Counseling

The Marriage Test
Disclaimer
Neither me nor my members has a degree in psychology, counseling, or social work. If you have serious issues in your marriage or relationship, we recommend you seek professional guidance. This compatibility test is offered for entertainment purposes only.

What Is Marriage
1. Are you both mature adults? This is necessary for a good relationship - though it is not sufficient. Here is an interesting adultness test, to get you started. But don't assume a high schore is your ticket to success, in marriage, or anywhere else. This is a very abridged survey, and it's mostly for fun; though it can give young people a good idea of what it means to be "grown up". In reality, you should probably be in your mid twenties before you consider marriage. Marriages also work better when people have more education. See this article.
2. Could you be happy/fulfilled without marriage?
3. Why do you want to get married? What are you hoping to gain? What can you offer your partner in return?
4. What marriages have you experienced personally? Did they result in happiness? What was good or bad about these marriages?
5. Should a marriage be strictly between two people? Why? If not, replace the word partner with partners throughout this questionnaire.
6. Can two gay people share a lifelong loving relationship? Should U.S. laws sanction their marriage, with the same privileges (e.g. joint healthcare and tax-free inheritance) and responsibilities (e.g. alimony) as any other couple?
7. Do you believe the commitment takes place when you get engaged, or when you say "I do"?
8. How important is the legal/religious institution of marriage, as opposed to a simple commitment between you and your partner?
9. Do you believe it is helpful to live together first, before making a commitment? (Statistically, living together will neither hurt nor help your chances of success.)
10. How do you feel about pre-nuptial agreements?
11. Who will acquire whose last name, or will you keep your last names, or will you jointly adopt a new name? (Warning, there's plenty of paperwork involved in a name change.)
Love and Support Through the Years
1. What causes people to fall in love?
2. How important is love to a good marriage? Can two people, who are no longer in love, have a good marriage? Can two people, who are very much in love, have a bad marriage?
3. Do you expect to be in love for life? How might your love evolve as the marriage proceeds? (Surveys show most older couples feel like siblings, rather than sweethearts.)
4. What will you do, years from now, when the touch of your partner's hand does not bring euphoria?
5. How important is affection? How do you feel about public displays of affection?
6. Can you give and receive affection even when you don't particularly feel "in love"?
7. Does a marriage require ongoing maintenance? What kind of things should you monitor?
8. Is a marriage "hard work"? If so, why do you want to fill your life with hard work?
9. Can you put your partners needs ahead of your own? How will you know what your partner's needs are?
10. Are you (generally) polite and courteous to others? Are these attributes important to a smooth-running marriage and family?
11. How will you react when your partner does something small (or big) that you don't like? How would you want to be approached if the tables were turned?
12. What do you do when you are frustrated or angry? How do you resolve conflicts with others?
13. How do you react when you are sad or discouraged? Do you seek love and support, or would you rather be alone?
14. What priority will your marriage receive throughout life? What things are more important than your marriage?
15. How might you or your partner change, that would cause your marriage to dissolve? What are some things that you simply cannot live with?
Sickness and Death
1. If you outlive your partner, how will you handle his/her death? Will you look for a new partner, a companion to live with, or new friends to fill your time?
2. Would you be secure financially? Would you have the resources to raise the children you have, or expect to have?
3. Do you have the emotional maturity and strength of will to raise any children you have or expect to have, as a single parent? Whom could you call on for help? Extended family? Close friends?
4. What are your wishes regarding funerals, burials, cremation, etc. What are your partner's wishes?
5. Are you and your partner organ donors?
6. When is medical intervention counterproductive? Which disabilities or injuries are worse than death?
7. Do you trust each other to make life&death decisions on your behalf? Will you codify this via living wills?
8. How would you react if your partner were seriously injured (e.g. blind, wheelchair bound, etc)? How would the marriage change? If your hobbies are primarily physical in nature, what new activities might take their place?
9. Could you care for the physical needs of your partner, such as dressing, bathing, medications, etc?
10. What is your attitude towards doctors and modern medicine? Do you trust your doctors? Are there certain procedures you do not believe in, on moral or religious grounds?
