Today we are talking about 3 questions you need to ask your significant other! If you’re engaged, these are critical topics to discuss before you get married. And if you are married, there’s no time like the present to get into these juicy conversations! So let’s get started!

Question #1: How Did You Grow Up?

This really a topic if we were to be honest, but 3 topics you need to ask your significant other doesn’t really have the same ring to it…can you forgive us? Haha!

How did you grow up? This is a spring board question that you can use to talk about a variety of different things that will greatly affect your relationship with one another during marriage. Cody and I have taken a lot of time and spent many conversations diving deep into this question!

Before we were married, I remember Cody making a chart on a piece of notebook paper. On it he wrote all the typical house chores you can think of: laundry, dishes, cleaning toilets, taking the garbage out, etc. 

We talked about what our parent’s roles were when we were growing up. For instance, my parents did the grocery shopping together while Cody’s mom did the shopping. Both of our moms were the primary cook. My dad usually took the garbage out. 

You might not realize that you have an expectation of one another when it comes to these roles until you actually start to say it out loud! The amazing thing is that we don’t have to do things exactly the way they were done when we grew up. 

Everyone’s family is different. Everyone has a different set of personal values for their family. Remember that when you and your partner are married you become a NEW family. You get to set the norms and the expectations for your family. 

Discussing what your parent’s roles were when you were young before you get married can save you from a lot of hurt in the long run. What happens when we have miscommunicated expectations is that we feel a lack of love. So if you are currently married and you’ve never talked about your roles, we urge you to do so soon!! It is just another example of how you can communicate with one another and work as a team.

When discussing this topic, you might talk about how close your family was. Did you eat dinner together? Did you play games with one another? How often did you spend time with your whole family?

Or you could chat about how your families dealt with conflict or emotions. What was your family’s response to disobedience? When two family members fought was the response to yell or to shut down? Do you want the same for your family? 

We want to take a second and point out a beautiful truth here. If you experienced hurt or abuse in your family, the amazing thing about getting married is that you have a fresh start. Your family doesn’t have to be the family that yells at one another when they are angry. Your family can choose to be supportive of one another and to be a safe space for one another. Your relationship can be a relationship that apologizes and forgives and restores. It is so beautiful to see couples take a stand for love in order to stop cycles and patterns of abuse that have hurt their family for generations. 

To wrap this question up, we aren’t saying there are clear rights and wrongs here. What is important is that you talk about the experience of growing up in your household with your family and what you feel was good and beautiful and what you might want to change in your own family now in order to make your family experience even better than what you had growing up.

Question #2: Where in the World Do You Want to End Up? 

Our second question makes me want to crack up a bit…but it’s such a good topic to discuss!

This question has multiple facets and doesn’t include just a one answer question. Take time to talk to one another about what you envision your life to be like in 5 or 10 years.

First, you can talk about geographic location- like where in the world physically do you want to end up? Are your dreams to move someday to a foreign country? Do you feel like you will never want to move further than a few hours from your family? These are necessary questions to answer as a couple!! Do you evision living in your apartment for the next 5 years or do you want to be in a house within 2? 

Then, think about your profession. Do you see yourself going back to school? What would be your dream job? Do you want to work at the same place for the rest of your life or do you want to experience many different workplaces?

What about where in the world do you want to end up kid wise? For instance…wanting 1 kid and 4 kids is quite the difference. We know these are things you can’t plan for certain, but that doesn’t mean that you avoid these topics because they can’t be mapped out to a T. 

You could really get into this and list out goals or dreams that you have for the next 5 years of your life, and then come together and read your lists together. The goal is to talk about what you think of your future together and individually. What lights your heart on fire? This can help you to be on the same page when you are tackling your goals!

Question #3: What are Your Values?

Our third and final question is a pretty deep one. This one might take some reflection and time to process before you really dig into it with your partner. What are your values? Basically- What is truly important to you in life?

If you had to narrow it down to 3 or 4 words, what do you think the value or purpose of your life is? At the end of your life, what do you hope to have accomplished? 

In order to reflect and narrow this down, take a step back and view your life as a whole. What impacts your decision making? Why did you choose the career field you did? Why did you choose to be with your partner? What values do they have that you were drawn to? 

Our Values

As Christians in our own lives, Cody and I both value our relationship with God and learning more about who He is. This is a topic that will continue to come up in our podcast episodes because it is a critical part of who we are, why we do what we do, and why we have the relationship we have. I know for me personally Cody’s love for God and his heart to serve was one of the things that drew me to him as a person.

Other words that I would use to describe my values would be love, a sense of belonging, and joy. And these values work together in all that I do. I want to be a source of love and joy. I want to make people feel like they belong. I want to welcome people and show them a sense of love that maybe they haven’t experienced before. I want to fight for people who have been misunderstood or mistreated and show them love in order that they feel welcome to be who they are around me. Joy is something that I fight for each day and I still am learning how to find it and show it every day, but I know that at the end of my life those three things- love, belonging, and joy- are qualities and values I want people to remember me by. 

Cody: “I was drawn to Andrea because of her love and sense of belonging. I saw these in the way she interacted with people around her, always caring and loving on people no matter who they were or what their situation was. I got a quick glimpse of how she would be as a mother, and that was totally hot.”

Cody: “My values are: working hard, serving people, and being encouraging. I know I am a critical thinker with the ability to figure things out and I want to use that to both benefit my life and the lives of people around me. I think a lot of that plays out in our marriage. If we need something fixed or replaced, I figure it out. I also know that serving and building people up has been a part of my being since I was a kid. My name literally means helper….it also sadly means pillow, but don’t tell anyone! When I see the potential in someone, I am drawn to bring that out in them and help them believe in who they are and that they can do incredible things. I especially do that when I see people struggling to believe. I want people to know me by the fact that I am always willing to help when I can, that I believe in people’s dreams, and my heart is invested in what I’m doing.”

Get to It!!

Our #1 favorite marriage resources is this daily book of questions! We absolutely love going through it. It is filled with both deep questions and lighthearted questions. We recommend this book to all of our friends and couples! They even have an edition for engaged couples!

Now you are prepared with 3 questions to ask your significant other! Whether you are engaged or you have been married for 30 years, we hope these questions can spark new conversations for you and your partner! The goal with all of our episodes is to give you tangible and practical tools for creating a relationship that will thrive. Good communication is critical in a thriving relationship, so what are you waiting for? Grab some coffee or a cocktail and get chatting! 

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to check out our previous episodes here!