Are you planning to get married? Do you want your marriage to live up to your expectations? Then you should start having frank and upfront conversations with your partner before marriage.

The practice of “slow love”—choosing several partners before marriage, befriending a partner, or living with a partner for a while—is what young couples often do before they choose to marry. That’s good. Helen Fisher, a creator of the “slow love” meme, argues that we have an evolutionary imperative for the deep connection that couples can find in marriage. [1]

When you find “the one,” it’s time to talk to each other — to have serious conversations that will pave the way for the fair, sustainable, and fulfilling marriage you desire.

Here are 10 conversations you need to have so that your marriage has a better chance of living up to your expectations.

1. Why do you want to get married?
   This may seem like an unnecessary conversation, but there can be a disconnect between how people think about marriage and how they act once they are in it. This is especially true these days because you have so much freedom about what kind of marriage you can have. The new I Do discusses the many types of marital arrangements you can have, such as initial marriage, companionate marriage, parental marriage, secure marriage, and so on.

Take your time to explore your reasons and motivations for getting married. Here are the top reasons people say they want to get married, according to a recent Pew Research Center report:

For love (88 percent).
To make a lifetime commitment (81 percent)
companionship (76%).
children (49 percent)
Acknowledging an affair at a religious ceremony (30 percent).
Financial stability (28 percent)
Legal rights and benefits (23 percent)
As the authors of the new I Do warn, “It is not okay to assume that marriage is something else in the course of life.”

Read also : Why Your Married Man Won’t Let You Move On: 5 Reasons

2. What do you want as an individual in 1, 5, and 10 years from now?
   Take some time to think about what is important to you to thrive in life. Here are some initial thoughts for your conversation.

How important is work to you?
What about the kids?
Are you thinking of an ideal future?
What other things are important to you – hobbies, friends, sports, etc.?
What you want in life matters and stands alone. However, it cannot be a request to be fulfilled. In the context of marriage, this is what you negotiate — another essential premarital conversation.

3. How will you stay strong as a couple and thrive as individuals?
   Being a couple means that what you do has an impact on your partner. Being true to yourself means that you can identify what is important to you in order to thrive. Maintaining a balance between both of you looking for what is important individually while considering the impact on your partner is achieved through collaboratively negotiating your individual goals and marital obligations.

Here are several things it means to negotiate collaboratively – talk about them with each other:

Am I willing to negotiate the important issues that arise in our marriage?
Do I understand that none of us is more “equal” than the other?
Am I ready and able to express my desires and desires openly and directly, i.e. “put them on the table”?
Am I willing to not be “privileged” my position in negotiations because of my status, for example, sex or higher earnings?
Am I willing to take action based on the decisions reached through negotiation?
In my view, being willing and able to discuss issues cooperatively has the status of a marital vow.

4. Being accountable to one another means being self-reflective
   Self-reflection is the key skill you will need to handle conflict in your marriage. This is the quality that allows you to be responsible for your role in conflicts. In my work with couples in troubled marriages for more than 30 years, the ability and willingness to self-reflect was either absent from the start or extinct. When couples enter therapy, they almost always see the other person as the problem.

How good is it to step back and look at my role in how things are going wrong between us?

Do I react too quickly when I think something isn’t going my way?
Do I sometimes or often take things personally?
Am I quick to negatively classify my partner’s actions that I don’t like?
Jennifer Porter has a good description of what it means to be self-reflective: “The most useful thinking involves conscious reflection and analysis of beliefs and actions for the purpose of learning. Reflection gives the brain an opportunity to pause in the chaos, disentangle and sort through observations and experiences, consider the multiple possible interpretations, and create meaning.” It becomes This sense learning, which can then inform future mindsets and actions.”

Read also : 5 Ways We Screw Up Unconditional Love

5. Be proactive in negotiating your sexual relationship
   You will want to be proactive in creating a satisfying sexual relationship. Remember that you hope to be together for a long time. A discussion about sex requires a great deal of self-reflection.

Here are some ideas on important topics to cover in a pre-wedding discussion. Be sure to add your own ideas.