11. How do you feel about holistic/alternative medicine? Does a positive or negative attitude play a role in health and sickness?
12. What steps do you take to preserve your longterm health, and what will you expect from your partner?
Dividing the Work
1. Who will perform the for-salary work? (I'll assume you aren't independently wealthy.)
2. How does your career rank, in priority, relative to your marriage and family?
3. If either of you is content being a homemaker, skip this question, and the next 2. If the situation demands that somebody stay home (e.g. to care for a sick child or relative), who will stay home and who will work?
4. If your golden career opportunity pulls you towards one end of the country, and your partner's dream job is located elsewhere, how will you reach a compromise?
5. Who has more flexibility in finding satisfactory work wherever you might be located?
6. If you do not work, what other activities, hobbies, or volunteer work will you be involved in? (Being a fulltime homemaker rarely sates an individual's full complement of emotional, intellectual, and social needs.)
7. Who does the cooking, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, dusting, garbage/recycles, kitchen floors and counters, bathrooms, grocery shopping, errands, lawn maintenance, snow shoveling, gardening, and odd jobs around the house? Do you expect to hire someone to do some of these tasks, such as the lawn?
Sex
1. Do you insist on a monogamous relationship? What are your attitudes towards infidelity? What if you found that your partner had one affair? Numerous affairs?
2. Are you certain that you and your partner do not have any sexually transmitted diseases?
3. Although you have (or will have) a permanent sex partner, do you still enjoy watching erotic images of others on tape or on the printed page?
4. How important is good sex to a good marriage? How important is a good marriage to good sex?
5. How would you handle a sexless marriage, if illness or injury prohibited intercourse? Are there other ways you could physically demonstrate your love to each other?
6. How often would you like to have sexual relations?
7. Ideally, how much time would you like to spend together before and after the act? What things do you like to do to prepare for, and come down from sex?
8. Are you prepared to make drastic cuts in the frequency and spontaneity of your sex life to accommodate children?
9. Your sex drives will almost certainly wane as the marriage progresses. If one person loses desire before the other, how will the active partner's needs be met?
10. Do you enjoy alternate forms of sex, such as oral?
11. What aids (e.g. lotions, video tapes) do you enjoy?
12. What activities do you find erotic?
13. Would you like to shower or bathe with your partner?
Finances
1. Do you plan to keep individual funds in separate accounts? This question does not refer to legally mandated separations, such as your IRAs. We ask whether you believe some of your income(s) should be channeled into individual accounts, where its disposition is under the individual's control. If so, how much goes into each account? As your income and expenses change, how will you reapportion these distributions? Can YOU really spend YOUR money any way you want, no matter what your partner thinks? If not, maintaining separate accounts is probably a wasted exercise in paperwork. Subsequent questions refer to the money that is shared between you.
2. What if you disagree over a large purchase or investment? Who has the final say in money matters?
3. Who writes the checks and balances the books? Who fills out the 10-40 every spring?
4. How much can either of you spend on a "once in a lifetime" sale or investment opportunity without consulting the other? It is best to establish a specific cap from the start.
5. What items or services, commonly bought by Americans, seem like frivolity to you?
6. If your income were drastically reduced, what luxuries would you give up?
7. How important are material possessions to you? What would happen if you lost everything in a fire?
8. How much of your income would you like to save?
9. Do you like playing the market, or do you pay somebody else to do it for you (e.g. buy into an established fund).
10. Would you be willing to risk some of your savings on a specific, personal venture, such as starting a new business? How much of your savings would you invest in this way?
11. How much of your income would you like to give to charity? Which charities?
12. Under what circumstances will you loan or give money to friends or relatives? Can you accept the risk that these loans might not be repaid?
