Fathers: Questions to Ask a Girl Dating Your Son!

Fathers, the following are some questions to ask a possible future spouse for your son! With commentary provided in italix.

Once your son is in a serious relationship, you might consider asking the young woman some (or all) of the following questions. Of course, her dad should be grilling your son, but it also helps for you to ask her the following questions (notice there aren’t as many as for the son dating your daughter). For some these might seem a bit too intimate, but my goal is to have such a close relationship with her that it wouldn’t even be that awkward.

1. Have you received Christ as the Forgiver and Leader of your life?/Tell me about your conversion experience. If this woman is not saved, she is disqualified immediately because I don’t want my son being unequally yoked. Marriage is hard enough when you are equally yoked.

2. Where are you at with the Lord right now, and what are you doing to grow in your relationship with Him? This tells me if she is a growing Christian. It also tells me what spiritual disciplines she practices. If she can’t be disciplined as a single woman, not much chance she will once married.

3. Are you in an accountability relationship with another woman (or women’s group)? The women she has in her life will tell me a lot about how teachable she is.

4. Tell me about your relationship with your parents (the good and not so good)? Often a woman will treat her husband the way she treats her dad. You might talk to her father about how she treats him.

5. What needs do you have in your life in which my son will need to be sensitive to in order for this marriage to work well? The more I know about her needs, the more I can help my son be a great husband.

6. What do you enjoy doing in your free time and whom do you do it with? How a woman spends her time and whom she spends it with tells me a lot about her.

7. What is your understanding of the roles of the husband and wife in a marriage? What role do you expect my son to play in the marriage? What role do you see yourself having? It is very important to get a person’s expectations on the table before the “I Do” is said. I am asking this as much for my son as I am for my sake.

8. What attracts you to my son? Certainly the physical will be part of it (or should be), but it better not be all there is. The more character qualities she mentions, the more points she gains with me. I really hope to hear that she respects him!

9. How much debt are you bringing into this marriage? Many people have college loans. I want my son to know what he will have to handle as the provider. Hopefully he already knows the answer to this question.

10. What are some of your guiding principles and philosophies of parenting? This woman will be the mother of my grandkids. Pretty important!

11. When you have children, do you desire to be a stay-home mom or work outside the home? I hope she wants to be home with the kids, and I certainly hope my son’s salary would allow her to be home.

12. Tell me about your past dating relationships. This will make a lot of people squirm, but if she has made some mistakes (which most of us have), how has she made past wrongs right and gained a clear conscience? My son will suffer if she brings past baggage into the marriage.

13. How will you respond when my son is struggling in some area, like with anger or lust? I should probably share with her what I have observed to be some of the major struggles in my son’s life. She probably already knows them. She needs to know what she is getting into, because we can so easily hide our weakness when dating.

14. If you ever feel like my son is putting his work or hobbies before you, how will you respond? Can she speak the truth in love?

15. What is your biggest fear or apprehension about marriage?

16. What will you do if you are struggling in this marriage and an old boyfriend tries to make contact with you on the Internet? Marriage counselors tell us that the Internet is in some way a major force in 70% of all divorces.

17. What will you do when your sex drive decreases but his stays the same or increases (this often occurs after you have a child)? What will you do to avoid sexual immorality in the marriage? No commentary needed here, because the importance of this area is obvious to all.

18. Are you physically healthy? Are you willing to take a blood test for STDs? When I got married we had to do this. Can’t believe this isn’t required today.

19. What is something in your past that was painful or difficult, and how have you trusted God through it? This is a great question to ask any fellow follower of Christ.

20. Do you have any questions for me? The questions people ask tell me a lot about them.

Now that we are done with questions, I have a statement to make: if my son ever treats you poorly, feel free to come to me, and I will do everything I can to help.