How did you find out about sex?
How important is sex to you?
Have either of you had a painful sexual experience?
What are your concerns about your body?
How often do you want to have sex?
What kind of sexual acts do you like?
How should you start having sex with each other?
Do one or both of you watch pornography? How do you feel about that?
This discussion of sex will set the stage for ongoing discussions about sex throughout your marriage – start the discussion habit now.

Read also : 26 Subtle Ways To Show Someone You Care

6. What about fidelity?
   The traditional idea of marital fidelity is that it is agreed upon once the marriage vows are taken. We have enough data on infidelity to suggest that we need a different approach, one that understands fidelity based on conviction rather than custom. This means that fidelity is a choice you make together – it’s a negotiated choice. Here are some ideas for how to discuss choosing fidelity.

Take the time to reflect on your thoughts and feelings about sexual fidelity in your marriage.
Examine your implicit ideas about monogamy that come from your religious beliefs, traditional sexual roles, personal moral values, and personal fears.
How will you define loyalty in your marriage?
Honesty and openness: What should you tell each other about your relationships with others?
External Relationships: What limits do you want to place on the nature of your relationships with others, for example is it okay to share personal information?
Sexual fidelity: What about lusting after someone, pornography use, and online romantic relationships?
Honesty and openness: What should you tell each other about your relationships with others?
External Relationships: What limits do you want to place on the nature of your relationships with others, for example is it okay to share personal information?
Sexual fidelity: What about lusting after someone, pornography use, and online romantic relationships?
Remember – fidelity is about conviction, not custom.

7. Having children and raising them
   Today, having children is an intentional act. This means that you must plan how you will work together to be an effective parent, maintain gender equality, and preserve your relationship. The following are important questions that can guide your discussion.

Do you want to have children? Why?
What are your parenting philosophies?
What is your plan to have and raise your children?
How will children affect your life?
How will you share the responsibility of caring for your children?
If you choose not to have children, how will you deal with the pressure you may be under to have children?
Philosopher Christine generally suggests that the best reason for having a child is simply to create the mutually enriching and mutual love that is the parent-child relationship.

8. Finance
   Before you walk down the aisle, talk about your financial well-being as a married couple. You’ll want to have a money management plan in place as you begin your marriage. Here are a few starting questions:

What are your spending and saving habits?

Do you have separate assets and debts? Know that marriage makes your individual assets/debts assets/debts.
Work on a plan for spending and saving money.
Even as you jointly manage your money, you may want to maintain your financial and credit standing, perhaps by having separate checking accounts.
Regularly discuss your financial goals.
It is important to have an initial hearing about your finances, but don’t stop there. Discuss financial matters regularly, especially in relation to your individual and marital goals.

Read also : How To Find A Soulmate And Restore Your Faith In ‘True Love’

9. Health and wellness
   You may not think of maintaining your individual health and wellness as part of the commitment to each other and to your marriage. that it. Remember, as a couple, everything you do has an impact on your partner. Here are several ideas to start your discussion.

How will you both maintain your physical health – nutrition, fitness and individual health issues?
How will you support each other’s desires to maintain physical health?
How will each of you take care of your own emotional and spiritual well-being?
How will you support each other’s efforts to maintain emotional and spiritual well-being?
This health and wellness discussion will prepare you for important conversations should ill health arise.

10. Legal issues
    Besides being about love, friendship, and communication, marriage is also a legal union. Below are some legal issues for discussion.

How are debts due in marriage dealt with?
How will you decide which health and life insurance plan to use?
How will you decide the beneficiaries of the savings plans?
Are there individual assets before marriage? Will you stay with the individual or become a joint asset?
Creation of wills, including living wills.
If circumstances change, how do you divide marital assets?
If circumstances change, who will receive alimony and/or child support from the other?
Ongoing discussions about legal issues as well as other important areas discussed here can enhance your marital relationship.

Endnote

Sociologist Kathleen Gerson finds in her study of young men that they hope to establish relationships of equality within enduring marriages or marriage-like relationships. [5] To achieve this lofty goal in a society that continues to define marriage in terms of outdated gender roles—breadwinner and homemaker—young couples must have the kind of frank conversations described. It is not easy to maintain a fair relationship. The craving for the traditional is intense — especially when you have kids.

You’ll have a much better chance of maintaining the kind of relationship you want if you start with open, honest discussions and continue them throughout your marriage as it develops over the long term.