These are questions I came up with years ago when meeting with people for pre-marital counseling. It doesn’t answer anything, but at least gives me a certain sense of where a couple is at:
- What do you admire about your parents and their relationship?
- What do you want to do differently than your parents?
- What do you admire about your fiancee’s parents and their relationship?
- What do you want to do differently than your fiancee’s parents?
- How would you describe your relationship with your parents?
- How would you describe your fiancee’s relationship with his/her parents?
- Describe a situation where you could not get along with someone else: what was the issue?
- What are your expectations for spending the holidays as a married couple?
- Where do you envision living in the future? Why?
- What are your thoughts on schooling for future children—public, private, home, other?
- Describe one of the most trying times of your life. How did this change you positively and negatively?
- List the 3 people you are closest to, then name 1 thing you admire about each person and 1 thing that you don’t want to copy in them.
- List the 3 people your fiancée is closest with, then name 1 thing you admire about each person and 1 thing that you don’t want to copy in them.
- How close would you want to live from your in-laws? Why or why not?
- How close would you want to live from your parents? Why or why not?
- When do you think it appropriate to defy/oppose your parents’ wishes? How about the wishes of your in-laws?
- What are your current temptations?
- What are the current temptations of your fiancée?
- When you think over your dating/engaged relationship with your fiancée, how pure do you think it’s been? How does this make you feel? How would your fiancée answer this?
- If you had disagreements on raising the kids, who would make the final decision and why? What would your fiancée say?
- Define love.
- What do you see as acceptable grounds for divorce? What would your fiancée say?
- Why do you believe your marriage will not suffer divorce?
- Where do you and your fiancée differ theologically?
- What is/was your biggest disagreement with your fiancée?
- How would you describe your relationship with Jesus right now?
- How would you describe your fiancee’s relationship with Jesus right now?
- Why do you want to marry your fiancée?
- To you, what does it mean to submit to Christ and His word?
- What are your top 3 goals?
- What are your fiancee’s top 3 goals?
fmi360 
Many good questions in this Pre-Marital Questionnaire. (Spell-check on Questionairre ). Would be great to have a weekend with the brethren to expand our thoughts on this topic. Could result in a pre-marital counseling manual that could be used by all. Here are two questions I would submit: – What do you want in this life more than anything? – What is your interpretation of Ephesians 5:21-33? How will you apply this to your marriage?
Regarding question 1, good responses would include: – To love God with all my mind, heart, soul and strength, and others as myself. – To be conformed to the image of Christ. – To have the mind of Christ.
Red flag responses would include: – I just want to be happy. – I just want to avoid conflict. – I just want to get through it.
Regarding question 2, the best response would be: – The husband/wife relationship is to mirror the relationship between Christ and the church.
A red flag response would be: – The husband and wife need to talk through issues to try to reach agreement. If they cannot agree, then the husband gets to cast the deciding vote. (This is not reflective of the relationship between Christ and the church).
BTW, v5:33 literally says, th
Good thoughts! I would say on Eph. 5:21-33 that I think our culture has taken a more laissez-faire approach to the roles of husband and wife, and the church poorly reflects this. So I do think husbands showing strong, yet sacrificial leadership is weak, and wives showing submission “in everything” is also weak. That said, I also recognize there is a sense in which husbands and wives should be working through things together, and not blind submission by wife. 1 Cor. 7 talks about this, for instance, in making decisions about fasting (from sex) for a time. Even with Christ, there are times where we get some say in what’s going on (I think of Ezekiel 4 which I read recently where he says he feels wrong about eating over human dung, and the Lord changes on that basis). In nature, our human body works best when the head receives clear signals from the rest of the body, and then makes determinations. If those signals are blocked from either direction, paralysis sets in. I think that’s what a healthy husband-wife connection looks like