13. If you won the lotto, 10 million dollars, what would you do with it?
Your Nest
1. Do you like to live in a rural setting, a city, or a suburb?
2. Where in the country (or world) would you like to live? Are you constrained to certain climates?
3. Is it important for you to live near family or pre-established friends?
4. Does your career lock you into a certain location (e.g. a doctor's established practice)?
5. Do you want a house, apartment, condo, trailer? This decision is partly dictated by financial considerations.
6. Could you be a border in someone else's house?
7. Can you share your home with others? If someone needed extensive care, or was having financial trouble, could you bring him into your home?
8. Are there members of your extended family, or close friends that you would enjoy living with? Are there relatives or friends that you simply could not live with?
9. In the range of neatnick to slob, where do you fall? Do you make your bed each morning? Keep your dirty clothes in a neat out-of-sight pile? Put dishes in the dishwasher and wipe the counters after every meal? Or do you let things accumulate and clean up as needed?
10. Are you a packrat, storing lots of currently unused items for possible use in the undetermined future, or do you retain only those items that have immediate utility?
11. Do you own valuable collections or equipment? Will you be able to keep young children away from your "stuff"?
12. If you have or anticipate infants, which rooms will be safe baby-proof play areas and which rooms will be gated off? (If you have to spend every waking moment monitoring your infant for safety, you'll be a frazzled wreck in a week.)
13. Do you have specific thoughts on how rooms should be decorated? On color schemes? (Usually the woman does and the man doesn't, so there is no trouble.)
14. What is a comfortable in-door temperature for you? Can you go above or below this temperature to satisfy your partner?
Religion
1. What are your religious or metaphysical beliefs? Why are we here?
2. What happens to us after death?
3. How do you determine right from wrong?
4. How important is your religion to you?
5. Should religion play a larger role in our government and its laws?
6. Is there a system of ethics apart from religion, or common to all religions?
7. Is regular church attendance important?
8. Which religions are acceptable in a partner? Which religions are unacceptable?
9. What religious training would you like your children to receive? What if your child adopts a different religion, or shows no interest in religion at all?
Politics
1. What does your government owe you, as a resident of this country? Does it owe you more if you are a citizen? A taxpayer?
2. What do you owe your government?
3. Does it matter whether you vote? Why?
4. Which current political party most closely approximates your views?
5. Did we avoid World War III because of or in spite of the massive increases in nuclear weapons?
6. When does the government have the right to intervene in an individual's private affairs (e.g. making drug use illegal)?
7. When can a government take children away from parents? Is abject poverty sufficient cause? When might said children be returned to their parents?
8. When is the death penalty warranted?
9. When does a cell, embryo, fetus, or infant attain the rights of a separate individual?
10. Which is the greater injustice: a guilty man acquitted or an innocent man convicted? How many of the former are needed to compensate for one of the latter? This is one of the precious few questions of philosophy that is not based on religion or metaphysics, and it tends to drive most of your opinions on the judicial system.
11. Name a couple U.S. presidents that you admire, and a couple that you dislike. What actions or characteristics made these men good or bad presidents?
12. Aside from the superficial physical features, are there innate differences among the races?
13. Would it matter if your child married somebody of another race or culture?
Vices
1. Do you smoke, drink alcohol, take illicit drugs, or gamble (to excess)? Would you accept these behaviors in your partner?
2. If your partner developed a drinking problem, how would you handle it?
3. Do you engage in risky behaviors such as sky-diving, hang-gliding, or motorcycle racing? Would it be prudent to suspend these behaviors while you are raising a family?
4. How many hours a week are consumed by sports? This includes participating, watching, and reading about.
5. Do you receive sexual stimulation from magazines or websites? does this detract from a healthy marriage?
Sleeping
1. Do you like the bedroom windows open or closed?
2. Do you snore? Can you sleep next to a snoring partner?
3. Do you like the tv or radio on while you sleep?
4. Do you like to cuddle with your partner through the night, or do you need your own space?
5. Do snooze alarms drive you crazy!
6. If your sleeping habbits are incompatible, or become so in the future, can you sleep in different rooms? (This is not unusual for older couples.)
