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1.Where you’d live
Where you’d live — which city, and whether with their mother, near her, or on your own.
Why ask it early
Whether this is decided by the two of you, or with a family in the room, is easy to assume rather than ask. One of you pictures a house with family in it; the other pictures a front door of your own. Two people can agree on everything else and find out only once the lease is signed that they pictured different homes.
The words
Can I ask you something practical? When you picture us married — where are we living? Which city, and are we with your family, near them, or on our own? I’m not asking for a promise. I want to know what you’ve been picturing.
What to listen for
Listen for whether they has pictured it at all. “Wherever you want” sounds generous and names no city: ask which one. A specific answer you don’t like is worth more than a vague one you do.
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2.Their family in your home
Their family in your home — how much hosting, and whether a sister or their mother might live with you one day.
Why ask it early
Hosting is honour, and it is also labour, and somebody carries it. The difference between a family that visits and a family that moves in is easy to leave unnamed until the suitcase is in the hallway.
The words
I want to ask about your family and our home — not to set rules, just so I’m not surprised later. Do you picture anyone living with us, now or one day? And how much hosting do you imagine? I’d rather we plan for it together than have it all land on one person.
What to listen for
Listen for whether they answers both halves — who lives with you, and how it would be for you. If they hears only the first half, as an insult to their mother, you have seen how they hears it when it is raised. Say the second half again, plainly.
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3.Whether you’d work
Work — whether you’d keep working after marriage and after children, and who would do what at home.
Why ask it early
“Of course” is easy to say before the first baby, when what each of you assumed about home surfaces. The question is not whether one of you minds the other working. It is what each of you pictures happening at home while you both do.
The words
Can we talk about work? I’ll tell you what I picture after we’re married, and after children, and I want to hear what you picture. Not in general — day to day: who does what at home?
What to listen for
Ask the second half — who does what at home — and watch whether they has an answer or a joke. The joke is the answer.
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4.Money sent home
Money — who pays for what, and what either of you sends home to family.
Why ask it early
Money sent home is easy to leave unsaid until after the wedding. It is not about generosity. It can be two families’ expectations landing on one income, unspoken.
The words
Can we talk about money plainly? Do you send money home, and who to? I’ll tell you mine. And once we’re married, do we decide that together, or does each of us decide our own?
What to listen for
You are not looking for a number. You are looking for whether they will say it out loud, and whether “together” comes easily or makes them defensive. Someone who can name their obligations can be planned around. Someone who won’t has not given you anything to plan around yet.
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5.Children
Children — whether you want them, how many, how soon, and whether they’d speak Somali at home and go to dugsi.
Why ask it early
“Inshallah, when Allah wills”, said on its own, covers a wide range of very different lives. How soon, how many, Somali in the house, dugsi on Saturdays — these are decisions, and they get made whether or not you make them together.
The words
When you think about children — do you want them, how many, and how soon after we’re married? And what matters to you about raising them — Somali at home, dugsi, what they’d call your mother? I want to hear what you picture, not what sounds right — and I’ll tell you mine.
What to listen for
Listen for whether they has pictures or only phrases. Pictures can be talked about. Phrases cannot.
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6.Deen, day to day
Deen, day to day — prayer at home, what “practising” means on an ordinary Tuesday, and what you each expect of the other.
Why ask it early
Two people can both say “deen comes first” and mean completely different Tuesdays. One means fajr together; the other means Eid and Ramadan. And what each of you expects of the other — at home, in company, in what comes into the house — is something you each have an opinion on, whether or not you have said it.
The words
We both say deen matters. Can I ask what that looks like for you on a normal day — prayer, and the things you’d want in the house and not in it? And is there anything you’d expect of me that you haven’t said, because you assumed I’d know?
What to listen for
The second question is the real one. Note whether the answer is specific, and whether it is about them as much as about you.
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7.The aroos and the mahr
The aroos and the mahr — how big a wedding, who pays, and what your two families will expect.
Why ask it early
The mahr is the bride’s, whatever the families expect around it. The wedding is where two families’ expectations meet in public, with money attached. Leave it unsaid and you can end up carrying a debt, or a resentment, that was never yours.
The words
I want to talk about the wedding before our families do — what you imagine, what’s realistic, and what you think each of our families will expect. And the mahr: I’d rather we discuss it between us first than hear a figure through somebody else.
