10 Questions Your Partner Still Needs to Answer
You've covered the hot-button topics: child-rearing philosophies, the true meaning of Christmas, your feelings about cilantro. But at a certain point, every couple needs to have the really tricky conversations.
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4. What's the number you're not sharing?
His student-debt balance, his weight before you met, his 545 dusty Star Wars collectors' items, his 3.2 gray hairs, the 365 letters to the editor he sends every year, his actual desired number of children, his 17 identical shirts...There is likely some number you don't know about. It might be intimidating. It might be relieving. Either way, it's bound to be revealing.
5. How are we going to take care of your parents?
No one wants to, but at some point we all have to put on our big-girl pants and manage to make a will, consider our future funerals, alert spouses to our feelings on plug-pulling. Maybe you've even thought about what will happen as your parents age, whether you'll install some bars in your bath tub or rack up frequent-flyer miles. But have you two discussed what will happen as his parents age? (Bet you never thought about that one, did you?) Much has been written about the difficulties of caring for an elderly parent, but less about when the elderly (and often persnickety, uncomfortable, dissatisfied) parent is not yours. Are you in assumed line to be the de facto care giver for your already-crabby mother-in-law? Are you headed toward an argument with your husband's sister about the merits of nursing care? Put a plan in place now for a smoother road ahead.
6. What's boring you about your life?
The authors of the book The Normal Bar, an extensive survey on romantic relationships, found that "boredom was the reason 71 percent of unfaithful men and 49 percent of the women gave for acting on sexual temptation." So please, yes, find out if he's bored in bed. But also know what's boring him about life in general. Have your weekends become a tedious tangle of other people's agendas—children's birthday parties, neighborhood obligations, lawn care, children's birthday parties, oh and children's birthday parties? Is he so sick of his pants he groans whenever he takes another pair of khakis out of the drawer? To paraphrase Mary Oliver, this is your one wild and precious life, people, and there is no time for the guy you love (or you) to be bored by pants.
7. If you could have any car in the world, what would it be?
Hey, you're grown-ups. This might actually be within reach.
Next: The peanut butter test
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