Eating
1. What are some of your favorite meals? What foods do you detest?
2. How many times a week do you like to eat out? What are your favorite restaurants?
3. Do you make an effort to cook/eat healthy, or do you eat whatever comes out of a box?
4. Do medical conditions constrain your diet?
5. Are you a vegetarian?
6. If your eating habbits are quite dissimilar from your partner's, can you compromise on some common meals, or must you cook and eat separate dishes most nights?
Hobbies and Vacations
1. What are your favorite hobbies and activities?
2. What interests do you and your partner have in common?
3. Are there certain activities you would rather do without your partner, spending some time apart?
4. Do you have any hobbies that are quite expensive or time-consuming, that your partner will probably not participate in?
5. How do you like to spend your vacation time? Are there particular places you would like to visit?
6. When on vacation, do you like to plan every detail (a predetermined itinerary), or do you go wherever the spirit moves you that day?
7. Do you like camping in the great outdoors, comfortable hotels, a motorhome, timeshare houses, or crashing with friends?
Pets
1. Do you want or have pets? If not, skip this section.
2. Which animals make good pets? Why?
3. Does your pet sleep in your room? On your bed?
4. If there is a fire, and your pet is still inside, do you go back in to look for him?
5. Who is (primarily) responsible for feeding, walking (dogs), brushing, bathing, and cleaning up after the pets?
6. Who watches your pet while you are at work, or on vacation?
7. How do you handle a house full of fleas? Excrement in the corner? Urine in your shoes? Cat puke in your bed? (I have experienced all of these.)
8. What behaviors are unacceptable in a pet? Can you get rid of your pet if he becomes destructive or dangerous?
9. How much money would you be willing to spend on your pet's medical care?
10. When should a pet be euthanized?
11. Who takes your pets to the veterinarian? Who makes the decisions regarding any medical procedures?
Children
If neither of you wants children, you have completed the test. If one of you wants children and the other doesn't, you just failed the test. Don't get married! If you both want children, carry on. More marital arguments are sparked by children than any other issue, including money, so these questions are even more important than the ones you have already answered.
When You Were a Child
1. How were you raised? What did your parents do that you liked or didn't like? What aspects of their parenting will you try to emulate? What will you do differently?
2. How did your parents discipline you? Was it effective? Counterproductive? Harmful?
3. What did your parents say or do to show love? How did they build up your self-esteem?
4. How did you interact with your siblings? Did you play together often? Did you fight?
5. Describe a typical evening meal in your home.
6. Describe some early memories. Do you remember what it was like to think as a child?
7. What things really upset you when you were young, or even in your teens? What things frightened you?
8. What were your responsibilities in the home? When did you start doing your own laundry? Cooking some of the meals?
9. Did your parents place a premium on education? Did they make sure homework was done, and offer assistance when needed?
10. How pervasive was the TV? What shows did you watch growing up? How many hours a day? Was it often background noise, or did it hold your attention? Were there arguments over TV viewing?
Prior Experience
1. What experience do you have raising children? What ages? If none, why do you believe you will enjoy raising children? Remember, you can't send them back once they have arrived.
2. What was fun/rewarding about childcare?
3. What did the child do that drove you crazy? How did you handle it? Was your response effective and appropriate?
4. Have you watched (i.e. studied) good parents in action? Have you taken any parenting classes? Remember, we aren't born knowing how to do this stuff.
5. Do you have experience with a sick child? With a colicky baby?
6. Have you taken a child to the hospital, or faced a medical emergency?
Quantity and Characteristics
1. How many kids would you like?
2. Do you have a gender preference?
3. What age children do you especially enjoy raising? Are there ages that you don't handle well?
Infertility
1. Is it important to pass your genes on to the next generation?
2. What if you are (as a couple) infertile? One in three couples has difficulty conceiving.
3. If genetic propagation is important to you, but you cannot conceive, would you donate material to a sperm bank?
4. Do you have serious medical conditions that should not be passed on to the next generation? Are there diagnostic tests for these conditions?
5. If amnio, or some other prenatal test indicates a serious malady, such as Down's syndrome, would you be willing to abort? If not, is there any other reason to undergo the procedure? (Amnio carries a small risk of miscarriage.)
