily the best or most comprehensive list. But I think it is a useful list to look at, makes some edits to and use as a starting point. I would like to restructure this and make more customised and use for myself.
I have just relisted the 101 questions used in this book, without most of the author's commentary and detailing. In cases where I found the questions to be too christianity specific, I have tried to make the questions more generic.

1. What makes it easy for you to be open and vulnerable? And what makes it difficult?
2. What is your greatest fear and concern about getting married? What have you done to address these fears?
3. If you were to marry, in what way would you maintain a healthy interdependence? What would you depend upon each other for and what would you take personal responsibility for?
4. Describe how you were disciplined as a child? If you have children how would your discipline style be similar and how will it be different?
5. What are 5 reasons a person would want to spend the rest of their life with you? And what are 3 reasons they wouldn't?
6. What have you learned from your previous relationships that make you a better partner at this time?
7. Describe your spiritual journey over the last 10 years, including high and low points?
8. What are the 3 most vivid memories that you can recall from birth to age 18?
9. What does compatibility mean to you?
10. To what extent do you see the way in which each of us communicates similar and different?
11. If you're married what aspect of dependence on your parents will be the most difficult to reduce and why?
12. Is it easy or difficult for you to pray with a person you're in a relationship with and why?
13. To what degree are you a saver or spender when it comes to money?
14. How has your relationship with God changed since this current relationship?
15. Describe what your life and you were like before you met me?
16. What are your dreams and aspirations? List 10 of them and describe them in the context of a future where we're married.
17. What are the questions about me that you have always wanted to ask?
18. What do you think is society's and your own purpose for marriage?
19. What are your beliefs about prenuptial agreements?
20. In a relationship, what part of giving of yourself do you struggle with?
21. What are your feelings about pornography? And in what ways has it been a part of your life?
22. What is your medical history? In detail
23. If something really bothered you about me, how would you go about expressing it to me?
24. What would those in your prior relationships say about you? What did you learn from them?
25. What about my life and personality concern you at this time?
26. How has your relationship with God changed in the last 5 years?
27. How would you keep romance alive when you're married?
28. What are 5 habits that you're glad you have and 5 that you wish you didn't have?
29. Who are the people who have influenced you most in life and in what way?
30. Could you describe the people in your life who are the easiest to get along with and who are the toughest?
31. 10 years from now where would you like to be emotionally, personally, economically and socially?
32. What was your family's economic and social level like while you were growing up? What was the emotional environment like?
33. When you are sick, how do you want other people to respond to you?
34. What brings you the greatest satisfaction in life?
35. What are the must have and must not have qualities in a person you want to spend the rest of your life with?
36. What is there in your life that you never want to change or never want to let go of?
37. If you could change an area of your life, how would you want it to change and why? How long have you felt this way?
38. What have you learned about failure, pain, disappointment, not having the right resources or being born in an ideal circumstance?
39. How would you rate your friendships with people of the same sex? And those of a different sex? The more details, the better.
40. What was your last relationship like? And what are the reasons you’re sure that relationship is over and that you are past it?
41. What do you wish you could say to your parents or your family? And why haven’t you been able to say it?
42. Can you think of any loss in your life that you haven’t fully grieved over?
43. What are 5 adjectives that you can select to describe your relationship with your father?
44. What are 5 adjectives that you can select to describe your relationship with your mother?
45. What are the activities that you enjoy doing? Which of these would you like to do with me? Which of the activities that I enjoy would you like to do with me?
46. What was the most difficult time of your life and how did you handle it?
47. Describe how you handle stress and frustration? What creates the greatest stress and frustration in your life?
48. How would you handle holidays, birthdays and various other traditions in your life? How do we blend our ways of celebrating with each other?
49. What is your dream or fantasy of a perfect marriage?
50. What are 3 ways in which you see us as different and 3 in which we’re similar? How do these differences and similarities make you feel about us together?
51. What qualities do you see in your parents that you hope to see in your future spouse?
52. If I tell you I don’t want to do something that you want to do, or am not comfortable with, how would you handle the situation?
53. What baggage are you bringing into the relationship, and how does it fit into our relationship?
54. How comfortable are you with confrontation and conflict? How do you usually resolve it?
55. When you marry, do you want children? If so, how many? In what ways do you believe you are equipped to be a parent, and how do you intend to be?
56. What will your relationship with your parents, siblings and friends be like after we get married? What about your relationship with mine?
57. If you were to marry, what would be the hardest adjustment that someone would have to make to be with you?
58. How much do you value personal time, to study, reflect or just relax on your own?
59. What is your idea of a family? How would you change how your family and upbringing was if you could?
60. What are your financial responsibilities and goals? How comfortable are you with financial management? What are you good at and bad at? What is your financial history and trajectory looking like?
61. What is the greatest moment of debt that you have experienced? What are the financial obligations and responsibilities that you are likely to have going forward?
62. How do you know that you’re in love with your partner?
63. In what way and extent would you like us to love each other and sacrifice for the other?
64. What would your parents believe that I should know about you? What do they know about you that others don’t?
65. How would you describe who you are to me from scratch?
66. How would you complete these sentences? A husband should ___? A wife should ___?
67. What are the experiences in life that you would like the person you marry to have had or not to have had?
68. Who are the couples that you know who have growing, healthy marriages?
69. On a scale of 0-10, to what extent do you experience guilt or anguish about your previous relationships?
70. What are the various jobs you have held and for how long? What did you like and dislike about them and how would you like to build them into your life ahead?
71. What are your hobbies and interests outside of work? How much time goes into it and how would things be once we get married?
72. If you were to marry, what would you get out of married life that you won’t get as a single person?
73. What has been your source(s) of information about marriage?
74. What are the areas of your life that you must control and those that you would like to control? Versus those that you would like to just go with the flow on?
75. What TV shows, movies and books have had an impact on your life and how?
76. During a conflict to what extent do you yield or fight to win (where in the spectrum)? And what is your style of handling conflicts?
77. If you inherited a large sum of money, where in the world would you want to live and what would you want to do? Would you still want to have me in your life?
78. What was the best and worst religious experience that you have had?
79. What about your partner makes you proud of them?
80. What would you like to ask God or know about the universe, if you could know one thing?
81. What is your feeling about religion? What were your major experiences with religion, when did they happen and what impact did they have on you?
82. What are the elements that you believe are needed to make a marriage work?
83. Why would your marriage last and not end up in a divorce?
84. What has been your experience with alcohol and drugs up till the present time? What is your expectation and intent for the future?
85. How well do you handle constructive criticism and advice?
86. Are you planning on going through premarital counselling? And would you be open to counselling in the future?
87. What are the questions that you have at this point of time about sex?
88. What are the easiest emotions for you to express? And what are the most difficult?
89. What are the passions in life that you would love doing? And which of these would you like me to participate in with you?
90. What foods do you enjoy? And what are your feelings about eating healthy? Details about history are important.
91. Where do you stand politically? What are the key reasons and thinking that are central to you?
92. Do you feel like you need to compromise and sacrifice anything to be a part of this relationship?
93. What are the 5 biggest fears in your life?
94. Do you like animals? What animals would you want as a pet and which ones are you not okay with? How would this dynamic work?
95. If I messed up a decision, financial or otherwise, how would you handle it?
96. Who are the people in your life that you have needed to forgive and how did you handle it?
97. Unclear on what this question is
98. How frequently do you have contact with your former partners? What is the nature and reason behind this contact?
99. Do you believe that you and I should be honest about everything in our lives? Or should some things be kept private and secret?
100. How many times have you been married?
101. What do you envision for the future of this relationship?