Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

KayZ · July 12, 2011, 1:15pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

BlueBells:

MARRIAGE 1. What is your concept of marriage? 2. Have you been married before? 3. Are you married now? 4. What are your expectations of marriage? 5. Why have you chosen me/other person as a potential spouse? 6. What are your goals in life? (long and short term) 7. Identify three things that you want to accomplish in the near future. 8. Identify three things that you want to accomplish, long term. RELIGION 9. What is the role of religion in your life now? 10. Are you a spiritual person? 11. What is your understanding of an Islamic marriage? 12. What are you expecting of your spouse, religiously? 13. What is your relationship between you and the Muslim community in your area? 14. Are you volunteering in any Islamic activities? 15. What can you offer your spouse spiritually? 16. What is the role of the husband? 17. What is the role of the wife? 18. Do you want to practice polygamy? FAMILY 19. What is your relationship with your family? 20. What do you expect your relationship with the family of your spouse to be? 21. What do you expect your spouses relationship with your family to be? 22. Is there anyone in your family living with you now? 23. Are you planning to have anyone in your family live with you in the future? 24. If, for any reason, my relationship with your family turns sour, what should be done? FRIENDS 25. Who are your friends? (Identify at least three.) 26. How did you get to know them? 27. Why are they your friends? 28. What do you like most about them? 29. What will your relationship with them after marriage be? 30. Do you have friends of the opposite sex? 31. What is the level of your relationship with them now? 32. What will be the level of your relationship with them after marriage? 33. What type of relationship do you want your spouse to have with your friends? SELF 34. What are the things that you do in your free time? 35. Do you love to have guests in your home for entertainment? 36. What are you expecting from your spouse when your friends come to the house? 37. What is your opinion of speaking other languages in home that I do not understand? (with friends or family) 38. Do you travel? 39. How do you spend your vacations? 40. How do you think your spouse should spend vacations? 41. Do you read? 42. What do you read? 43. After marriage, do you think that you are one to express romantic feelings verbally? 44. After marriage, do you think that you want to express affection in public? 45. How do you express your admiration for someone that you know now? 46. How do you express your feelings to someone who has done a favour for you? 47. Do you like to write your feelings? 48. If you wronged someone, how do you apologize? 49. If someone has wronged you, how do you want she/he to apologize to you? 50. How much time passes before you can forgive someone? 51. How do you make important and less important decisions in your life? 52. Do you use foul language at home? In public? With family? 53. Do your friends use foul language? 54. Does your family use foul language? 55. How do you express anger? 56. How do you expect your spouse to express anger? 57. What do you do when you are angry? 58. When do you think it is appropriate to initiate mediation in marriage? 59. When there is a dispute in your marriage, religious or otherwise, how should the conflict get resolved? 60. Define mental, verbal, emotional and physical abuse. 61. What would you do if you felt that you had been abused? 62. Who would you call for assistance if you were being abused? HEALTH 63. Do you suffer from any chronic disease or condition? 64. Are you willing to take a physical exam by a physician before marriage? 65. What is your understanding of proper health and nutrition? 66. How do you support your own health and nutrition? MONEY 67. What is you definition of wealth? 68. How do you spend money? 69. How do you save money? 70. How do you think that your use of money will change after marriage? 71. Do you have any debts now? If so, how are you making progress to eliminate them? 72. Do you use credit cards? 73. Do you support the idea of taking loans to buy a new home? 74. What are you expecting from your spouse financially? 75. What is your financial responsibility in the marriage? 76. Do you support the idea of a working wife? 77. If so, how do you think a dual-income family should manage funds? 78. Do you currently use a budget to manage your finances? 79. Who are the people to whom you are financially responsible? 80. Do you support the idea of utilizing baby sitters and/or maids? CHILDREN 81. Do you want to have children? If not, why? 82. To the best of your understanding, are you able to have children? 83. Do you want to have children in the first two years of marriage? If not, when? 84. Do you believe in abortion? 85. Do you have children now? 86. What is your relationship with your children now? 87. What is your relationship with their other parent? 88. What relationship do you expect your spouse to have with your children and their parent? 89. What is the best method(s) of raising children? 90. What is the best method(s) of disciplining children? 91. How were you raised? 92. How were you disciplined? 93. Do you believe in spanking children? Under what circumstances? 94. Do you believe in public school for your children? 95. Do you believe in Islamic school for your children? 96. Do you believe in home schooling for your children? 97. What type of relationship should your children have with non-Muslim classmates/friends? 98. Would you send your children to visit their extended family if they lived in another state or country? 99. What type of relationship do you want your children to have with all their grandparents? RELATIVES 100. If there are members of my family that are not Muslim, that are of different race or culture, what type of relationship do you want to have with them?

