My fiance and I have talked about the big stuff, of course - kids, religion, etc - and have discussed how we’ll combine our finances and all those common sense things, but I was thinking it would be nice to have some sort of workbook to walk us through everything we need to settle that maybe we haven’t thought about and help us develop a plan of action for it (i.e., “we need to go to the bank and bring ____, ____, and ___ and make sure we do ____,” or “we’ve decided that we need to make up our minds on whether we want to try for a baby before I turn 35” or whatever.)
All that sort of thing seems to be permanently checked out of the library or lost except the religious ones. Has anybody gone through a list like that and would like to suggest one or steer us away from one?
This isn’t exactly what you were asking for, but I recommend Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. I did some of the exercises with my spouse a few years back and we learned a lot about each other, even though we’d already been married for some time and our relationship was strong. It’s pretty good.
100? 100? I am impressed with your desire to cover all the bases before embarking on such an important “journey”, BUT this is way too high a number (if it does indeed reflect your attitude about this).
I made this same mistake, so I think I understand where you’re coming from. Finally, I figured out (with some help from wiser friends) that, at some point, you just have to make that leap (call it a “leap of faith”, if you’d like).
I realize that, in your case, you seem to have already made the commitment to marry this person. Assuming THAT decision wasn’t just on a whim, then you’re already halfway there. You’ve already committed to finding a way to work things out. And, you already know pretty much all you need to know (at this point) about your partner. How, exactly, you will work things out as they come up over the years, is something no book can spell out for you – though different books will contribute various useful insights, WHEN they become useful to you. You’ll know when you need 'em (and you’ll probably not even need 'em much then.)
All this is equally true when making the leap to have a child (though there are many more practical, and universally relevant, facts which having a child entails, so you’ll find that THAT’s when books will more come in handy.)
I’m glad to see a poster has already responded with some work which pares your “100” number down to 7. That sounds about right.
It’s just that the titles I’ve seen have numbers like 100 or 50! I don’t actually need a billlion questions, just specifying the sort of book I’m looking for.
What kind of questions are you looking for? Relationship issue questions, like time management or division of labor, or mechanics questions like writing wills and combining car insurance? Cause 50 is too many for the first, and although 100 isn’t enough for the second, most of that doesn’t truly need to be done before the wedding.
We got one of those books before we got married. I can’t remember the title but it was very similar to “100 questions to ask before your wedding” and the thing I liked about it was that all it had was a list of questions. Lots of these books have questions and then pages of text explaining why these questions are important or what it means when your spouse responds in a specific way and I didn’t need someone else to tell me what was good, bad, or ugly about our answers to the questions, I just needed to feel like we had truly discussed as much as possible before we got married.
We had already talked about a lot of the things the book brought up (money, addiction, children, etc.) but it did provide openings to discuss things we hadn’t thought about before. Honestly though, that was a couple of years ago and I don’t remember much from the book except for one question. This question was the reason I bought the book in the first place, actually, because when I read it in the bookstore I started to cry and I knew I had to talk to my fiance about it if it struck that kind of chord. The question was, “What would you do if you developed feelings for someone who isn’t your spouse? Not just a physical attraction but actual romantic feelings?”
I took the book home and we sat down and started to go through it together and when we got to that question I started to tear up again. The thought of one of us finding someone else was obviously not sitting well with me. We talked about it and determined exactly what we would do in that case and how we would respond if the other one came to us and told us that they had developed feelings for someone else. Because of that question I felt like we addressed something that obviously becomes an issue for a lot of people and set up warning flags in our heads so that if something like that happens instead of thinking, “Man, I am so confused! I can’t talk to anyone about this!” we will hopefully default to, “Uh oh, I know what is going on here. I need to go home and talk to my spouse right away!” I think it really helped.
Ha! Or, live together on a small sailboat for a month. Especially if it’s a leaky sailboat.
All of the above posts sound good to me. The mere fact that you are both so interested in these sorts of things bodes well. Maybe that’s all you’ll really need at this point – to show that such things MATTER to each of you. Most of the details can follow in due course.
I don’t know of any books but the SDMB would be a great place to start build a list.
Some odd ones I’ve run across (married almost 10 years):
How much will you assist your children in financing their secondary education?
If for whatever reason you couldn’t have kids would you look into other options and what sort of $ limit would you put on it?
When you become empty nesters do you want to downsize? When you retire do you want to relocate?
How do you prefer to spend your vacations and holidays? Your family, their family, other friends, by yourselves?
Who gets the newer vehicle?
Who cleans the toilets?
If either of your parents become dependant are you willing to take them in?
Do you loan/give money to relatives who ask?
Since Asimovian and I were long-distance for a year, we had a lot of time to come up with funny or important questions for one another and, honestly, we learned a huge amount about one another through these sorts of questions. So, some books:
This one has a scary title, but is worth reading: How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk, by John Van Epp. It’s about looking at the whole picture of you and your partner, how you treat each other and third parties, how your history reflects on your needs and habits, etc. I really recommend this one.
