Sickness and Death

1. If you outlive your partner, how will you handle his/her death?  Will you look for a new partner, a companion to live with, or new friends to fill your time?

2. Would you be secure financially?  Would you have the resources to raise the children you have, or expect to have?

3. Do you have the emotional maturity and strength of will to raise any children you have or expect to have, as a single parent?  Whom could you call on for help? Extended family? Close friends?

4. What are your wishes regarding funerals, burials, cremation, etc.  What are your partner's wishes?

5. Are you and your partner organ donors?

6. When is medical intervention counterproductive?  Which disabilities or injuries are worse than death?

7. Do you trust each other to make life&death decisions on your behalf?  Will you codify this via living wills?

8. How would you react if your partner were seriously injured (e.g. blind, wheelchair bound, etc)?  How would the marriage change?  If your hobbies are primarily physical in nature, what new activities might take their place?

9. Could you care for the physical needs of your partner, such as dressing, bathing, medications, etc?

10. What is your attitude towards doctors and modern medicine?  Do you trust your doctors?  Are there certain procedures you do not believe in, on moral or religious grounds?

11. How do you feel about holistic/alternative medicine?  Does a positive or negative attitude play a role in health and sickness?

12. What steps do you take to preserve your longterm health, and what will you expect from your partner?

Dividing the Work

1. Who will perform the for-salary work?  (I'll assume you aren't independently wealthy.)

2. How does your career rank, in priority, relative to your marriage and family?

3. If either of you is content being a homemaker, skip this question, and the next 2.  If the situation demands that somebody stay home (e.g. to care for a sick child or relative), who will stay home and who will work?

4. If your golden career opportunity pulls you towards one end of the country, and your partner's dream job is located elsewhere, how will you reach a compromise?

5. Who has more flexibility in finding satisfactory work wherever you might be located?

6. If you do not work, what other activities, hobbies, or volunteer work will you be involved in?  (Being a fulltime homemaker rarely sates an individual's full complement of emotional, intellectual, and social needs.)

7. Who does the cooking, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, garbage/recycles, kitchen floors and counters, bathrooms, grocery shopping, errands, lawn maintenance, snow shoveling, gardening, and odd jobs around the house?  Do you expect to hire someone to do some of these tasks, such as the lawn?

Sex

1. Do you insist on a monogamous relationship?  What are your attitudes towards infidelity?  What if you found that your partner had one affair?  Numerous affairs?

2. Are you certain that you and your partner do not have any sexually transmitted diseases?

3. Although you have (or will have) a permanent sex partner, do you still enjoy watching erotic images of others on tape or on the printed page?

4. How important is good sex to a good marriage?  How important is a good marriage to good sex?

5. How would you handle a sexless marriage, if illness or injury prohibited intercourse?  Are there other ways you could physically demonstrate your love to each other?

6. How often would you like to have sexual relations?

7. Ideally, how much time would you like to spend together before and after the act?  What things do you like to do to prepare for, and come down from sex?

8. Are you prepared to make drastic cuts in the frequency and spontaneity of your sex life to accommodate children?

9. Your sex drives will almost certainly wane as the marriage progresses.  If one person loses desire before the other, how will the active partner's needs be met?

10. Do you enjoy alternate forms of sex, such as oral?

11. What aids (e.g. lotions, video tapes) do you enjoy?

12. What activities do you find erotic?

13. Would you like to shower or bathe with your partner?