The issues that tear long-term couples apart are anything but fun and sexy, and so few people want to talk about them when they're excitedly making plans for how they'll announce their engagement on Instagram (let's get that sunset just right!). But it pays to anticipate challenges before you make a commitment-- whether marriage, living together, having a child, or otherwise getting on the "relationship escalator." Today we go through 18 specific and often surprising problems that commonly wreck marriages, and we give you ways to think them through before letting your relationship suffer the same fate. Know a couple who might be getting engaged, or taking the step to move in together? We promise it's not passive-aggressive to send them this episode-- it will make for a stronger marriage, not break one up.

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Dr. Andrea Bonior: How do people make the decision to get married, or to commit to each other? And why do so many marriages, even if the oft-quoted 50 percent figure is not the whole picture, struggle and end up in divorce? Could it be that there are warning signs that were missed, or issues that could have been worked out before getting engaged?

Today, we're talking about questions that often go undiscussed before people walk down the aisle. They reflect the most common hiccups and incompatibilities and struggles that marriages have. And the more proactive that couples can be in having honest conversations about them, the better the road is paved toward functional communication, conflict resolution, compromise, and avoiding surprises later. if you've been married for a while or aren't even dating anyone but are thinking about it, you'll learn a bit about incompatibility landmines if you join us for today's Baggage Check.

Welcome. I'm Dr. Andrea Bonior, and this is Baggage Check: Mental Health Talk and Advice, with new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Baggage Check is not a show about luggage or travel. Incidentally, it is also not a show about shrimp-peeling devices.

Now, a quick listener discretion note-- this episode will talk about physical intimacy within a couple. So, let's get started. I was doing a TV segment for this podcast premiere at the beginning of November, and I shared the green room with a wonderfully friendly woman and her publicist, who were there because she was a jeweler. And she was doing the segment after mine about all of the trends in engagement rings, because as of November, people apparently start thinking about the holidays, and it turns out it's a very common time for folks to get engaged. Maybe the jewelry itself is a gift, serving a dual purpose of securing the commitment. Perhaps you don't want to have to think about buying a different gift if you're just going to propose this winter anyway, so why not do it over the holidays and kill two birds with just one stonet? That's a terrible expression. I know, grow two trees with one seed, I guess? Uh, anyway, also when people are spending time with family it can be heartwarming to be able to give the engagement news in person. And to get to celebrate together because there's probably already some good desserts in the fridge. But as I chatted with this jeweler and we got into all the different fun ring shapes-- and goodness, if you are a professional jeweler about to do a segment on live television, you've got some hardware. You’re packing the good stuff and they are all far more cleaned and sparkly than my jewelry will ever be. So it was fun. But I got to thinking about the fact that the idea of an engagement ring is such a big purchase, such a big decision and something that a lot of people go into with a lot of opinions. Is rose gold just a fad, or how many flaws does this diamond have? And yet, in the public conversation, the type that's going on on morning television, we don't talk as much about compatibility of couples. Are we well matched? What can we do now so that it will be less likely that we'll be resentful or irritated or regretful with each other in a couple of years? But those things aren't as romantic to talk about as princess-cut diamonds. I get it. But even if we remove the traditional engagement idea and we talk more broadly about committed relationships-- if we don't limit this discussion to just legal marriage, but rather the choice to live together or to begin a life together in a new place, or to commit to devoting your life to each other as partners, or to choose to bring a child into the world together, whether the child was planned or not. I still don't think there's a lot of talk about all the different things that should be considered. Especially because all of those choices that I mentioned in terms of commitment have serious implications financially, logistically and emotionally-- whether there's a piece of paper or ceremony or not. Now, premarital counseling can certainly get into this, and some people do that. But I think in everyday life, we kind of assume that if two people are in love and they're ready to make a commitment, they probably figured all this stuff out. And maybe they have. I'm not in everybody's head, so who am I to judge? But I do work with a lot of people who are part of unhappy couples or who are going through separation or divorce and who maybe had an inkling that there was something that might someday be a problem. But they chose to ignore it, or they convinced themselves that it would change, or they just kind of procrastinated on it because it was too uncomfortable to talk about. So my goal today is to empower you to at least think about some of these questions. If you are committing for life or even just committing to living together, which sometimes puts you on the relationship escalator-- people think oh, we're just living together, but in reality it's sort of the tacit commitment to take step one of the premarital process. That's the trajectory that seems to happen a lot. I think if people are honest, many of them have that expectation. Living together is a trial run for engagement and marriage. And there's nothing wrong with it at all, as long as you're both seeing it in the same way. Instead of one person seeing it as hey, I'll save something on rent, and the other person seeing it as hey, we got engaged to be engaged.

