52 Important Questions to Ask Before Entering a Relationship

Having seen that it is possible to know a partner’s true character when dating, let’s track back a little bit. How about understanding someone before you enter a serious relationship with him/her?

Many relationship issues related to compatibility and emotional maturity can be identified early in a relationship by asking the right questions. But rather than ask these important questions, many people ask unimportant ones, leading to problems down the line.

If you recently met someone you are considering entering a relationship with, this post will show you the most important questions to ask your potential partner. These questions would help you know their values, gauge your compatibility, and assess their readiness for a serious relationship/marriage.

52 Important Questions to Ask Before Getting Serious

A study assessing the predictors of marital satisfaction among couples identified five important domains—emotional closeness and intimacy, spousal support, sensuality and quality of the sexual relationship, decision-making and relationship control, and communication and conflict management.^[1]Lawrence E, Pederson A, Bunde M, Barry RA, Brock RL, Fazio E, Mulryan L, Hunt S, Madsen L, Dzankovic S. Objective Ratings of Relationship Skills across Multiple Domains as Predictors of Marital … Continue reading

In this section, we will explore some important questions to ask before entering a relationship spread across their respective domains. We will also see other important domains that can help you better understand your would-be partner before entering a serious relationship.

A. Readiness and commitment

Before considering entering a serious relationship with someone, you want to understand their ideas about entering a serious relationship. How ready are they and how committed are they likely to be? These questions can help you determine your expectations in the relationship.

1. Are you ready to enter a relationship?

2. What do you want out of your next relationship?

3. What is your timeframe for getting married?

4. How do you see cheating in a relationship or marriage?

B. Lifestyle, values, and daily habits

The most important measures of relationship compatibility revolve around lifestyle, values, emotional maturity, and conflict resolutions. These are crucial in building a strong and lasting bond in every romantic relationship. Thus, asking the right questions to ascertain your partner’s lifestyle, core values, and habits can help you prepare yourself before entering a serious relationship with them, or otherwise.

5. What are your hobbies?

6. What do you consider your top priorities?

7. What are your core beliefs and values?

8. How do you define success and happiness?

9. What do you do when you are bored?

10. What’s your view on smoking and alcohol?

11. Are you the outgoing type or the indoor person?

12. What are your political and religious views?

C. Relationship needs

When planning to enter a serious relationship with a new partner, it is also important to understand their relationship needs. This can help build and maintain the romantic bond in the relationship, as well as enhance relationship/marital satisfaction down the line.

The following questions can give you an idea of what your would-be partner’s relationship needs are.

13. What ended your last relationship?

14. What do you want in your dream partner?

15. What behaviors do you find very hard to tolerate in a relationship?

16. What is one secret about your emotional life you can tell me now?

17. What’s your love language?

18. What are your dealbreakers in a relationship?

D. Ambitions and life goals

It is always best to settle with someone with ambitions and long-term goals because it means such a person has been making efforts to discover themselves and their life’s purpose. Someone who is yet to discover his/her life’s purpose is a potential disaster because it can be a setback to your personal growth and development, as well as lead to conflicts of interest when they later discover something about their life and you have nothing to do with it.

These questions help you assess your partner’s goals to see if they fit yours, or if they are totally incompatible with yours.

19. Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?

20. What do you want to do after school?

21. What is your dream job?

22. What do you currently do?

E. Communication and conflict management

Effective communication is the bedrock of every successful relationship. You cannot afford to overlook its importance even in these early stages of the relationship.

You also don’t want to be with someone who runs at the sight of conflict or disagreement, or one who cannot resolve conflicts effectively. As partners and would-be parents, managing conflicts in the home is something one should prepare adequately for.

Here are some questions to assess your potential partner’s communication and conflict management abilities before you enter a relationship with them.

23. Is there information you’d prefer to hide from your relationship partner?

24. How comfortable are you talking about your feelings?

25. How do you prefer to talk over a distance (texting, chatting, or calls)?

26. What’s your understanding of trust in a relationship?

27. Do you think conflicts are normal in a relationship?

28. When you are angry, can you be open to a conversation?

F. Family, sex, and social expectations

There are various social reasons for getting married. These include emotional intimacy, partner support, childbearing, sex, etc. Before getting into a serious relationship with someone, it is important to ask questions to identify their views regarding these.

The following questions help you understand your would-be partner’s ideas regarding these social expectations on family, sex, and childbearing.

