Falling in love is a wonderful and exciting experience. At some point your thoughts turn to whether the new relationship could be a permanent one. While it is normal to be caught up in the excitement of this time, you can easily lose sight of some necessary topics to consider as the relationship moves forward. Marriage counselors frequently see couples who have been married for months or years struggling with the same kinds of issues.

Couples considering marriage should talk about a number of important areas. As far as when to have the conversations, the earlier the better. Some couples have made the mistake of getting engaged first while planning to have these more difficult conversations in some form of premarital counseling. Not uncommonly, information may be discovered at this point that causes one or the other to question the relationship. The intensity of the engagement can often shut down necessary conversations.

As a result, many counselors recommend “pre-engagement” counseling that provides an opportunity to discuss these areas before the decision to marry is made.

1. Values

In some regards, a discussion of values may be the most important conversation to have. Your values inform most of the decisions that you make. At the same time, because values operate in the background, you may not have much awareness of exactly how this is happening. One of the developmental tasks of becoming an adult is to “define yourself.” This means thinking about and deciding what you believe and why, what is important to you, what you value, and how you want to live your life. Specifically, you want to know what you think, feel, need, and desire and develop a life based upon what is important to you. This whole developmental task is called “differentiation of self.” It leads to stability in yourself as a person.

When considering a life partner, you should already have done this work, and you should be looking for someone who has also done this work of differentiation. When this psychological work has not been done, you will often find yourself looking for someone who can “agree” with you and you with them. But what are you actually “agreeing” upon if each of you do not truly know who you are?

In reality, you will be looking for relational peace. But this will be unstable because both parties will be unsure who they really are. This is the most common root issue of the problems that couples bring to counseling.

2. Goals and Plans

By the time you are considering a spouse, you already have some idea of your future goals and plans for your life. They are a result of the differentiation work that you have done. These include some significant topics:

Career — Do both of you want to work, or does one want to stay home with children? What kind of work do you plan to do and will it produce the income you both desire? How will your career choice impact lifestyle, such as hours, responsibility, travel, and other aspects of your life together?

Children — Do you want children? How many and when would you like to have them? This can and should lead to conversations about how to educate and parent them.

Where might you want to live — Are either of you looking to live in a particular area? Is living near family important, or will your career drive where you live?

Lifestyle — This broad category includes the above and so much more. Thoughts and plans can and will change over the years, but it is important to begin with an understanding of where your partner currently is in these matters.

3. Personal History

This is a crucial area for conversation. This includes areas such as your family of origin, how you were parented, childhood experiences, and your past relationships. You need to talk about the things you are proud of and those you are not. Incidences of abuse and trauma — as a child or adult — are crucial to discuss, even if it is difficult.

To some degree, everyone is a product of their past, but people vary in the amount of insight they have as to how their past has shaped and affected them. Understanding this, the ability to communicate about it, and the willingness to work on whatever changes need to be made as a result are all essential elements for a healthy relationship. Fear and embarrassment might make this difficult. The reality is that if you are in a relationship with someone who cannot accept these parts of you, the relationship is not all that healthy.

4. Money

Money is one of “the big two” critical discussion areas (money and sex — more on sex next). Money matters are one of the most common topics about which couples fight. Not understanding each other’s different thoughts, history, priorities, and habits around money is often a source of these fights. A couple can have differences here, but they must be willing to talk about them and be accountable to each other in money matters.

Specific issues around money include spending and saving habits, your personal income, your debt, how you budget and manage money, and your future financial goals. While couples can have differences in these areas, it is important that they communicate and work together on them. This is not an area where you want surprises.

5. Sex

Most counselors would agree that the topic of sex is the most difficult for couples to talk about. At the same time, it is one of the most common sources of conflict in a marriage. One of the main contributors to these difficulties is the large amount of misinformation in our society about sex. That misinformation comes from media — movies, books, reality shows, social media, and other forms.

