Change and growth occur in all aspects of life, including marriage, and marriage is no exception.
Today's married couples encounter several obstacles that past generations did not. Just recent technological advancements add a component that impacts relationships and marriage nowadays. Because of these changes, couples considering marriage must have important and in-depth discussions that couples in the past never had to consider.
These are crucial talks to have before getting married, and they should never be skipped. They can reveal potential dealbreakers and assess a couple's long-term compatibility.
5 Conversations to Have Before Marriage
Here are five important talks for couples to have before getting married.
1. How Will We Face Challenges Together?
As previously said, today's couples face issues that previous generations of couples never had to consider. Couples must be prepared for disagreement as a result of these new obstacles.
Couples must devise a strategy for dealing with and resolving conflict when it occurs, rather than if it occurs. This also implies who they will seek advice from if they become stuck.
Couples in the past were frequently active in a community, whether religious or simply a tight family community that could advise newly married couples. This mentoring or advice established a framework for how couples would settle disputes in their marriage.
Many couples now lack that communal framework and are lonely as they try to navigate an ever-changing world on their own.
Before getting married, today's couples should discuss their feelings about receiving advice from a therapist, a religious leader, or other sorts of mentors when things go rough.
2. How Much Influence Should Family Have on Our Marriage?
According to the Pew Research Center, the American family structure is changing drastically, with the mixed family becoming the more prevalent family form in contemporary culture. With these new family members, whether through marriage or divorce, complicated family dynamics exist in our culture now that were uncommon in the past.
Couples thinking about marriage should talk about how to establish family duties and where to set clear limits to avoid future problems. A couple's marriage creates a new family, which might disrupt previously established family relationships, putting strain on the newly formed partnership and causing problems.
It's wonderful if your spouse has a close relationship with their mother and spends time with her every day, or that your partner has a good friendship with their ex-husband. These connections, however, will jeopardize the establishment of a new marriage and place a burden on resources required for a good marriage, such as time and attention.
Couples must have discussions regarding the dynamic changes that must occur in the future.
3. Do We Have a Common Vision of the Future?
One of the top causes of divorce, according to the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts, is “incompatibility.”
Parenting, religion, political ideas, and financial or personal interests are all examples of incompatibility in marriage. Overall, it leads to a critical debate that couples must have about whether they have a same vision for the future.
A shared vision of the future comprises not just their present perspective on these aspects of their relationship, but also the possibility of what the couple would like to achieve together.
How do they want to spend their future time together? Where do they want to live? What would they want to do together?
Couples that do not develop together will eventually grow apart. So, in addition to discussing whether they agree on issues before getting married, couples should discuss what they want their future to look like.
4. Will We Accept Each Other’s Influence?
A research conducted by John Gottman and Neil Jacobson revealed an aspect in relationships required for success known as “accepting influence.” Respect for your spouse, a desire to be open to their opinions and ideas, and a readiness to be flexible and compromise are all required to embrace your partner's influence.
Couples who can tolerate each other's influence are more likely to stay together and strengthen their marriage relationship.
Accepting influence does not imply giving in to your spouse and agreeing to all they offer. It signifies that both of you are willing to find a medium ground while maintaining mutual respect.
Although this is a crucial talk for couples to have before getting married, it is frequently obvious if your spouse is willing to meet you halfway straight away or not. If a couple appears to battle with power struggles from the start, this is frequently not a good indicator of accepting influence and may be regarded as a red signal.
5. What Are Our Values Around Money and Intimacy?
Money and sex are believed to be the top two issues that couples argue over, and our experience working with couples has shown that both themes function as a barometer for the health of a marriage. In-depth discussions regarding these two themes are essential during a marriage, let alone before it begins.
Financial problems between a marriage can be a major cause in divorce, according to a research published in the Family Relations Journal. With many couples today marrying later in life or marrying for the second or even third time, money becomes a critical subject that couples must consider.
With the average age of couples considering marriage growing, many couples have already developed a financial portfolio on their own and now face the difficulty of combining their assets.
When attempting to have this debate, open communication and openness are critical since money may signify much more than simply a dollar figure. Depending on one's financial history, money may signify survival, fear, independence, power, control, failure, and success in a marriage.
If couples do not have these in-depth talks about money, it can leave holes in their relationship that are difficult to bridge.
Sex and intimacy, like money, may signify much more than simply a physical act, and what a person learns about sex during their growth and in previous relationships is certain to play out in their marriage.
In a marriage, sex and intimacy may reflect a variety of emotions, including love, rejection, abandonment, judgment, acceptance, approval, attention, nurture, bonding, failure, inadequacy, and connection. Depending on how a couple addresses it, this area of their relationship has the most potential for healing or hurting.
Conversations regarding sex and intimacy can frequently result in wounded feelings, defensiveness, and/or avoidance if not handled effectively. It comes as no surprise that a lack of physical closeness is one of the leading causes of divorce. As a result, it is a crucial talk that couples must have before getting married.
Final Thoughts
Making a good marriage now is far more difficult than it was centuries before. Before getting married, couples have far more to consider and much more tough talks to have than in the past.
With divorce costing tens of thousands of dollars, the bad influence on children, and the emotional implications that couples may face, it is more crucial than ever for couples to complete the required pre-marital preparation to guarantee a more successful marriage.
These five talks might serve as a solid starting point.