So again, my goal today is to empower you to be mindful of these things. It's really important to know that there are some very common themes of what tends to put cracks in relationships over time, because life happens. Any two people going through life together are going to jointly and individually experience loss, experience stress, have health concerns, financial worries… and so you want to make sure that you have the foundation to handle all this as well as possible. Not one of these questions is meant to say hey, you have to get this answer right or else, or that you have to be exactly matchy matchy in order to be compatible. That's not what we're after, and there are no deal breakers here. What we're after is actually asking the question and being willing to have a discussion and being willing to build communication skills enough that you allow yourself to be vulnerable and work through some of this stuff. Even if you don't arrive at exactly the same answer, this will make you better able to know what you're up against, when you're already aware of some of the differences that might need to be managed or adjusted from time to time. I know this stuff is not particularly romantic to talk about, and it's also not nearly as fun as a fat five pronged oval cut diamond with baguettes. Wait, baguettes? Is that bread? How is that the same word? Are diamond baguettes bread-shaped? Where's my list—“To Be Googled Later”? Okay, so I know this stuff is not as fun as jewelry and proposal scenes and Instagram photos of the happy couple, but if it helps build a stronger foundation that is far more valuable. Because it's not the jewelry that keeps you together or not, it's actually the bread. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Okay. Number one, what of our differences do I love now but may find grating in five years? It's been pointed out by many people that the irony of passionate, romantic love is that opposites can attract it first. And that the qualities that are most different between partners can really draw people in at times. But they might also be what tears you apart after a few years. The extrovert versus the introvert, the carefree spender versus the controlled financial spreadsheet maker, the person who is actually willing to buy a 7-11 taquito, versus the person who thought that those were some sort of ironic props that no one would actually consume. Well, novelty in terms of opposites attracting, that's great for excitement. And it's wonderful to have a partner expose us to different perspectives and expand our horizons. But when we have habits that are most comfortable for us and our partner's habits are very different from that, then what used to be exciting can turn very, very frustrating. Number two, how do we handle stress as individuals and as a couple? What's your partner like when they've gotten a super unfair parking ticket that costs way more than seems legal? Or when they've had a bad performance review? When they haven't had enough sleep? Or when their parents have a health scare? Or when they're running late and now there's a traffic jam? Or when they have to call customer service for a defective product? Often the rosy period of early romance has everyone restraining themselves to be on their best behavior. This makes the early romance sweeter, of course, but it also denies us a glimpse into who our partners are when they're under pressure, and decades of marriage and life in general, for that matter, can bring plenty of pressure. Even more important is how the two of you handle stress together. Do you retreat and isolate, or do you connect to resolve things as a team? Number three-- what are my and my partner’s relationships with drugs, alcohol, gambling, and food? Now, problems with substance abuse and gambling, they can crop up unexpectedly in a marriage. And I've actually been seeing a lot of that with new types of popular substances like kratom, or new types of gambling like online sports betting. People who didn't have problems before might develop new ones. Um, but also often the signs of potential problems with alcoholism or addiction were there all along, but were willfully not talked about or even acknowledged. Perhaps out of fear or out of denial. Or maybe what seems reasonable for a young, childless couple in terms of partying and drinking no longer seems reasonable with two toddlers underfoot. And yet one partner can't seem to change their lifestyle. Food is the same. Often different habits can be charming at first, but after a while, one partner gets frustrated at the other for their intake of processed foods, or another partner feels judged for their struggle with binge eating. Take a hard look at your partners and your own relationship with all of these things I've mentioned. As much as you might want to ignore potential problems, it is invariably true that the earlier the problems are addressed, the better chance there is that they can be managed jointly and individually. Number four-- how are we as roommates? “We are living like roommates rather than lovers” is often used as an example of how a relationship has lost its spark. And indeed, it is not a good thing when your partner sort of reminds you of Bobby Harrison, that kid you bunked with and in the Catskills for summer camp. and honestly, Bobby wasn't really a whiz with the deodorant. But I would argue that getting along as roommates, though not sufficient for a longterm commitment, is still crucial. For one, this is the bare minimum whether you