Get answers to big questions

You love him, he's kind to animals and is never more than half an hour late, but is that a good basis on which to plan your lives together? What are his plans for the future? Will he get apoplectic if you get overdrawn? How does he really feel about your friends? Of course, if everyone knew their partners inside out, there's a good chance no one would ever plight their troth. But we reckon there are ten major life-deciding questions that you should know the answers to before you order the flowers.

Of course, they aren't all questions you can ask directly, or if you do, you won't get an honest answer. But there's more than one way of finding out what you need to know start a conversation around the subject, use friends or people in the news as examples you can find out how he feels about their situation, without relating it directly to you. And your reward? The knowledge you need to make your marriage the best it can possibly be.

1 - Children. Does he want them? "It's astonishing but it's often the last thing couples discuss when they get married," says Jane Hawkesley, a counsellor for Relate. Ignorance may be blissful, but it could bring you both a nasty shock when the subject does come up. "You may not want them to begin with, but you shouldn't fix it. Don't say: 'I'll never want children' and don't put him in that position either. People often change their minds - a woman's biological clock often asserts itself in her mid-30s," cautions Jane.

If you want children now, and he wants them in five years, or you want two and he wants six, you can probably reach a compromise. But be careful if your man is adamant that he never wants children (unless, of course, you don't either). There's no guarantee that he'll change his mind, and the older you get the more critical it will become.

2 - Dreams and Ambitions. Does he have them and do they include you? Does he want to move from the city to a farm in Scotland? This is something you really need to know, especially if you've always lived round the corner from you family and couldn't bear to move. If he is going to have to abandon a dream for the sake of your joint happiness, it's something you need to talk about.

In the same way, you need to know if he wants to be Prime Minister would you be happy being a high flier's wife, with all the pressures that can bring? Or will his lack of ambition drive you to distraction? Dreams are precious and should be valued, even if you know that they are unlikely to come true. But remember that dreams and ambitions change as you get older; by his forties your high flier may have turned into a slippers and spaniel man, and who knows? By then you may want to be PM.

3 - Money. Is he always in the red? "Attitudes to money are important," explains Sarah Litvinoff, author of The Relate Guide to Better Relationships. "In a way, it doesn't matter too much what that attitude is, as long as you both share it. You may end up in the red, but as long as it's not by too much, you're less likely to have rows about it. "If you do feel differently about money - you're always overdrawn, he knows where every penny goes - you need to work out practical ways of dealing with it. Keep separate accounts, and a joint account for household bills. You need to negotiate and you need to be open about money. Bear in mind that money is one of the main causes of marriage break-up.

4 - Parents. How big a part do they play in his life? Parents can have such an enormous effect on your lives together that you need to work out the boundaries right at the beginning. Leave it for a year, and you'll have established a pattern which will be hard to break.

Does your man always have lunch with his parents on Sundays and spend every Christmas in front of their TV? Your first battle will be changing the routine, gently but firmly, so that everyone knows that things will be different from now on. You could suggest that you both pop round on a weekday evening, or you could take mum-in-law shopping on Saturday while he's at the match. Don't try to cut his parents out of your lives, see if you can make visiting them a pleasure rather than a duty.

5 - Housework. Does he know what a Hoover is for? "This (along with money) is at the top of things we row about," says Sarah Litvinoff. "And it's far better to get it out on the table, and to discuss it, even if you disagree, than to find yourself nagging later." Talk to your partner about who did the housework in his childhood home. If his mum did the lot and he thinks that's as it should be, you're going to have your work cut out persuading him to do his share.

"Men often put a lot of energy into the courtship period," warns Jane Hawksley. "Never use that as a gauge for the future. When he's trying to impress you or your family, he may do all sorts of things he wouldn't dream of doing after the wedding. Your task is to let him know how you feel about housework that you hate it just as much as he does and if you do it together you can go to the pictures or to bed twice as quickly."

6 - Faithfulness. Does he know what is means?This is a tricky area. Ask him if he intends always to be faithful and you've got a 99.9 percent chance of him saying yes. Only the incurably honest would say no, and face the row that followed. If you want to find out how he feels about being faithful, try talking about it in abstract terms. Talk about the latest celebrity scandal, or friends in this situation and see how he responds.

If he's very good-looking, and/or a terrible flirt, you have to face the fact that unless you're very self-confident, sooner or later you may worry about him straying. Can you cope with that? If you can't, talk to him. He's unlikely to know how you feel, and until he does, he can't put your mind at rest. And remember that often the situation changes. Men who've had lots of girlfriends do settle down. And people who set out to be faithful do fall passionately in lust with other people. You can't guarantee the future.

7 - Past Loves. Is there someone he's never got over? There's an argument here for saying what you don't know won't give you sleepless nights. On the other hand, if there is someone in his past who still has a place in his heart, you do need to know about it before you can deal with it.

And there are different types of love. Don't be concerned if he has precious memories of a passionate affair. "Passion and long-term love are two different things," says Jane Hawksley. "You don't often marry the passionate love of your life. You marry the person you feel most comfortable with. And he has chosen to marry you."

8 - Friends. Can you keep them? Now you're one of a pair, it doesn't mean that you have to do everything together, but the chances are that you will want to spend a lot of your spare time with each other. So you have to set the boundaries for friends, in just the same way that you do for parents. If he's been used to lads' nights out each week and football practice on Sundays, you're going to have to reach a compromise.

9 - Equality. Does he see you as a partner, or is he already the boss? This is something that you may have already influenced. For, says Jane Hawksley, you set the pattern early on in your relationship. "Don't think you have to be extra nice to him in the courtship period it will be very hard to backtrack later on. Be quite clear about what you'll put up with."