Know Whether You're Compatible
What does your lover think about sex, religion, careers, household work, children, money, the future, and so on? Do you really know him or her? Before you commit, you should know what questions to ask.
Contents
Steps
- Play the well known "Favorites" game. You each take turns asking the other about random things like "favorite books", "favorite movies", et cetera. This isn't the most important thing to know, but it helps a couple connect.
- Talk about what kind of pets you two like. If you have totally different tastes in pets, this can make eventually settling down with this person a bit more difficult and maybe unpleasant.
- Think about you two's opinions on health, food, and well-being. If you ever end up living with this person, this is important so you can agree on things like dinners and medicine.
- Morals, convictions and beliefs are a very important thing to consider. If you can't accept the other person's religion and ethical views, then starting a family with them is going to be a very hard task. Things like places of worship to attend (churches, temples, meeting houses, et cetera) are best spent together on that sabbath morning.
- Holidays and celebrations could also fall under the above category. Say your partner was Christian, and you were Taoist. Your partner might want a huge celebration on Christmas, with a tree and everything, but you may want to just have it be a normal day. Most people could accept their partner's views on this topic, but some can't handle it.
- Friends and family. If you despise your mother-in-law, or if your husband's friends are total slobs, living in a house where these people visit every once in a while isn't going to be pleasant.
- Children and how to raise them. From the number of children, to how you raise them, to what their names should be (if you're like most couples, you figured that one out in middle school), children aren't an easy topic to agree on.
- Wedding & honeymoon. Hopefully if you don't agree you can come to a compromise, traditionally based towards the bride's family's views. Some families believe weddings should be small and only invite the people very close to the two families, and others like weddings to be huge and extravagant.
- Think about your opinions on sex. Some believe sex is post-marital only, some take it a little more lightly. Some even like it a bit more... unorthodox. You might not want to make love to someone who's already been there before. Talk to your partner about this.
- Listen to your intuition. Make sure you feel good about the decisions you are making.
Tips
- Do not avoid certain questions just because you find them uncomfortable or even embarrassing. Break down that communication barrier and learn to be able to talk about those issues with your partner. If someone is unwilling to talk about certain issues, it should throw up a red flag for potential problems down the road.
- Be honest in your answers, but at the same time, you don’t need to paint vivid details of any of your past mistakes. You have to live with these memories; don’t make your mate have to as well.
- If you don’t think a question applies to you, ask it anyway. Your partner might have some interesting thoughts on the matter.
- Remember, you need to know the person you are thinking of first by taking time to know him/her if you don't!
Warnings
- You need to use a certain amount of wisdom with your questions. For example, someone who has just begun dating shouldn’t accelerate the relationship by asking questions about marriage and sex. If you don’t think you and your partner are quite ready to commit to each other, it would be best to start off with questions about personality, your past experiences, favourites and perhaps something like pets. The best relationships are built on a solid friendship, so first address the questions that will help build that base.
- Don’t be too specific with questions relating to sexual activity. While it is important to talk about your sexual likes and dislikes, giving too much detail about your sexual pasts can be harmful to a relationship. Your mate needs to know if you have been sexually active but does not need to know dates, times, locations, positions, etc.
