The author of THIS blog post (@ FHE Lessons) created a list of questions to help her dating children get to know those they are dating better. She says:
There are no right or
wrong answers to these questions, and your prospective mate doesn’t necessarily need to agree with you on all or even most of these points. But the better you know your significant other now, the less surprises you will have after marriage. And I also hope that the discussions generated by these questions will be enjoyable and maybe even help you better know yourself.
Of course, the number one factor in whether your prospective mate is right for you is if the Lord confirms to you that this is the case. You can use all your own powers of reasoning and rely on the feelings of your heart as much as you wish, but only Heavenly Father is capable of knowing the future. Only He knows what will happen and who will be best by your side when it does. Only He knows both you and your prospective mate perfectly intimately, and only He knows how both of you will change and grow in the future.
So, in making your marriage decisions, I urge you to counsel with the Lord. Pray and plead and listen for His advice. Put a lot of time and effort into it. And be humble enough and pliable and obedient enough to be willing to follow the Lord’s counsel whether it agrees with the desires of your own heart or not. Remember that if you follow the Lord’s direction, you will be happy. If you follow your own counsel, there are no such guarantees.
That being said, the Lord also expects you to do your part in making important life decisions. I hope that these questions will help you to do just that. As a side note, I wrote these questions for my own children, so they are geared to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many of the questions will work for people of different religions, and the religious questions could be adapted to other religions. However, I do think common religious beliefs are important in a marriage, so everyone should definitely discuss religious topics before marrying.
You will notice quite a few questions that ask about a person’s parents and the things that happened in his or her home growing up. You may think that this line of questioning is irrelevant as everyone makes his or her own decisions in life. However, my experience is that people tend to expect things in their marriages such as division of labor and child rearing tactics to turn out similarly to the way their home was run while growing up. And people naturally gravitate towards acting the way their parents acted. So the more you know about your intended’s parents, the better you will know your mate. Of course, people can and do choose to act and speak differently than their parents, but it is just good to keep in mind what your spouse’s naturally tendencies and expectations may be.
I do not recommend using these questions interrogation style. If you are early on in your dating relationship, you might want to off-handedly sneak some of these questions into your conversations. If you are at the stage where you are considering engagement or are already engaged, you and your significant other could print the questions out and work on getting through all of them together. Either way, please use the questions as a springboard for discussion and not as a personal worthiness interview.
And here are the questions:
Booklet
Checklist
Numbered List
There are no right or
Of course, the number one factor in whether your prospective mate is right for you is if the Lord confirms to you that this is the case. You can use all your own powers of reasoning and rely on the feelings of your heart as much as you wish, but only Heavenly Father is capable of knowing the future. Only He knows what will happen and who will be best by your side when it does. Only He knows both you and your prospective mate perfectly intimately, and only He knows how both of you will change and grow in the future.
So, in making your marriage decisions, I urge you to counsel with the Lord. Pray and plead and listen for His advice. Put a lot of time and effort into it. And be humble enough and pliable and obedient enough to be willing to follow the Lord’s counsel whether it agrees with the desires of your own heart or not. Remember that if you follow the Lord’s direction, you will be happy. If you follow your own counsel, there are no such guarantees.
That being said, the Lord also expects you to do your part in making important life decisions. I hope that these questions will help you to do just that. As a side note, I wrote these questions for my own children, so they are geared to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Many of the questions will work for people of different religions, and the religious questions could be adapted to other religions. However, I do think common religious beliefs are important in a marriage, so everyone should definitely discuss religious topics before marrying.
You will notice quite a few questions that ask about a person’s parents and the things that happened in his or her home growing up. You may think that this line of questioning is irrelevant as everyone makes his or her own decisions in life. However, my experience is that people tend to expect things in their marriages such as division of labor and child rearing tactics to turn out similarly to the way their home was run while growing up. And people naturally gravitate towards acting the way their parents acted. So the more you know about your intended’s parents, the better you will know your mate. Of course, people can and do choose to act and speak differently than their parents, but it is just good to keep in mind what your spouse’s naturally tendencies and expectations may be.
I do not recommend using these questions interrogation style. If you are early on in your dating relationship, you might want to off-handedly sneak some of these questions into your conversations. If you are at the stage where you are considering engagement or are already engaged, you and your significant other could print the questions out and work on getting through all of them together. Either way, please use the questions as a springboard for discussion and not as a personal worthiness interview.
And here are the questions:
Booklet
Checklist
Numbered List
Comments