You might have been dating your bf for a couple of months and things have gotten serious and now you’re wondering whether the two of you are meant for each other for life.
This is a big deal and just reaching this milestone should have you raising some of these questions marks.
You might be wondering if you are thinking about all the priorities in this relationship or if you have any blind spots and aren’t seeing everything that is important about your boyfriend.
These types of thoughts are helpful because just the awareness that you might not be seeing everything can go you a long way.
It’s your heart that’s concerned here and so you should take great care of how you’re proceeding forward so that you don’t end up in an unhealthy relationship.
Of course, you’d want to be in an amazing relationship with a great guy!
That’s why we’ve put together this guide that has all the questions that you’ll need to ask your boyfriend as you are getting more serious.
12. How Does Your Ideal Future Look Like?
Ok, so let’s start with this magic wand question. What you really want to uncover here is your boyfriend’s dreams and aspirations in a bigger-picture context. After that, you can focus on a more day-to-day type of vision of the future that he might be after. For example, he might tell you that he would like to work a stable job and come home for the dinner, hang out with kids and have a heart-to-heart with you after a long day. On the other hand, some guys will tell you that they would like to travel the world while making money online. The options are endless. That is why it’s important for you to get a general sense of where your guy is going and whether your vision of the future matches with his. If he wants to ultimately live abroad and live an ex-pat life but you can’t ever see yourself doing that. This would be a red flag.
11. How Much Debt Do You have?
You might think that this is way too unromantic and that money should never stand in love’s way! We get it- we want a love that overcomes everything at the same time there are some realities that might put a chain on your feet such as debt. While not all debt is bad, it is important to consider it as it will directly influence your ability to achieve some of your life goals such as building a house or purchasing an apartment. The amount of debt also highlights something about your guy and his approach to money. You need to determine how much debt are you ultimately comfortable with. As you know there is a huge difference between 10,000$ and 90,000$. As you are pondering over these consider the career path your bf and you are on and what would your and his debt combined mean for your futures together. How long would you need to pay for your career paths? Once you have a realistic estimate, you can make a much more informed decision on how you guys will be moving forward.
10. In What Ways Do You Resolve Conflict?
So here’s the deal. We believe firmly that conflict can be actually a good thing because it’s a time where both you can learn how to care for each other better and to find out more about each other. Just to be clear, we are not saying that any form of abuse is acceptable. Abuse is unacceptable. What we’re talking about here is when your boyfriend and you disagree about something- you have differences of opinions and you guys are figuring out how to move forward.
It is crucial for you to know how your boyfriend resolves conflict because whatever relationship you’re in there’s always going to be a form of conflict or disagreement over something. If you really want to find out more about how your boyfriend approaches it to try to find out how was the conflict addressed in his family as some of these formative experiences would shape also his attitude to conflict. You might have seen this already. Does he retreat? Does he lash out? Does he just sit in confusion and resignation? The more you find out, the more you guys will be able to navigate future disagreements.
9. Do You have any Addictions or history connected to addictions?
This is a big deal. Addictions are often secret and they might not be known about by other people. It is really important for you at this stage of the relationship to find out whether your boyfriend is actively struggling with something or struggled with something in the past and what are his coping mechanisms. If you find out that he is actively struggling with something, find out how serious it is and if he can recover from it. If it is obvious that he cant’ recover then this is a red flag for you. Your boyfriend is now on his best behavior and you guys are not even married yet. Take great care if there’s an ongoing addiction you know about.
8. What’s your Relationship with Adult Entertainment?
You might not think this is something serious but what we statistically know is that a huge contributing factor to many divorces is an unhealthy relationship of one party to adult entertainment. It is important for you to know whether your boyfriend is watching adult entertainment because this can create huge wounds in your heart.
7. Is there any baggage that you’re bringing with you to this relationship that started when you were a kid?
This is a deeper question and also a difficult one. But also a necessary one. As you’re getting more serious with your boyfriend you might already see some of the baggage that he has. He might have already shared something with you from his past that still affects him today. That is why it is important to have an honest conversation about the baggage so that you can have a realistic idea of what that would mean for your guys’ relationship long-term. Once we heard about a couple where the husband had trauma from flying airplanes because of his navy experiences. The wife stuck with him and whenever they needed to go to Europe they took a two-week-long boat trip. As you can see baggage is tricky and if you really think your boyfriend is worth it long term you need to have a realistic idea about it.