What to listen for
Watch whether they treats it as something you two decide, or something that will be decided for you both. Either can work. You just need to know which one you are marrying into.
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8.Qabiil
Qabiil — whether either of your families will make it a question, and what the two of you have said to each other about it.
Why ask it early
“It doesn’t matter to me” can be true of both of you and still not settle it. The question was never only about you two. It is whether either family will raise it — and whether they will stand next to you if they do.
The words
Can I ask something people don’t usually ask? Will qabiil come up — from your side, or mine? I’m not asking whether it matters to you. I’m asking what we’d do if it matters to someone in your family, or in mine.
What to listen for
“It doesn’t matter to me” is the beginning. What you want to hear is what they would do if it mattered to their uncle. If they has no answer yet, that is the answer for now: ask them to think about it, and ask again.
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9.Going back
Going back — whether either of you plans to move back one day, or spend long stretches away, and whether the other would go.
Why ask it early
“One day I’ll go back” can be said, and meant, for years, and the other person finds out what “one day” means when the ticket is booked. Whether you go together, one of you stays, or you split the year is a marriage-shaped decision.
The words
Do you see yourself moving back one day — or spending months at a time there? I’m not asking you to decide now. I’m asking what you picture, because I need to know if I’m in that picture, and where.
What to listen for
Listen for whether you appear in the answer. “We’d figure it out” means you are not yet in the picture.
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10.A second wife
A second wife — what they believes about it for their own life, and what they has said to you plainly.
Why ask it early
It is easy not to ask, because asking feels like an accusation. It isn’t. It is a question whose answer shapes the rest of a life, and where “it is permitted” and “I would” are very different sentences.
The words
Can I ask you something straight? I’m not accusing you of anything. Would you ever want a second wife — not whether it’s permitted, but in your own life? I’d rather hear it from you now than wonder.
What to listen for
You are listening for a plain sentence. A lecture on what is permitted is a way of not answering. A plain “no” and a plain “I might” are both answers you can build on. Only the lecture isn’t. If you want something written into the nikah about it, what a condition can hold is a question for a scholar.
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11.When the families disagree
When the families disagree — whose side, and how it gets settled between the two of you.
Why ask it early
Two families will want different things at some point. Decide, before it happens, that the two of you are a team first.
The words
What happens when your family and mine want different things — about the wedding, about where we live, about anything? Between us, how do we decide? I’d rather we work that out now, before it happens.
What to listen for
If the answer is about keeping one mother happy and the other quiet, the team is not yet the two of you. That is fixable — but only if you both know it.
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When you don’t know your own answer yet
You can’t ask for an answer you don’t have yourself. That is not a failing — it is one you can fix on your own.
I haven’t worked out where I stand on this yet, and I want to before we talk about it properly. Can we come back to it in a week? I’ll tell you plainly then, and I’ll want the same from you.
Write your own answer down before you ask for their. Otherwise their becomes yours by default, and you find out later that it never was.
When you see it differently
You already know you see this differently. The next conversation is not about who is right. It is about what each of you could not live with, and whether there is an arrangement you would both keep.
We know we see this differently, and I don’t want either of us to pretend we don’t. Can we each say what we couldn’t live with here, and what we could? Then let’s see whether there’s a way of doing it that we’d both keep — not just one that closes the subject.
Listen for whether they can name what they couldn’t live with, and whether they asks for yours. An arrangement is real when you could both say it back the same way. If what one of you couldn’t live with is the whole question, there is no middle to find: that is a line, and it is allowed to be one. If it gets heated, you can stop — “Can we stop here and pick it up tomorrow? I want to sort this out, not win it.” — and then come back to it.
When it is a line for one of you
A line is not a position to bargain over, and nothing here will ask you to. What is left is whether they has heard it plainly, from you, and whether their answer is final too.
I want to say something plainly, so it isn’t left open between us. This one is a line for me. I’m not asking you to meet me halfway on it, and I don’t want you to agree just to please me. I’d rather know now whether your answer is final too.
When you have had them all
Agreement from six months ago is a memory, not a contract — and so is an arrangement. Closer to the day, answers can move.
Now that it’s getting closer, can we go back over what we agreed, and how we said we’d handle the things we see differently? Not because I doubt you — I just want to check we still mean the same things.See which of the eleven you two have had →