Video:Types of Issues to Deal With Before Getting Married

Transcript:Types of Issues to Deal With Before Getting Married

Hi, I’m Dr. Dale Atkins. I’m a psychologist, and I’m here for About.com.Before you get married, it’s really important to know a few things about yourself and about the person you are going to marry. A lot of these things have to do with expectations. So I’d like to talk with you about what some of these things are.

Family Involvement in Your Marriage

How involved are you going to be with your family and your spouse’s family. The expectation may be that you spend every Sunday together, or it may be that you share every secret that you have. What you need to know is how open are you willing to be with your family about what’s your personal business, and how open your spouse is. And also, what do you expect your family to do for you, and what do you expect your in-law family to do for you.

Handling Finances in Your Marriage

What’s important is to be able to talk about money and finances with your partner. Understand that each of us brings to the marriage our own history of dealing with money. Are we savers? Are we spenders? Are we open with money? Are with tight with money? Do we share? These are things you really do need to know about your spouse.

Maintaining Friendships

Please think about this very carefully. You don’t have to like every one of your spouse’s friends, and he or she doesn’t have to like every one of yours. But understand why you are going to continue these friendships, and how you are going to manage seeing your friends and talking to your friends while you’re married.

Planning for Children

Very often, people don’t even talk about children before they marry, and if they do, they only talk about whether they want them, and how many they want. That’s where the conversation should begin. Not only do we want to talk about how many children we want, but how we want to raise them. Being open about your parenting styles, about how you deal with anger and frustration, and knowing yourself well.

When you are about to get married find out as much as you can about your partner, but also find out as much as you can about yourself, in the face of these important issues. If you’d like to learn more about having a health marriage, please visit About.com.