Ask The Tough Questions Early!

Assuming you have completed your self-education program on relationships, and what you want from them, you should have a list of questions written down to ask of anyone you will be dating in the future. However, if you haven’t made such a list and need some help coming up with one, here are some helpful suggestions. If you don’t consider them applicable, feel free to modify them or replace them with different ones. It doesn’t matter whose questions you use. The point of compiling a list is to help you ask some hard questions early on in the dating stage of your relationship and avoid spending what could be years with someone who is just plain wrong for you.

You may be asking "how early are we talking about here?" Relax, it certainly doesn’t have to be on the first date, nor probably should it be. After all, you might be feeling nervous or anxious enough as it is, without raising serious topics that might be best suited for discussing at another time, when you get to know each other a little better. That being said, you also don’t want to wait until you’re considering marriage before asking these questions either. In an informal poll I took on a discussion board a few years ago on how soon "deal breaker" topics should be raised in a relationship, the general consensus was that one to three months was an acceptable time to wait.

What is your idea of a good relationship? - This isn’t a question you have to ask a date specifically, but one you should be keeping in mind when he or she is talking about his or her own past. As a hypothetical scenario, he tells you of his fond memories of a large family growing up, with about four or five siblings and a stay-at-home mom. He goes on to say that when he gets married eventually, that’s exactly the type of marriage and family he wants for himself. Do you have the same visions in mind for your eventual marriage – that’s assuming you want to get married at all in the future – or is it something entirely different, such as just the two of you, with no children, both in satisfying careers, with each other as traveling companions? Or maybe you are the one who wants the large family, but he makes it clear he doesn’t want any part of parenthood in his life. Either way, if you can see that you’re not even on the same book on this ideal, let alone on the same page, now is the time to speak up. Trying to compromise your ideals for his, or vice versa, is only going to lead to trouble eventually, especially if one of you wants children as part of the marriage while the other doesn’t want them at all. In this case, where there is no room for compromise, the best thing to do is simply end the relationship and find a partner whose feelings and ideas on marriage and family match yours.

What are your feelings about sex? - Whether sex is going to be part of your relationship before marriage or not, you need to know your partner shares these values. Let’s assume for the moment that you desire a sexual relationship prior to making the commitment of marriage. Is it important to you that you both have similar sex drives? If, for example, you want sex twice a week, and your partner prefers sex only twice a month, you aren’t as far apart as Mars and Venus. The distance between Earth and Pluto would be a lot more accurate. Sometimes, differences in sexual attitudes can be resolved with some discussion or possibly some professional counseling. However, there could be other factors at work which could make resolution more difficult. If your partner was raised in a home where sex was a forbidden topic for discussion, due to religious or other reasons, it is very possible that he or she may have serious issues with

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