31 Questions for a Marriage

Take some time together as a couple to talk about your life as a couple.  Some of these questions are breezy, some are deep and difficult.  Have fun with each other, but take the answers seriously.  If you ask all 31 questions of each other, and answer honestly, I guarantee that your marriage will not be the same.  I don't recommend that you ask these questions all at one time.  Get some time alone with each other on a regular basis and ask one or two questions at a time.

What is the happiest moment we had together?

What do you think are our greatest strengths as a couple?  Our greatest weaknesses?

What person, apart from me, has most influenced your life?  How?

What friends would you like to hang out with more? Or less?

What one way do you think you are different since we first got together?

What is something about our sex life you’d like to tell me?

What would be your ideal living situation?

If we could spend a long weekend doing anything together, what would you like that to be?

If we could retire anywhere, do anything, what would you like that to look like?

What would you like to change about our finances?

What are your biggest fears about our relationship?

Do you think we have enough dates?  If we could spend more time together out, what would you want to do?

What are a couple ways that I could be more understanding?

What things attracted you to me before we got together?

What two or three problems, if solved, would make the most difference in our life together?

What is your favorite romantic song or movie and why?

Is love the basis of marriage?  Is commitment? Is mutual support?

How can we build our friendship up?

What is the state of your love for me?  Getting stronger?  Waning a bit?  Going through a bumpy time? 

Does your love for me feel different than it used to?  How?

At what times do you feel the most love for me?

How can I improve as your partner?

What one or two things about you do you think I don’t understand?

How can we improve our communication?

Do you feel like I listen to you enough?  How can I listen better?  At what times do you want to be listened to more?

When we argue, what is the one thing about how I argue that bugs you? 

Are there times that our disagreement should be postponed?  How can we communicate that when it happens?

What is your best memory of our time together?

What is the best way for me to encourage you? 

What do I do that best communicates my love for you?

What do you think are my three greatest strengths?

What three goals would you like us to accomplish in the next five years together?

Remarriage

Discussion on MennoDiscuss:

Here's my understanding: if you have a spouse, you should be faithful to your spouse. (I'm leaving out discussion of the exception clauses in Matthew to simplify discussion here.)

Some people here seem to believe that if a divorced person marries another, while the original spouse is still living, the new marriage doesn't really count as a marriage. They encourage a person in that situation to get out of the marriage they are in and attempt to reconcile with the original spouse.

I don't see that as biblical. Here's why.


When Jesus teaches against divorce, he does not say that divorce is OK as long as it isn't your first marriage. Divorcing your second spouse doesn't heal your first divorce. If you divorce again, that's just adding another divorce to your tally.
In Deuteronomy 24, if you marry another, you aren't allowed to come back to your first spouse. The original marriage has been broken. And practically speaking, the odds of reconciliation after one partner has married are very, very small.
In Matthew 5 and Matthew 19, adultery comes from getting married to another person, which breaks the first marriage. In German, the word for adultery is Ehebruch, "marriage-breaking", and I think that's a biblical understanding. Once you marry another, you are one flesh with your current spouse, you have broken your first marriage.
When Jesus refers to remarriage adultery, it's getting married to another, not the state of being married thereafter. That's what "marries another" means. I know some people suggest that it doesn't mean this in the original Greek, but I've looked pretty carefully at the Greek, it really does refer to marrying another.

Some of y'all clearly disagree with me. Can you explain why? If someone has married another, what good can come of divorcing your current spouse, and how would that divorce be a sign of following the call of Jesus to not divorce?

Jonathan

Matthew 5: 31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorce,’ 32 but I tell you that whoever puts away his wife, except for the cause of sexual immorality, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries her when she is put away commits adultery.

Note that Jesus says nothing about first marriages vs. second marriages here, putting away your wife is wrong.

Deuteronomy 24:1 When a man takes a wife, and marries her, then it shall be, if she find no favor in his eyes, because he has found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a bill of divorce, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
2 When she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife.
3 If the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorce, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, who took her to be his wife;
4 her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before Yahweh: and you shall not cause the land to sin, which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance.

Note that once you remarry, going back to the original spouse is not an option.



I think that ignoring the exception clause in Matthew is a grave mistake.

Becuse that exception clause gives us a hint as to God's idea of marriage. Divorce, Jesus is clearly saying, does not break the marriage commitment. When a person is divorced, the vows of marriage still stand. Otherwise, it could not be adultery for a person to get married after divorce. This is one of the errors we often see in our Christian culture, because most people think a marriage is broken after divorce, but Jesus clearly says that it is not.

However, the exception clause teaches us something else. That adultery DOES break a marriage. Why does Jesus give the exception clause? Since divorce doesn't break a marriage, divorce can only make sense IF THE MARRIAGE IS ALREADY BROKEN. Thus, adultery is the act that revokes the marriage. Of course, forgiveness can be offered and the vows renewed, but adultery breaks the marriage.

Thus, remarriage is only problematic if adultery has not taken place. But if it has, the old covenant is broken and remarriage is possible.

If there is adultery and a marriage is broken, then a person gets remarried. If they separate from the second spouse to return to the first, it is not a restoration of the original marriage-- it is breaking another vow in order to commit adultery again!

Thus, how I read what Jesus is saying, it is sin to break a marriage at all. But it is continuing the same crime to break a second marriage to try to retore the first.

Remarriage

Suppose your spouse left you and divorced you, and either (a) sexual immorality prompted the divorce, or (b) your former spouse died, or (c) your former spouse has married another and there just ain't no way they are ever coming back.
Suppose you had someone interested in marrying you. How would you decide whether to marry them? I've heard some suggest that even when there are scriptural grounds for a divorce, you should not marry another. I've heard others suggest that if 'sexual immorality' was a grounds for divorce, you may marry another.
What guidelines do you suggest? And why?
Jonathan

According to Jesus (Matthew 19), divorce does not end a marraige. Only two things do: adultery and death. After adultery, the couple could be reconciled (as you see with Hosea), but the original covenant has been broken. Paul says that, in the case of a believer being married to an unbeliever, that if the unbeliever leaves the believer then the believer is "not under bondage", (I Cor 7:15) which I take to mean free to remarry.

I see marriage as being like a contract. Once the contract is broken by one party, then the second party is under no obligation to remain in the contract-- it was already broken. So one can join in another contract, in contradiction to the first, because the original is null and void.

However, again, the crux of the matter is that divorce doesn't nullify the covenant one made before God. But adultery (or remarriage) does). So for my congregation who are divorced, but neither of the couple has remarried, I strongly encourage reconcilliation, or celibate patience for God to reconcile. But if one of the couple remarries, then I can give freedom to the other to remarry, if they choose.

I know this is in opposition to most Christian viewpoints, but the one side seems too harsh in comparison with Jesus' actual teaching, while the other side seems to just be ignoring Jesus' teaching.

What Does God Want In A Marriage?

First published in MennoDiscuss:

I think that the most important thing we should remember is that a Christian marriage should be a little congregation.

We should hold each other accountable to living in Jesus and obeying Him. We should restore each other with gentleness and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. We should be aware of each other's needs and meet them when we can. We should pray for each other, especially when one is in difficult circumstances. We should rejoice when the other is rejoicing and weep when the other is weeping. And while the wife is to submit and the husband is to sacrificially love, this will often look on the outside as the couple submitting to each other. And there should be no place for pride in a marriage.

Obviously, this is a goal. My wife and I are still working on it. If we acheive it, we'll let you know.