Are you married ? If yes then i am sure that you will never be able to find a match for your kids if they went for an arranged marriage :)

depressedandconfused · July 12, 2011, 1:37pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

I asked my husband all these questions when I was still unsure about the rishta. Didn't help me in any case.

Mirch · July 12, 2011, 2:38pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

I am interested to know the details what happened and how it did not help you ? I am sure everybody will be interested to know what went wrong.

inspiron · July 12, 2011, 3:00pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

Thankyou everyone for your help!!

Bluebells your list seems pretty extensive but I will out some of the most important questions.

Some people asked to ask about religion which I will ask directly myself, but it actually came up in discussion as his own father bought it up saying what they do in his family.

It seems that I am slightly more religious than him. He is all about the 5 pillars but still does not pray 5 times a day whereas I do. So I am slightly more religious.

Paheli I will ask him about living with parents, although he has an older brother who the parents already live with mostly but i will deffo have to discuss my own parents although I also have a brother but need to cover it just incase!

MissFreudian · July 12, 2011, 3:08pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

I dont know how many of you proposing these questions are actually married, but please do come out of your dreams and illusions. I would not ask any of these question simply because of two reasons.1. How do you even know if their answers are really true ? They could be telling you what you want to hear!2. If knowing a person well could guarantee a happy marriage, all marriages in the west would be successful.And also, please remember that there is a fine line between getting to know someone and interrogating.

S02 · July 12, 2011, 3:25pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

What kind of lifestyle do you envision us having when we are newly weds? Where are we living? What is our weekday routine like? What do we do on weekends? Do we take vacations? Where?

What kind of lifestyle do you envision 5 years down the line? Where do you see yourself in your career? What role do you envision for your spouse? What will your family look like at that point? Where will we be living? What is our daily routine like? What do we do on weekends? Do we take vacations? What do we do?

What kind of lifestyle do you envision in our old age? Where are we living? Who is near us?

If you have an unexpected hour of freedom how do you spend it? sleeping, reading, watching tv, surfing the web, shopping, watching a movie, walking/running, exercising?

You need to get a sense of your lifestyles and how compatible they are. What are points of flexibility and what aren't?

Demilitarize · July 12, 2011, 3:35pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

Totally agree. So many questions are just wrong to ask and expect him to stick around. Main issues which are important to you should be targetted and SERIOUSLY woman, he seems reasonable.

Stop being silly!
*spank

Demilitarize · July 12, 2011, 3:37pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

BRILLIANT reply.

Demilitarize · July 12, 2011, 3:38pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

:P was referring to this reply as brilliant

S02 · July 12, 2011, 4:00pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

That's why I think you shouldn't be asking like an interrogation. It should be more just asking what kind of lifestyle they envision in their future. Listen to what he says, and respond with further questions based on that, to get to know him better. And based on that you can figure out whether your expectations are compatible or if something needs to be clarified.

Decent_6Chora · July 12, 2011, 4:15pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

Ask as many questions as you may like but whats the guarantee that answers you are getting are true?

After our first meeting, I personally asked just one question from then-lerkee and now-wife before asking my mom to formally ask for rishta and that was "Are you willingly saying yes to my proposal?"

partyslims · July 12, 2011, 4:28pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

And then did you remove the gun from her head?

Decent_6Chora · July 12, 2011, 4:36pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

no. when she said, yes, i thought "pagal hai pagal"

Paheli00 · July 12, 2011, 4:38pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

Wearing a seatbelt doesn't guarantee that you won't die in a car crash. But that doesn't mean that you don't wear one each time you get in the car b/c it decreases your odds of dying.

Not actually "married" but I've been with my fiance for almost 3 years. We got engaged after dating for 2.5 years. At least for me, many of the questions I listed....are things my fiance and I have discussed over time. If my fiance and I did not agree on many of the points...we would not be engaged today. Unfortunately I don't think the OP has 2.5 years to "get to know" the guy(and his family)....she has a much shorter deadline.