6. What does an Ideal Family Look like to you?
This question is kind of tricky. We love it because it kind of circumvents the traditional ones like, “How Many Kids Do You Wanna Have? Where Do You Wanna Live” and many others like that. It gives your boyfriend freedom to answer on his own and then you can focus on the details that he is telling you afterward. For example, if he is telling you that doesn’t really want to celebrate Christmas but that’s a big deal to you, try to find out why and whether that is non-negotiable for him. Similarly, if he starts talking about children and how many he’d like to have and you guys differ on that, try to see what’s behind that with a follow-up question. If he says he’d like to have just one child and you’d like to have more, it might be because of that he is insecure about raising kids because he’s never done that. This is a big thing with this question if you find out about some insecurities take note of that and try to see how truly big they are. Also by now you should know about your boyfriend whether he is a verbal processor and so if he is just forming his thoughts, don’t freak out and try to see between the lines what he is really saying.
5. As you think about responsibilities around the house and children, what is your vision for that?
What we love about this question is that it can start quite a deep conversation about how you guys envision how family functions. You might find out that you have disagreements with each other or on the other hand that there’s quite a bit of overlap. Regardless of that, it is vital for you to see how your boyfriend thinks about these things. Does he expect his future partner or wife to do the vast majority of the housework and care for children? Or if he said that he’d like to divide up those responsibilities what does that mean more specifically? This is a crucial question because at the end of the day if you are going to be sharing your life with someone, it is important to see that your guys’ visions for how that sharing happens practically are close. There are many couples that started out as excited lovers but it ultimately didn’t work out for them because their vision for some of these practical things differed which created more and more resentment and ultimately resulted in the couples splitting.
4. Do you Have a Budget? How Well do You Stick to It?
This one is quite obvious. Is your boyfriend good with money or do you see a trajectory in him that he will be? There are so many conflicts between couples over finances and bad financial management. If you figure out that your boyfriend has continuous patterns of financial mismanagement and that he can stick to a budget this can be a yellow flag for you. If you know that your boyfriend is teachable as you’ve been able to find out over the course of your guys’ relationship, try to see if he can improve in this area. Finances are important and if you’re with somebody who just recklessly spends money or can’t stick to a budget, imagine paying for a mortgage with them or your kids’ college! Not a good idea.
3. What are some of the best ways how you get energized when you’re tired apart from sleep?
This question tries to estimate more precisely how your boyfriend relaxes apart from sleep. This is so helpful in that you could foresee how this could play itself out in the future. For example, if he tells you that he likes to go for a run or exercise, you already know that he might need some space to do that. On the other hand, if he tells you that he likes to hang out with his friends playing Xbox and eating pizza, how would that play itself out in the future with more commitments? As you can see, you can use a lot of your creative imagination with this question to see how these scenarios might play themselves out down the road. Do you like what you see?
2. Are you religious? What are your core values and non-negotiables in life?
We love this question because it helps to uncover the fundamental values that your boyfriend has and it also helps to see if there is something truly non-negotiable for him. For example, does he want to go to church each Sunday? How would he like to raise his children in terms of their values? As you guys talk more about this you can start assessing to what extent are your values aligned with his if he is of a particular religious affiliation. If he is really into it make sure that you guys are truly on the same page so that you save yourself a lot of heartaches.
1. How Does a Committed Relationship Look Like to you?
Finally, in order for you to imagine better what would a serious relationship look like, it is important to ask him about that and give him the freedom to describe what that actually means. Does it mean to him that he is not going to be dating other people? If he is in a committed relationship with somebody does it mean that he is seeing you as a strong potential for somebody to be engaged with and to marry? Or is this something to him that is just seasonal that he’d like to try for a couple of months to see how things would go? As you are navigating this question you will get more clarity and see how much your visions of what it means to be in a committed relationship align.
When you go through all of these questions and you’re happy with the way where the relationship is going you can get each other a gift as a celebration of an important milestone!