Before you get engaged
Not a compatibility test, and not a checklist you pass.
These are the things couples find out afterwards. Two people can live together happily for years with incompatible expectations about children, money or geography, simply because the subject never arose in a form that required an answer.
Thirty-two questions, in seven areas, roughly ordered by how expensive they are to discover late: money, children, geography, work, family, belief, and conflict.
A disagreement found now is information. The same disagreement found later is a crisis. That is the entire argument for having the conversation early, and it is why "we just know" is a lovely feeling and not a plan.
Ask a few at a time, on a walk rather than across a table. And notice if any question is treated as an accusation, because that reaction is itself one of the answers.
Money
- What do you earn, and what do you owe? All of it.
- How were you raised to think about money, and what stuck?
- What is a purchase amount above which we should talk first?
- Joint accounts, separate, or both?
- What does financial security look like to you, in numbers?
- What would you do if one of us could not work for a year?
- Would you lend money to your family, and how much?
- What is the most you have ever hidden about money, from anyone?
Question eight is uncomfortable and it is the informative one. It is not looking for a confession; it is asking how someone relates to financial honesty under pressure.
Children
- Do you want children, and how sure are you?
- What would it mean for us if that turned out not to be possible?
- How many, and how far apart, if it were up to you?
- Who would do what in the first year?
- What did your parents do that you would repeat, and what would you not?
- What would you want if we disagreed about it later?
Question nine wants a real answer, not "someday, probably." "I want children and I would be sad without them" and "I am open to it if you want them" are different answers that both sound like yes.
Where you live
- Where do you want to be in ten years, geographically?
- Would you move for my career? Would you expect me to move for yours?
- How close to your family do you want to live?
- How close is too close?
- City, town, or somewhere else, and how strongly?
Geography ends more relationships than people expect, because it is the one thing that cannot be split.
Work and ambition
- How important is your work to you, honestly?
- What are you willing to give up for it, and what are you not?
- What would you do if you could afford to do anything?
- How much do you want to work when we have less need to?
Family
- What role do you want your parents to have in our life?
- What would you do if your family were unkind to me?
- What would you want me to do if mine were unkind to you?
- What obligations do you feel toward your family that I should know about?
Question twenty-five is the one that predicts the most future friction. Families, in-laws and the holidays.
Belief and values
- What do you actually believe, and how much does it shape your decisions?
- How would we raise children in relation to that?
- What is a value you hold that you would not compromise on?
Conflict
- How do you behave when you are hurt, and what do you need then?
- What did we do in our worst argument, and would either of us change it?
Question thirty-two is the most useful in the list, because it is about evidence rather than intention. You already have data. Reading it together is more informative than any hypothetical.
Having the same argument over and over. · After a fight.
How to use these
A few at a time, over weeks. Doing all thirty-two in one evening turns it into an interview, and interviews produce the answers people think they should give.
In ordinary circumstances. On a walk, in a car, cooking. Sitting down formally raises the stakes and lowers the honesty.
Both answer everything. No exceptions, including the ones you are confident about, because the confident ones are where the assumptions hide.
Let an answer change. "I do not know" is a real answer, and people are allowed to think about a question for a week.
Before moving in together. · The first year living together. · The mental load.
These questions are free, need no account, and work on paper. Nearvo is not therapy and does not assess a relationship. It asks one question a day, and shows each partner's answer only after both have replied, because the difficulty is never knowing that the conversation matters. It is starting it.
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About Nearvo
Nearvo is an iOS app from Baker Ventures LLC built around a daily question for couples: one prompt, both partners answer, and you see each other's answer only after you have both replied. One partner subscribes and both unlock, because a paywall that asks two people to buy separately is how most couples apps quietly fail. The app is in development.
It is designed for the ordinary version of the problem, which is not a crisis: two people who live together, like each other, and have stopped asking anything that is not logistics. Nearvo is not therapy and does not diagnose a relationship. The question sets on this site are free, need no account, and the research pages cite the studies directly, including where the evidence is weaker than the popular version of it suggests.
Questions and answers
What should you talk about before getting engaged?
Money, children, where you will live, work and ambition, family boundaries, religion and belief, and how each of you handles conflict. Those seven areas produce most of what couples discover later, and none of them requires a crisis to discuss.
Are premarital questions actually useful?
They are useful for surfacing assumptions, which is the specific thing they do. Two people can live together happily for years with incompatible expectations about children, money or geography simply because the subject never came up in a form that required an answer.
What if we disagree on something big?
Finding out now is the point. A disagreement discovered before a commitment is information; the same disagreement discovered after it is a crisis. Some are workable and some are not, and knowing which is what this conversation is for.
How do you bring these up without it being heavy?
A few at a time, in ordinary circumstances, not as a scheduled evaluation. Most of these are more comfortable on a walk or a drive than across a table.
Should you talk about money before getting engaged?
Yes, including the parts that are uncomfortable: debt, income, what each of you earns, what you owe, how you were each raised to think about it, and whether accounts will be joint. Money is the area where assumptions are strongest and least stated.
Does asking these questions mean we have doubts?
No. Wanting to know what you are agreeing to is not doubt, and treating any question as an accusation is itself worth noticing.
Nearvo. “Before you get engaged.” Baker Ventures LLC, September 7, 2026. https://nearvo.bakerventuresstudio.com/questions/before-you-get-engaged/