A friend recently told me her son is delaying his marriage. The couple discovered some disagreements about how they envisioned being married.

It gave me the opening to share the short book The Hard Questions: 100 Essential Questions to Ask Before You Say “I Do” with my friend. I recommend it highly to anyone considering getting married.

Author Susan Piver lays out the pivotal conversations people should — and almost always don’t — have before getting married. I’ve lent this book to many mediation clients considering new relationships after divorce. Some say they wished they’d talked about these things before having married the first time.

Here is a sample of the topics:

• On Money: Do we keep our money in joint or individual accounts? What purchases must be jointly agreed upon?
• On Home: What is it – an apartment, a townhouse, a house? Who does the grocery shopping, cooking and other meal-related tasks?
• On Children: Will we have children together? If so, when and how many?
• On Work: How ambitious am I? How ambitious are you? If one of us doesn’t want to work, would that be OK?

It’s a great relationship building tool. Piver provides a platform/excuse to talk about difficult topics most folks naturally avoid, to better understand themselves and their prospective partner. As one reviewer put it, these topics are “better discussed before marriage than argued after the nuptials”. I couldn’t have said it any better.