29. When was the first time you had sex?

30. How important is sex to you in a relationship?

31. How many kids do you want after marriage?

32. What are your ideas about sex in marriage?

33. How do you see members of the opposite gender regarding sex?

34. What’s your view on polygamy, open relationships, or polyandry?

35. What do you think about family’s involvement in your relationship or marriage?

G. Financial responsibility

Money plays a key role in the success of most romantic relationships, and by extension, understanding your potential partner’s financial responsibility and maturity is crucial before getting into a serious relationship with them.

Here are some important questions to ask concerning your partner’s financial responsibility.

36. What are your financial goals in life?

37. Are you currently in debt, if so, how do you plan to handle it?

38. What do you think about saving and budgeting?

39. What are your views about a joint bank account?

H. Emotional strengths

The ability to handle emotions can affect everything about a person’s life as well as other people around him/her. Thus, assessing your would-be partner’s emotional strength can help you understand how to deal with them and what you can do to help them in such times. To do so, the following questions would be useful.

40. How do you deal with difficult situations?

41. What emotions easily overwhelm you and how do you control them?

42. How do you deal with jealousy and insecurity?

I. Family and relationships

Understanding your partner’s relationship with family members and other people can help you unravel some hidden issues they’d rather not say easily. It can also give you an idea about their social values and norms.

A good relationship with the family members often mean a good family conflict management, and vice versa.

43. How many friends do you have?

44. What do you think about people’s relationship with you?

45. How is your relationship with your siblings?

46. How is your relationship with your parents?

J. Spousal support

Spousal support is another important domain to inquire about before entering a serious relationship. This involves behaviors and actions that shows support to a spouse when in distress, illness, or during a mutual conflict.

47. How would you take care of your partner when he/she is ill?

48. How do you support a partner during tough times?

49. How do you feel about seeking help from outside when facing issues in a relationship?

50. Do you have anybody you can trust for relationship advice?

K. Emotional closeness and intimacy

These questions reflect the level of emotional connection they have with you which can help you navigate through relationship challenges together.

51. How do you feel about me?

52. What are your expectations regarding intimacy?

How Prepared Are You For a Relationship?

Before considering entering a serious relationship, you also want to guage your level of preparedness for a committed relationship. This involves asking yourself questions about your emotional, financial, psychological, and physical preparedness for a serious relationship and how you hope to handle issues that may arise from the relationship.

1. Am I ready for a committed relationship?
2. What do I want in a dream partner?
3. What are the things I absolutely hate in a partner?
4. What is my tolerance level?
5. Am I financially ready for a serious relationship?
6. What is my understanding of the opposite sex?
7. How emotionally mature am I?
8. Am I ready for the responsibilities of marriage and family?
9. How long from now do I want to get married?
10. What do I want in a relationship?
11. Will relationship be a distraction, and am I ready to handle possible distractions?
12. What are my values regarding sex?

How to Ask Your Partner These Questions

In asking your would-be partners those important questions before entering a serious relationship with him/her, you need to be respectful and courteous. It’s okay to modify the questions above in ways that is easier for you to ask and better for your partner to understand.

Also, you necessarily don’t have to ask all these questions in a single day. Fix interval dates, think about the circumstances of each date you spend together, and ask each group of questions one at a time.

One practical way to approach these conversations is by planning what theme(s) of questions you want to ask each time. For example, you can decide to ask about lifestyle, values, ambitions, and daily habits on one date and plan different sets of questions for another date.

Also, it is important to go with the flow in the conversation with your would-be partner. Rather than been stereotyped to asking only those sets of questions you planned to ask.

What to Expect From The Questions?

It is important to stay open-minded and observant when asking your partner the above questions. You want to look out for insights about their personality, values, beliefs, and habits.

By staying respectful and courteous, you expect your partner to provide as much information about themselves as they possibly can. But sometimes, they would prefer not to say certain things. At other times, they would express themselves indirectly. You should not only listen to what they say but also carefully study their body language when answering the important questions above.

Final words

The importance of asking certain questions early in a relationship cannot be over-emphasized. The above 52 questions help you understand different facets of your partner’s behavior, personality, core values, beliefs, etc, to prepare yourself for a serious relationship with them.

I hope you find this post helpful and interesting. If you have any concerns, kindly share with me in the comments section below. Thanks for reading!