Does me knowing all this right now "guarantee" that my marriage will be successful and that I will not get divorced? No.

Does is significantly decrease the amount of arguments I will have with my fiance after marriage? Yes.

Does it decrease the odds of my marriage failing? In my humble opinion, yes.

I don't think any of us are trying to say that the OP can "guarantee" that she will have a happy, successful marriage if she finds out all these details before baat paaki (at least I'm not!). I think the point of finding out all these issues which has the potential to tear a couple apart after marriage is to DECREASE the odds of divorce. There are absolutely no guarantees when it comes to life.

As for the guy lying....of course there is a chance that he will lie! Again...no guarantees. But there is also that chance that he will not lie and be honest. After thinking about the questions and finding her OPs views on certain things....who knows....maybe the guy himself might decide that they're not compatible! And worst case scenario, let's say the guy lies about something right now that causes that marriage to fall apart in the future....at least the OP at that time won't beat herself thinking "Only if I had asked him before marriage this MIGHT have been prevented.".

LucyMay · July 12, 2011, 4:54pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

Ask him about his friends, and how he spends his free time. A person with many friends is likely to be accommodating and easy to get along with. Meet him with his friends if you can.
Career - Ask him about what he does. Does he come across as passionate? You want someone with ambition - someone who can look after the family financially, if you are going to stay at home and look after the kids.
Is he nice to his parents and family? Is he nice to your parents and does he treat them with respect?

Good luck!

Mirch · July 12, 2011, 5:13pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

You can not subject them to lie detector , if someone wants to mess up their own or other person's life there is nothing which can prevent it.
People change even after they get married , so there are no guarantees that a marriage will be successful on its own , it takes effort , passion , compassion , patience, compromises to make a marriage successful.

partyslims · July 12, 2011, 5:26pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

Well hopefully you removed the gun at some point then. :-p ahahaha

But on a serious note, well done!

And lots of "Yes Dear" s help as well.

ShahreyarKhan · July 12, 2011, 5:29pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

seems like you are looking for a business deal wish-wish situation

in my opinion your approach is wrong. if everyone started doing what you are doing, then no one would get married.

inspiron:

A spin off from my other thread about being unsure about a rishta and basically the general consensus to that was to get talking to him and make sure you cover important questions before saying yes (or no) he has been in the uk for 6 years I myself was bought up here.

Here are questions I have already asked - actually these are questions my dad asked him infront of me.

1) Does he plan on living in the UK permanently? Or will he ever consider moving back to PK?

he wants to stay in the UK and does not want to move back to pakistan however he may consider moving to middle east i.e. dubai (where he spent some of his life) or bahrain/qatar/kuwait which im totally cool with.

2) Is he ok with you working after marriage? What about you working after kids?

***he wants me to work after marriage but if i dont want to thats okay too, he would like me to take a break whilst the kids are young and i would do this anyway

3) How many kids does he want and how soon?

***none for 2 years - this is also cool with me

4) What are his thoughts on parents (whether its yours or his) living with you two after marriage?

***his parents live abroad in dubai/pakistan but when we visit them or they visit us we will all live together -makes sense to me

***my parents dont want to live with me after i am married :(

***Questions I need to ask

5) What are his thoughts on the husband helping wife with household chores? Does he know how to cook anything? Had he ever done laundry or helped his mom out with anything in the kitchen? 6) Ask him his views/thoughts on finances....saving for kids college, retirement etc. What percentage of his current income does he put away as a emergency saving? What percentage does he put away in a retirement account? How does he see that percentage change after marriage? 7) What are his career plans

What are questions are important to ask?

PLEASE PLEASE only serious replies only thankyou!!