6. What steps are you willing to take in order to conceive? (Rarely can a person be declared "infertile" with complete certainty.) Would you take Claumid, or other hormonal drugs? Undergo invasive diagnostic tests? Artificial insemination? Invitro fertilization?
7. How much money would you be willing to spend to conceive? IVF is $10,000 a shot, with a 20% success rate, and no guarantees.
8. How many years will you spend trying to conceive? At what age might you consider alternatives?
9. How do you feel about surrogate parents? Do you know anyone who would carry a child for you? Would you do this for anyone else? What do you think of those who do it for money?
10. Would you be willing to adopt children? If not, skip the next section.
Adoption
1. Have you had any experience with adoption? Do you know people who were adopted? Do you know any parents who have adopted?
2. Would you adopt foreign children, domestic infants, or older (special needs) children? These three sectors of the industry are very different, each with its own pros and cons.
3. Are you prepared to do a mountain of paperwork?
4. Can you tolerate the scrutiny of a social worker who is (perhaps) half your age, and has (perhaps) half your education?
5. Are you prepared to be treated like dirt by an entire industry? I have talked to adopting parents who place this process among the top five worst experiences of their lives, and sadly, I must number myself among them. Then again, some people say the same thing about pregnancy, morning sickness, and childbirth, so I guess there is no easy solution.
6. Could you adopt children of other races?
7. If you want older children, what physical or emotional handicaps can you accept?
Raising Kids
1. How will you show your child that you love him?
2. How do you build self-esteem in a toddler? A pre-teen? A teen-ager?
3. If your interactions with your child are not 80% positive, the relationship is at risk. What games will you play with your child? What activities can you share as he grows up? How much time can you give to your child?
4. How will you instill values in your child? Which is more important in this process, your words or your actions?
5. What is your TV policy? Are there restrictions on hours per day, or channels, or shows?
6. Should the child be given an unconditional allowance, or will all funds be tied to chores, or other tasks?
7. What is your approach to discipline? How do you set and enforce limits? After you have answered this question in the abstract, the next section gives some concrete "what if" examples.
8. What will happen to your marriage once children are involved? And yes, it does change. Here is a humorous account of our sex life after kids.
What Do You Do When?
For each item below, the number is the approximate age of the child.
1. Your baby spits food out at the table, or tosses food off his plate. Not out of anger or spite; he thinks it is a funny game.
2. She throws a hard wooden block across the room, in your general direction.
3. He refuses to put his puzzles away. He just doesn't feel like it.
4. She throws a ball across the living room (a forbidden zone) and breaks one of the many knickknacks on your shelf.
5. Once or twice a week he wakes up in the dead of night and calls for you. He will not go back to sleep unless you sit with him, sometimes as long as an hour. If you try to leave he cries and screams, or comes running into your room.
6. She strolls over to a friends house without permission or supervision, crossing a street in the process.
7. While grocery shopping, he covertly tosses his favorite candy bar into the basket. You don't notice until you get home.
8. She asks why people have to die. She wants to know when you are going to die, and when she is going to die.
9. He refuses to eat many of the meals you serve; especially your vegetable stir fries. Of course he still wants his snacks and deserts.
10. She has lost all interest in her piano lessons (substitute your favorite instrument). She avoids practice sessions using every trick in the book.
11. He wants a new bike, but you can't really afford one right now.
12. She wants to wear make-up to school. Her best friend is wearing make-up.
13. He comes home smelling of cigarettes. He denies it, but it is unmistakable. There are none on him, and none in his room. He must have borrowed some from a friend.
14. She brings home a C in a subject that she is pretty good at. she should have obtained at least a B, perhaps an A.
15. He wants an after-school or weekend job to make some extra money, but he needs you to drive him to and from work.
16. She is on the high-school debate team, and wins the regional championships. (It is just as important to reward as to punish; probably moreso.)
17. He has obviously had unprotected sex. The girl is pregnant.
18. She doesn't want to go to the college you had hoped she would attend, but she still wants and needs your financial support.
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