18 Questions to Ask Before Saying Yes to the Engagement

In a WeddingsHub survey of 480 UK adults who had divorced or separated after marriages of less than seven years, conducted in early 2026, 61% said they had not discussed finances in any meaningful depth before getting engaged. Thirty-nine per cent said the question of where to live had never been directly resolved. Most said they had talked about their values — but not about what those values meant in practice when the situations were real, specific, and not hypothetical. These 18 questions are designed to produce real answers, not comfortable ones.

By Matt Ward, Editor at Weddings Hub. This article draws on a WeddingsHub survey of 480 UK divorced or separated adults (early 2026), Office for National Statistics divorce data, Relationships Foundation research on pre-marriage preparedness, and Relate UK guidance on pre-engagement conversation frameworks.

Why “we’ve talked about everything” is usually not true

Most couples who describe themselves as well-matched before the proposal mean one of two things: they share the same broad outlook on life, or they have never seriously disagreed. Neither is the same as having worked through the specific scenarios that marriages actually face.

These 18 questions are designed to be specific. They do not ask “do you want children?” They ask how many, when, and what happens if one of you cannot have them. They do not ask “are you good with money?” They ask who pays for what, and what happens when one of you is between jobs.

Use them as a conversation, not a quiz. The goal is not to pass. It is to find out where the genuine fault lines are before the ring is on.

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Money (questions 1-5)

1. What is your current financial position — exactly?

Not approximately. Exactly. This means: current income, current debt, credit score if known, savings, and any financial obligations such as child maintenance, student loans, or loans to family members.

In our 2026 survey, 58% of respondents said they did not know their partner’s full financial position before they married. Financial incompatibility is the leading cause of relationship breakdown in couples under 40, according to the Money and Pensions Service.

2. Will we keep our finances completely separate, combined, or partly combined?

There is no right answer. Joint accounts, separate accounts, and a hybrid model (shared account for household costs, individual accounts for personal spending) all work for different couples. The important thing is agreeing before marriage, not defaulting to whatever feels easiest at the time.

3. If one of us earns significantly more than the other, how will we handle that?

Pay equality within a relationship is a source of tension that rarely resolves itself. Discuss it specifically: does the higher earner pay a higher proportion of household costs? Is there a shared lifestyle fund? What happens if the lower earner stops working?

4. Who will manage the household finances?

One partner managing all the finances with limited transparency is one of the most common relationship complaints in UK couples counselling, according to Relate data from 2025. Both partners should have full visibility of the household financial position.

5. What is each of our attitudes to debt — borrowing, credit cards, loans?

Some people are deeply uncomfortable with any debt. Others use credit freely and pay it off. A partner who uses credit cards as a primary spending vehicle and a partner who considers any balance owing a source of anxiety will have constant low-level conflict over money. This is worth knowing before the proposal.

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Children (questions 6-8)

6. Do we both want children? How many? When?

“We both want children” is not a completed conversation. How many is a decision that matters. When is a decision that matters — particularly if one partner wants to start trying soon and the other wants to wait five years. Agreeing on children in principle without agreeing on specifics is a common source of conflict in early marriages.

7. What if we cannot have children naturally?

This conversation is worth having before it becomes urgent. IVF, adoption, surrogacy, fostering, and choosing to remain child-free are all possible responses to infertility. These are also responses that not every couple agrees on. Knowing each other’s position before the situation is real is significantly more useful than discovering a fundamental disagreement in a fertility clinic waiting room.

8. What are our views on how children should be raised?

Parenting style, schooling (state or independent), religion, discipline, screen time, and how much time with extended family are all things that people have strong views on. These views often come from their own upbringings. Exploring them before you have children reduces the conflict that emerges when the reality differs from the assumption.

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Family (questions 9-11)

9. How involved will each of our families be in our lives?

This means: how often do we see each other’s parents, how much do we tell them about our relationship, and what happens if one family disapproves of something we decide? Couples who have not discussed this find it extremely difficult to establish boundaries after the wedding, when family expectations are already set.

10. Do we have any obligation to support or care for a parent or sibling?

A parent with deteriorating health, a sibling with additional needs, or a family member in financial difficulty may already exist in one partner’s life. This is not a reason not to marry them. But it is something the other partner should know about and have discussed — not discovered three years in.

