Before you get too involved with planning your wedding, take a breather and talk about the following things with your soon-to-be husband. Your future married life might depend on it!
4 Things to Talk About With Your Fiancée Before Getting Married
How will we take care of our finances?
A lot of the stress that marriages experience comes from fights about money. Talk about the details: How much do you earn? How will we pay for the bills and payments for our family? Who will take care of the household budget? Who will hold the money? Will we put our money together, or keep it separate and pay for certain things? Do you have any debts or loans that need to be paid off? Are you your family’s breadwinner, or are you contributing to your parents’ retirement? Talking about money is uncomfortable for most Filipinos, but talking about it now will make you feel more calm and secure about your married life.
Do we want children?
This isn’t a yes or no question, although it might look like it. There’s a ton of follow up questions with this, like how many do you want? There might be conflict if your fiancée wants a whole basketball team (plus benchwarmers), while you’d much rather give birth twice at the most. How would you want to bring them up? If you both have jobs or careers, will it mean that one of you will become a stay at home parent, or will you be comfortable with bringing in a yaya? Asking questions about how both of you were raised will also give you a glimpse about what the other person’s expectations are about how to raise children.
Where will we live?
It’s a dream of all married couples to have a home of their own to live in right after they get hitched, but usually, because of finances or the obligation to take care of elderly or sick parents, the newlyweds decide to live with their parents’ or in-laws’. How long will the living arrangement last? Will you be scouting for houses or putting in payments for a home of your own? Would you need to live apart for a few days in a week because of work, or are there any chances of being uprooted and living abroad? These matters have to be discussed now, rather than to fight over it when you’re already married.
Where will we be ten years from now?
It’s easy to ride on the high of the promise of forever—all couples who walk down the aisle have thought that way. While forever is the best dream to aspire for, picturing how your life will be like 10 years from now will show if you and your fiancée are on the same page. Think about how a day will be like with your future husband. Picture it so vividly in your mind, and talk about it with your fiancée. What time do you wake up? What do you eat for breakfast, and who prepares it? Are there kids in the breakfast table? What are their names, how do they look like, and are they already going to school? Are you both heading to work? Is there household help in the house? How are both of your careers, or how’s life as a stay at home parent for one of you? Where do you live? How does your bedroom look like? What do you do for quality time as a family? Getting all these details, big and small, will help you get a clearer picture of how forever will look like, and if both of you want to commit to that life.
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