By Karen and Ron Flowers
Directors, Department of Family Ministries, General Conference
The following questions and statements can be used in premarital sessions to encourage the couple to communicate with each other about their relationship.
- Introduce your beloved to me.
- What will be different about your relationship after the wedding day?
- What hurdles do you foresee you will have to surmount?
- How is your fiance similar to or different from your father and mother?
- What is there about your parents’ marriage and your fiance’s parents’ marriage that you want or don’t want?
- How would you like feelings of love, warmth, and tenderness shown to you in public and in your home?
- What is there about yourself or your past that you think might seriously affect your marriage?
- In the light of what is happening to marriages today, why will yours be different?
- In what ways do you expect your partner to change after marriage?
- What will it mean for you if changes do not take place in the way you expect?
- How can the differences you exhibit strengthen your marriage?
- How would you see forgiveness operating in a marriage?
- If you were to write a letter to your prospective in-laws stating reasons why you are glad to be joining their family what would you put in it?
- What do you plan to do about the characteristics you do not like in your future in-laws?
- How much money from your family finances should your partner be able to spend without your permission? How did you arrive at this?
- What are some of the wishes of both families which you intend to include in your wedding plans?
- What difference would being a Christian make in a couple’s sexual relationship in marriage?
- How will you respond and deal with it if, after you are married, another person is attracted to you and approaches you?
- How many children do you think will be ideal for you and how does your fiance feel about it?
- What are some things about which you don’t seem to be able to communicate?