are living together or not. Really look at your habits of what it would be like to be roommates for decades. How well do you compromise about what the temperature should be? How do your sleep schedules work out? How do you resolve issues about cleanliness and decorating styles and chores and guests and pets and food preparation? Who tends to be waiting for whom when you're going out to dinner or trying to leave for vacation? Number five-- what are our thoughts about kids? And how certain are they? Virtually everybody would acknowledge that opinions about whether or not to have kids should be openly discussed and clarified before getting married. But you may be surprised how often this becomes an issue anyway because of one important and overlooked phenomenon-- people change. It's important not just to discuss your preferences, but to assess how much wiggle room you each have. If each of you vaguely imagines having two children, that might sound like you're perfectly compatible on that score. But what if, after one child, one of you absolutely wants to stop? What happens if infertility is an issue? How hard will you continue to try? How do you feel about different infertility treatments and adoption? What happens if one person still has the itch for more children after the number was already reached that you both kind of agreed on? What happens if one person unexpectedly wants to be a stay at home parent or not? It's important to dig deeper here. Number six-- how much do we talk about our relationship with others? Few people outline strict ground rules about how much private business should be spread to other friends and family when they're first dating. And this is a good thing, as keeping strong emotional intimacy with friends and family can provide a safety valve, especially for those that are in a controlling relationship, right? You don't want to not be able to talk about your relationship. Not to mention sometimes when people are first dating, their stories can provide entertainment, good, bad or ugly, for their friends. But this also means that generally people just assume that this will all fall into place and that the two of you will keep the same expectations as before. But a lot of partners differ in their beliefs about how much should be shared. Will you consider it a betrayal if your wife spills everything about your sexual intimacy problems to her best friend? Are you okay with a husband who frequently asks his mother for marital advice? There is no exact right answer about how much to share with friends and family. But the more you are on the same page as a couple, the better off and less blindsided you will be. Number Seven-- how do we handle conflict? And how could we be better about it? Decades of marriage and family research have shown one indisputable truth conflicts will arise, and how you handle those conflicts is every bit as important as the conflicts themselves. Have you gotten in the habit of a certain type of arguing? Does one of you stonewall the other? Is one of you always the first to apologize? Does one person express their feelings and the other holds them in until resentment builds? Is one of you prone to yelling and getting it all out in the moment while the other person wants space to cool down before talking things through? In general, the healthiest marriages have respectful and honest communication without game playing, passive aggressiveness personal attacks, or power trips. Examine your styles of handling conflicts and see if there is room for improvement. Number eight-- how are we with each other's families? The inlaws. They are almost a cliche in terms of how often they're a source of stress and conflict within a marriage. You need not experience rapturous admiration for your spouse's family, though if you do, how lucky you are. But you do need to make sure that you and your partner have a comfortable understanding of what's reasonable in terms of these family dynamics. What if your partner has a very conflicted relationship with their parents, but you find those parents harmless and rather entertaining? What if your husband wants to spend two weeks of an annual vacation with his brother's family and you can't stand their politics? What role will your inlaws have in your potential children's lives? What happens as your spouse's parents age and need care? What happens if your extended families need to borrow money or instead they give you an amount that changes your dynamic? How close and open will you be with your family and your partner with theirs about the goings on in your day to day lives? Often, the planning of a wedding itself is the first arena where these inner family squabbles develop. Don't brush them off, but take it as an opportunity for practice. Number ten-- how compatible are we in our money styles and how will we handle finances once married? Money is another hot button issue that is near the top in terms of the ways that marriages typically turn sour. From different spending styles to how big of a house to buy, from different attitudes about debt and, quote unquote, retail therapy to hidden accounts, childhood baggage about money, and differing expectations about how much should be lent to friends and family, or even just how much to tip the refrigerator delivery guy. Money conflicts can be killer to deal with. Money is often tied up with all kinds of emotional importance, and so it can carry the weight of its association with everything from freedom to security to autonomy to power and