The Necessary Premarital Conversation You Need to Have Before ‘I do’
We learn how to be married by the example of our parents. Whether we realize it or not. They laid the foundation for how we view marriage and how we choose to interact with our spouse. This is a blessing for engaged couples whose parents were stellar examples. This can feel like a curse if your parent’s marriage was dysfunctional or ended in divorce.
But you can use all information for your benefit. Your marriage doesn’t have to follow their fate however you do need to understand the components of their marriage.
My parents and my husband’s parents got divorced. We love our parents. And we also knew that there were aspects of their marriages that we didn’t want to repeat. As an engaged couple, we took the time to discuss what we learned from our parent’s marriages. It was a lengthy conversation over a few different days.
I walk my premarital counseling couples through this same process as a starting off point. The answers to these questions then provide conversations that allow me and the couple to understand where future issues and conflicts may arise. Answer the questions separately first and then come together for discussion or answer them more collaboratively.
How did your parents communicate with one another?
You may have experienced your parents set aside time to talk each day. Or they may have checked in with one another throughout the day. Did one parent talk more than the other? Were their tones loving and gentle or harsh and critical? What topics did they discuss?
How did they handle arguments?
Some people remember their parents arguing often and loud. Others witnessed more disagreements. But some don’t remember their parents arguing at all. My parents would have disagreements in the laundry room or they would go for walks together. So I didn’t know how to disagree with my husband. When we first married this was an area that caused me great discomfort.
To find out the rest of the necessary premarital conversation – follow me over to Start Marriage Right where I am a contributor!
I pray that this conversation helps you and your fiance to start your marriage with a strong foundation and understanding of what you want for your marriage.
And if you have been married for a number of years, this is still a conversation you can have with your spouse! It is never too late in your marriage to strengthen and grow as a couple.
For more marriage related posts check out my series on Boundaries in Your Marriage.
God bless!
Melissa
Dear Melissa
Your blog post “Necessary Premarital Conversations” was my first visit on your beautiful blog this year.
I accept your point that most of us are under heavy influence of our parents regarding how we view marriage.
The minority that’s good, and as you say for the majority, it’ll cause chaos and challenges.
It gives your blog posts a depth when you share your personal experiences with the topic.
I’m sure it’ll inspire your audience to see the value of sharing on all levels.
My add to your blog post is that all that you say about marriage in this blog post could be applied to the topic of money as well.
What do you think about that comparison?
Does it hold?
I’ll follow you over to Start Marriage Right and continue the comment there.
Before I do, I’ll share this on Twitter.
Blessings!
Edna Davidsen
Yes, Edna. I would agree that we also learn about money from our parents. Also the good and the bad. As adults it is then our responsibility to question what we learned and saw in our family of origin and how we want to continue that and/or change aspects. I think this also is true of parenting. Thank you for your in depth comment and question. God bless!
I suppose we become like our parents unless we purpose to do something different. These are great things to talk about before getting married!
As with everything, if we want to do it well we need to do it with intention and purpose. Looking at our parent’s marriage is the best way for us to see what we want our marriage to look like. Thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts. God bless!
I love that we go back to how your parents handled things, so we can learn and grow from that. I thought I would never be like my mom BUT I do see certain phrases and mannerisms of her coming out of me ahhhh lol.
I look quite a bit like my mom so I know I make some of the same facial expressions! Thank you for stopping by and sharing! God bless!
I am approaching my third anniversary and it is crazy how much our parents influence our marriage. Sometimes, we see how we don’t want to be but when it’s all we know, we can fall into these default communication habits. I think marriage in general has to be an active engagement to prevent us from falling into patterns we’ve witnessed our whole lives. Every relationship is different and should be treated with care and diligence.Thank you for bringing this truth to light
Happy Anniversary! Yes, every part of marriage is an active choice. When we stop being intentional we resort to habits. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your insights. God bless!
These questions are good. My husband and I didn’t have any list of questions to follow 35 years ago, but we talked a lot so we covered many of the issues, but today’s youth seem to need prompts. And there are definitely topics that should be covered.
Yes, I think the youth have less “good” examples of what marriage is supposed to be as society has gone further down the path of not valuing marriage. It’s quite sad. Thank you for stopping by and congratulations on 35+ years of marriage! God bless!
Melissa- I think pre-marital counseling is important! My husband and I had a few months counseling with the pastor who married us, we needed to work through a workbook separately and individually.
The pastor who married us had us each read Captivating and Wild at Heart to better understand ourselves and our future spouse. The books were great tools for further conversation. And that really was our starting off point on coming up with and answering these more thorough questions based off of our parent’s marriages. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your experience. God bless!
Saving this for my granddaughter.
I’m glad you found the post beneficial! Thank you for reading and commenting! God bless!
I wish you would consider putting this series in a booklet form. I’d even pay for it. ???
I could turn it into a PDF for you if you want!
People are in shock when I tell them about the conversations that Peter and I had before we got married. Kids how many? How we want our life style to be, and that adoption is plan A for us.
That’s so great that you guys had such in depth, meaningful and straightforward conversations. I wish more premarital couples did that! Thank you for stopping by and sharing your experience! God bless!
Having deep conversations before marriage is so important to the foundation of marriages. And then ongoing talks about the same issues is often necessary. Building a strong communication pathway before marriage, including expectations, etc is so helpful to one’s marriage!
Yes, absolutely! I’m glad you brought up ongoing conversations about the same topics. It certainly can’t be one and done conversations. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. God bless!
I have to say I wish we would have had this conversation before our wedding day! Not that we would have walked away from each other, but that we would have definitely learned a lot through just a couple questions. It would have helped us navigate those early years of conflict/resolution. Thank you for sharing, Melissa! This is very important!
You’re certainly not alone in not having this conversation. Not many do. It’s a serious conversation and a bit uncomfortable. Most people attempt to avoid both. I’m glad that you and your husband have since worked through the early year issues. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts and experiences. God bless!
It’s a wise thing to look back and contemplate why things happened the way they did. It’s a sign of maturity to be able to make the necessary changes in your life that the past doesn’t repeat itself.
It is indeed a sign of maturity and critical thinking skills. Lucky for me my husband is overflowing in his analytical abilities! Thank you for stopping by and commenting! God bless!
What a great question! I know someone who is engaged and I am going to forward this to her. Thanks!!!
I’m so glad you found the post worthy of passing on to your friend. That’s a great encouragement. Thank you for stopping by and sharing. God bless!
The examples we grow up with definitely have an impact on our relationships, both with our spouses and our children. While my hubby and I didn’t talk in depth about those issues, as our marriage has gone along, we have seen where some of our behaviors have been modeled after our parents – both good and bad. This is a great article to share with young people who are considering marriage. Thanks for sharing. – Amy
http://stylingrannymama.com/
It is amazing how we repeat aspects of our childhood – marriage, parenting, finances, etc. if we don’t actively decide not to. Thank you for stopping by and sharing your experiences. God bless!
I love that you encourage this. It is so important. My husband and I had premarital counseling and it opened our eyes to some major different beliefs we had about how to resolve issues. Our parents marriage does affect us but like you said it doesn’t have to determine our marraiges.
I’m so glad your premarital counseling experience was a positive and enriching time. A side from our relationship with God, our marriage is the most important relationship we enter into. It’s so important to do the work and set the foundation! Thank you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts. God bless!