It also comes from the pornography industry. Far too many people develop their ideas about sexual relationships from pornography. Peers and families are another source of misinformation. All this misinformation can lead to comparison and to the shame of feeling that you do not match up.

Sexual abuse and trauma also lead to shame around sex. Marriage will not fix this; it will only activate whatever is unresolved about these events. It is important that a couple talk about incidences of abuse, trauma, or if there has been a past with pornography usage. These must be open and honest conversations. Hiding information here will only create serious problems later when the information does come out because then it will cause additional feelings of betrayal.

6. Relationship with Parents

As you address those key issues that affect your relationship together, you also need to consider relationship expectations with family. While you may be able to observe your partner interact with parents, you will also need to talk about future expectations of the parents’ roles once you are married. Topics include frequency of visits, access, amount of input from parents, holidays, as well as your parents’ expectations of you as a married person and your spouse as an in-law.

7. Relationships with Friends

When two people marry, they bring their friends along. At the same time, relationships with those friends will need to change as a consequence of the marriage. Failure to consider and talk about this often leads to conflicts. In marriage, you will have less time for friends. Some friends may become more distant. You may need to make changes in opposite gender friend relationships. You cannot realistically expect that your partner will like all of your friends or that all of your friends will like your partner.

8. Household Tasks

As a much more practical matter, you plan to share a household together. It is important to talk about who will be responsible for which tasks. Marriage may require significant change for one or both parties in this area depending on previous living arrangements. It is also important to talk specifically about how you desire your living space to be and how clean and organized or messy and disorganized you tend to be. The extremes of both can be unhealthy, and you are likely to be somewhat different in this area. Communication and compromise are key.

9. Personal Time

As a single person, you have determined how you spend your personal time and, for the most part, have not had to answer to someone else. This changes in marriage, and the other will have expectations of you in terms of time spent together. Many conflicts arise when one or both try to continue to live as they did while single. This includes topics like hobbies, time with friends, types of leisure activities, when you go to bed and get up in the morning, and many more. As you plan to share your life together, you will find the need for boundaries to be even more important than in the past. A healthy understanding of the concept is an important starting point that can help avoid significant marital discord.

10. Boundaries

This is a crucial concept for all relationships. A lack of healthy understanding of this concept can cause significant marital discord. A boundary is really a line that says where one point stops and another begins, like the property line between you and your neighbor. In relationships, a boundary defines what belongs to me and what belongs to the other person; each person has their own thoughts, feelings, needs, desires, beliefs, and choices. Each is responsible to manage those things in themselves.

A common myth in marriage is that you have found the person who will make you happy. In reality, no one can make you happy. The most one can do are things that please you. Each person is responsible for their happiness. Only you can find happiness in your life circumstances. A dependence upon another to make you happy will lead to disappointment and conflict in the relationship.

Another related myth of marriage is that the other will “complete me.” This line of thinking assumes that you are an incomplete person without someone else, which again creates an unhealthy dependence. You are not responsible for the other person’s functioning, and you cannot make another person whole. In fact, it takes two healthy people to make a healthy marriage. Any marriage cannot be any healthier than the lowest common denominator. This concept of boundaries is one of the most important concepts to talk about when considering marriage.

Marriage relationships are work, and difficult conversations are even more work. Marital satisfaction is determined by a couple’s ability to have healthy and productive difficult conversations. Do yourself and your relationship a favor and begin having these difficult conversations right from the start. It will save you a lot of frustration — and maybe even a regrettable decision — in the long run. As has often been said, the journey is half the fun of the destination. Enjoy the journey of self-discovery with your potential spouse.

Dr. Thomas Barbian is the executive director for the Christian Counseling Center of First Presbyterian Church in Columbia. He received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the Cambridge Graduate School of Psychology and Counseling in Los Angeles. He also holds a master’s degree in marriage, family, and child counseling and a bachelor’s degree in biblical studies.