status. The more you talk about it and the more honest you are with yourselves and each other about what you're bringing to the table in terms of your money attitudes and how they will be managed, the better foundation you can build in your marriage. Number Eleven-- who needs more free time and alone time? And is that okay now, it's not traditionally thought of as one of the major conflict areas of a marriage, and yet I personally see it causing conflict all the time in my clients. From big ways, like he's used to four or 5 hours of golf on the weekends, or she wants to continually go out on weekend getaways by herself, to small ones like she needs ten minutes of pre-coffee silence in the morning, or he likes to work out by himself and not with her. There is wide variation in how much time people need for themselves or with their personal friends. So how well do your styles fit together? Big differences can be accommodated if there is respect and understanding and communication. But if it's never talked about, then two years into the marriage, when he is still on his weekly guys night out and she's frustrated to be home alone with Netflix because she always assumed he'd eventually give those nights up once he got married, that could spell resentment. That could become serious. Number Twelve-- how should household chores be divided? Bickering over household chores is another cliche, but it couldn't be more real for many couples. Unfortunately, even couples who have a comfortable division of responsibility premarriage can often be thrown into resentful conflicts once circumstances change the addition of a baby, a change in a partner's job or commute, or a bigger house with new types of maintenance needed. I also see that in many heterosexual marriages, gender stereotypes when it comes to divvying up housework may gradually seep in after the wedding, even if they weren't there when the couple first lived together. Or this is especially true if children enter the picture. The research actually bears this out. By the way, there will be conflicts over chores. Count on it. But how will you continue to work on it? How well do you communicate about these conflicts? Will you be able to have an evolving dialogue that takes into account both people's preferences and annoyances in terms of divvying up responsibilities? And if one person falls into the role of the default social planner or the default parent, the one who's always on top of the birthday cards and dentist appointments, are they okay with being that person? We'll talk about that in a future episode. The idea that being project manager is a job in and of itself. So when one partner is always carrying the mental load of being project manager, even if the actual tasks are evenly divided between the two partners, that project manager who has to be thinking and planning and taking the initiative to delegate and putting forth cognitive effort to do so, that project manager is going to start to feel pretty put upon. Remember, project management is an actual job in and of itself. Many, many people have the paychecks to prove it. Number 13-- how do we feel about our job situation? And what would happen if we got fired or wanted to leave? Layoffs, promotions, pay cuts, job transfers, firings, burnout, corporate mergers-- they can all change a person's employment status in the blink of an eye. Is there one partner whose job is considered dominant by salary, by prestige, by passion, by the demands, or by the amount of hours worked? What would happen if that person no longer had that job voluntarily or involuntarily? Are there expectations about who will make more money? Who will or will not stay home with kids who will eventually get promoted, or go to graduate school, or change careers or carry the health insurance? Of course, nothing can be spelled out completely in advance. But the more you can acknowledge what your expectations are, what you hope for, and how you would handle a change in plans, the better you'll be able to roll with the punches when it's needed. Number 14-- how okay am I with my partner's closeness to others and when might I think of it as an emotional affair? Styles of flirtation, emotional intimacy levels with coworkers, modes of communication with friends, amount of work, travel, or tendency to go to lunch or happy hours with people they all vary widely among individuals. An introverted person with no close friends besides their spouse can most certainly still be happily married to a charmer who flirts with the wait staff or who has lunch routinely at expensive restaurants with their coworkers. But only if both parties have eyes wide open about their own and their partner's behavior. Is it alright if your husband is texting his coworkers emojis while you're side by side in bed? Would you be hurt if your partner had lunch with an ex without telling you? Every couple must define for themselves what they are or are not comfortable with. And the more that you pretend that it will all magically work out, even when there are differences, the more you set yourself up for feeling betrayed. Number 15-- what's our relationship to religion? With rates of formal religious service attendance continuing to decline across the US, it's clear that a lot of couples fall into the category of not considering themselves particularly religious. That may seem roughly compatible for day to day life, but often things change and nuances are important. How will you celebrate holidays? Will you expect to start going to