Mirch · July 12, 2011, 5:42pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

hahahaha yes.

muqawwee123 · July 12, 2011, 5:53pm

Re: Important list of questions to ask before saying yes to a rishta

BlueBells:

MARRIAGE 1. What is your concept of marriage? 2. Have you been married before? 3. Are you married now? 4. What are your expectations of marriage? 5. Why have you chosen me/other person as a potential spouse? 6. What are your goals in life? (long and short term) 7. Identify three things that you want to accomplish in the near future. 8. Identify three things that you want to accomplish, long term. RELIGION 9. What is the role of religion in your life now? 10. Are you a spiritual person? 11. What is your understanding of an Islamic marriage? 12. What are you expecting of your spouse, religiously? 13. What is your relationship between you and the Muslim community in your area? 14. Are you volunteering in any Islamic activities? 15. What can you offer your spouse spiritually? 16. What is the role of the husband? 17. What is the role of the wife? 18. Do you want to practice polygamy? FAMILY 19. What is your relationship with your family? 20. What do you expect your relationship with the family of your spouse to be? 21. What do you expect your spouses relationship with your family to be? 22. Is there anyone in your family living with you now? 23. Are you planning to have anyone in your family live with you in the future? 24. If, for any reason, my relationship with your family turns sour, what should be done? FRIENDS 25. Who are your friends? (Identify at least three.) 26. How did you get to know them? 27. Why are they your friends? 28. What do you like most about them? 29. What will your relationship with them after marriage be? 30. Do you have friends of the opposite sex? 31. What is the level of your relationship with them now? 32. What will be the level of your relationship with them after marriage? 33. What type of relationship do you want your spouse to have with your friends? SELF 34. What are the things that you do in your free time? 35. Do you love to have guests in your home for entertainment? 36. What are you expecting from your spouse when your friends come to the house? 37. What is your opinion of speaking other languages in home that I do not understand? (with friends or family) 38. Do you travel? 39. How do you spend your vacations? 40. How do you think your spouse should spend vacations? 41. Do you read? 42. What do you read? 43. After marriage, do you think that you are one to express romantic feelings verbally? 44. After marriage, do you think that you want to express affection in public? 45. How do you express your admiration for someone that you know now? 46. How do you express your feelings to someone who has done a favour for you? 47. Do you like to write your feelings? 48. If you wronged someone, how do you apologize? 49. If someone has wronged you, how do you want she/he to apologize to you? 50. How much time passes before you can forgive someone? 51. How do you make important and less important decisions in your life? 52. Do you use foul language at home? In public? With family? 53. Do your friends use foul language? 54. Does your family use foul language? 55. How do you express anger? 56. How do you expect your spouse to express anger? 57. What do you do when you are angry? 58. When do you think it is appropriate to initiate mediation in marriage? 59. When there is a dispute in your marriage, religious or otherwise, how should the conflict get resolved? 60. Define mental, verbal, emotional and physical abuse. 61. What would you do if you felt that you had been abused? 62. Who would you call for assistance if you were being abused? HEALTH 63. Do you suffer from any chronic disease or condition? 64. Are you willing to take a physical exam by a physician before marriage? 65. What is your understanding of proper health and nutrition? 66. How do you support your own health and nutrition? MONEY 67. What is you definition of wealth? 68. How do you spend money? 69. How do you save money? 70. How do you think that your use of money will change after marriage? 71. Do you have any debts now? If so, how are you making progress to eliminate them? 72. Do you use credit cards? 73. Do you support the idea of taking loans to buy a new home? 74. What are you expecting from your spouse financially? 75. What is your financial responsibility in the marriage? 76. Do you support the idea of a working wife? 77. If so, how do you think a dual-income family should manage funds? 78. Do you currently use a budget to manage your finances? 79. Who are the people to whom you are financially responsible? 80. Do you support the idea of utilizing baby sitters and/or maids? CHILDREN 81. Do you want to have children? If not, why? 82. To the best of your understanding, are you able to have children? 83. Do you want to have children in the first two years of marriage? If not, when? 84. Do you believe in abortion? 85. Do you have children now? 86. What is your relationship with your children now? 87. What is your relationship with their other parent? 88. What relationship do you expect your spouse to have with your children and their parent? 89. What is the best method(s) of raising children? 90. What is the best method(s) of disciplining children? 91. How were you raised? 92. How were you disciplined? 93. Do you believe in spanking children? Under what circumstances? 94. Do you believe in public school for your children? 95. Do you believe in Islamic school for your children? 96. Do you believe in home schooling for your children? 97. What type of relationship should your children have with non-Muslim classmates/friends? 98. Would you send your children to visit their extended family if they lived in another state or country? 99. What type of relationship do you want your children to have with all their grandparents? RELATIVES 100. If there are members of my family that are not Muslim, that are of different race or culture, what type of relationship do you want to have with them?

Seems like tender notice!