Planning your wedding can be an incredibly busy time with endless decisions to make … about the size of the budget, the type of ceremony and venue, the guest list, the menu, honeymoon destination – the list goes on and on. The average cost of a wedding is now over £20,000 and couples can spend months – years even – planning their big day. It can seem that you are not so much partners in a relationship but professional wedding planners!
While they may have discussed every detail of their wedding day, many couples start married life without talking about whether or when to have children, a joint bank account or how to share the chores. Couples may have a shared view of their wedding day but many don’t give the same level of attention to making sure their plans and dreams for the future are discussed before committing to spend their lives together.
Not surprising perhaps. Why would you bring up potentially tricky topics when you are focused on being all loved up? It can sometimes seem unnecessary to think beyond the honeymoon.
source: cocoplumcay.com
But ‘how’ to go about discussing crucial issues and work out your differences can be really difficult and you might feel you need some help in getting started.
Here on thecoupleconnection.net you’ll find five articles (those that have a heart picture) specially to help couples who are about to get married. Written to help you have those crucial conversations as you prepare for your wedding – when you first use them you may want to read in sequence then later dip in and out.
These five articles have links to other exercises and relationship insights which are useful for all couples but are particularly helpful for those who about to make a big commitment or who are thinking about taking their relationship to the next step. If you are interested in attending marriage preparation courses thecoupleconnection.net also provides information on organisations running UK marriage preparation courses.
Some questions to get you started
Don’t feel you have to have all the answers worked out – what is important is to feel that you are both able to raise the things that concern you to talk openly about and if you’re not sure about some issues say so. You’ll probably have discussed some areas in more detail than others so don’t worry if some topics feel more difficult than others – this is just to get you started.
source: thegreeneyedgirl.co.uk
Key questions:
- How will our relationship change once we are married?
- What do we have in common?
- In what ways are we different from one another?
- What are the things we enjoy about being together?
- Do we want the same things in life? Do we believe in the same things? Do we know what matters most for each of us, and do we respect those things and each other?
- Do we know how each other feels about major issues, such as whether or not we want children?
- How do we feel when we don’t see eye to eye?
- How do we cope when we fall out over something?
- Do we trust each other?