places of worship? If you have children, does your religious expression change when your extended family is around? Or in times of crisis? What happens if one of you simply starts becoming more or less religious than they were before? What happens if one of you means one thing by spirituality and the other one means quite another? Again, communication and anticipation are key. Number 16-- what's our expectation about where to live? People move around a lot in young adulthood. Some data suggests more now than ever before. But often the settling down that comes with marriage can reveal long hidden assumptions about where someone thought they would end up. Maybe what one partner views as a temporary adventure for a specific job is something the other partner thinks of as a newly adopted and permanent hometown. Maybe he always assumed that once he had children, he'd move back to the opposite coast to be near his parents. Or she feels the need to be closer to her old friends once she finishes graduate school. Of course, it's totally fine if neither of you wants to draw up a specific plan of where you'll be. After all, life demands flexibility, as long as you're both okay with that. Because when one person has a solidified vision and the other one wants to stay open or change their mind, often that can spell disaster. Number 17-- how important is the upkeep of physical appearance? It's yet another cliche of marriage that comes from a place of truth. Your spouse will not be primping for a day of going out to buy a sump pump for your basement in the same way that they print for your fourth date. And part of the comfort of marriage is knowing that your spouse's love for you is not subject to the same Yay Versus Nay versus kind of judgment of early romantic chemistry, and that when you have a stomach bug, your spouse is going to be focused on helping you through it rather than being grossed out. Nonetheless, I see a lot of couples for whom there can be strain over time when it comes to changes in physical appearance. This taps into everything from hygiene to physical fitness, from clothing choices to grooming and hairstyle and facial hair changes. In an ideal world, by the time you get married, you will already have seen each other more in day to day comfort than in some idealized gussied up version that is impossible to sustain. But what if things change further once a lifetime commitment is made? And how should you talk about each other's bodies? And how much sway should a spouse's opinion matter in your hairstyle or your clothes? Is it acceptable to comment critically on that stuff? Or will you always take a more supportive and complimentary role with each other? This can be a fraught topic, but the more you can bring it out in the open, then if you find it affecting your relationship, the better off you will be. Number 18-- how are things in the bedroom? Yes, some couples may choose to wait until marriage before becoming sexually intimate. But even in those cases, it's important to have communication and mutual understanding about what role sex will be expected to play in a marriage. For the majority of couples, sexual patterns have long had a chance to become ingrained by the time they say “I do.” What happens if sex drives change, whether because of the novelty wearing off or because one partner is facing physical or health changes or psychological changes? What are each partners’ attitudes about pornography? How adventurous are each of you? Does one partner have a significantly higher sex drive than the other, who usually initiates, and is that okay? Does one partner withhold sex as a form of power? How much will be spoken about past sexual partners and histories? Often early in a relationship if both people are excited and happy about what's going on in terms of their sex life, it can mask other problems. But when sex becomes a problem in and of itself, it's important to communicate about it. And sadly, because it can be a really difficult and fraught and awkward topic, sometimes that doesn't happen until long after the early warning signs of trouble were there, which makes it much harder to resolve. So these 18 questions really represent what I have seen over many long years of helping people through rough patches in their marriages. This is not, of course, an exhaustive list. Nowhere did I ask about how each of you will feel about your increasing cable bill, for instance. But these are but these represent a lot of the hot buttons. So get to talking and get to thinking. You need not figure all of this out now, but the more that you can anticipate your differences, the better off you'll be. And if you know somebody who's about to get engaged and maybe they're going on a long car ride together, maybe that's a good time to have them listen to this episode. Are there things I didn't mention here that you find getting in the way? Don't hesitate to reach out to us at baggagecheckpodcast.com. Or did you have a conversation about some of these things and you want to give some feedback? Let us know.

Thank you for joining us today. Once again, I'm Dr. Andrea Bonior and this has been Baggage Check, with new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Join us on Instagram @baggagecheckpodcast podcast to give your take on upcoming topics and guests. And why not tell your chatty coworker where to find us? Our original music is by Jordan Cooper, cover art by Danielle Merity and my studio security is provided by Buster the Dog. Until next time, take good care.