11. How will we handle the wedding planning, and what role will our families play?

This is specific to the engagement period — but it reveals a great deal. A partner whose mother expects to be involved in every venue viewing and dress appointment, or whose father plans to make a significant financial contribution and therefore believes he has a say, is giving you information about how family involvement works in their world. The family dynamics around wedding planning are often the first real stress test of a relationship’s boundaries.

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Life logistics (questions 12-14)

12. Where do we want to live — city, suburb, countryside, UK or abroad?

This is less fixed for engaged couples than for older generations, but it is still worth discussing. If one partner dreams of leaving London for the countryside within five years and the other cannot imagine leaving their city neighbourhood, that tension will emerge. It is better to know it exists.

13. What are each of our career ambitions, and how do they fit together?

A partner who wants to build a business that requires five years of reinvestment with minimal salary, a partner who plans to retrain in their 30s, and a partner who expects to take a year out of work when they have children all have specific implications for the household financial plan. These are not impossible to navigate — but they need to be explicit.

14. What is our plan if one of us is offered a significant career opportunity in another city or country?

This is worth discussing hypothetically, not just generally. Would you follow your partner for a two-year posting in Singapore? Would you expect them to follow you? A relationship where one partner’s career is implicitly assumed to be secondary to the other’s is common and often unacknowledged until the opportunity is real.

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Values and expectations (questions 15-18)

15. What does fidelity mean to each of us?

For most UK couples, fidelity means sexual exclusivity. For others it means something more nuanced — emotional exclusivity, or a specific agreement about what does and doesn’t count. The important thing is not which answer you hold, but whether you hold the same answer. Discovering a significant difference in this area after the wedding is avoidable.

16. What happens if one of us has a serious illness or disability?

The Relationships Foundation study from 2024 found that couples who had discussed long-term care scenarios before marriage reported higher relationship satisfaction during health crises than those who had not. This conversation does not need to be detailed. It does need to happen.

17. How important is our social life as individuals, separate from each other?

Independent friendships, individual hobbies, and time apart are healthy in a marriage. They are also a source of conflict when the expectation is not shared. A partner who expects to maintain their own independent social life and a partner who expected a shared social world will discover this incompatibility gradually, unhappily, and too late.

18. What would make us consider ending this marriage?

This is the question most couples are most reluctant to discuss. That reluctance is informative. A couple who cannot discuss the conditions under which they would end a marriage has probably also not discussed what they expect from it. Cheating, addiction, sustained dishonesty, and sustained disrespect are the most common answers when couples do discuss this. Knowing that you share those lines is worth knowing.

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What to do with the answers

These questions will produce some disagreements. That is the point. A disagreement discovered before the engagement is a conversation. A disagreement discovered three years into a marriage is a crisis.

For couples who find these conversations difficult to navigate alone, Relate offers pre-engagement counselling across the UK. One or two sessions with a counsellor is often enough to work through the areas where the conversation keeps stopping. Sessions cost between £50 and £90.

For practical next steps once you are engaged, see our full UK wedding planning guide and our guide on writing your wedding vows.

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FAQ

What questions should couples discuss before getting engaged?

The most important areas are finances, children, where to live, career ambitions, family obligations, and views on fidelity. Specific questions produce more useful answers than general ones.

Is it normal to have big disagreements when discussing pre-engagement questions?

Yes, and that is the point. Genuine disagreement is more useful than false alignment. If every answer is comfortable, you are probably discussing surface-level versions of the questions.

How early should couples have these conversations?

Before the proposal, not after. These questions are most useful when no commitment has been made yet. After the ring is on, social pressure to agree increases significantly.

What if we disagree on whether to have children?

This is one of the most serious pre-engagement incompatibilities. Neither partner should agree to something they do not mean on the assumption the other will change their mind. This disagreement, unresolved, typically ends marriages.

Should we discuss how we would handle a serious illness or disability?

Yes. A Relationships Foundation study found that couples who had discussed long-term care scenarios before marriage reported higher relationship satisfaction during health crises than those who had not.

Is it romantic to ask these questions before an engagement?

Yes, if you frame them as getting to know each other better rather than as a test. These conversations are how adults prepare for a life together, not how they audition each other.

Where can UK couples get pre-engagement or pre-marriage counselling?

Relate offers pre-engagement and pre-marriage counselling across the UK. Sessions cost £50-£90. Many couples find one or two sessions is enough to surface the important conversations.