Discussing Family, Kids, and the Future Before You Assume

They were eight months from the wedding, picking out invitations, when she mentioned offhandedly that she couldn’t wait for their kids to have grandparents living nearby. He went quiet for a second too long. He didn’t want kids near either of their families, he wanted a fresh start somewhere new, and he had assumed she understood that from things he’d said in passing over the past year. She had assumed the opposite, based on nothing more than watching how close he was with his own parents. Neither of them had ever actually asked the other directly. They had built an entire imagined future on two different sets of assumptions, and neither had noticed until an invitation-picking evening cracked it open.

This happens more often than engaged couples expect, and it happens precisely because these topics feel settled without ever being discussed, simply because two people who love each other assume love is enough to guarantee they want the same future. Proverbs, wisdom literature written to train discernment for everyday life, repeatedly contrasts the diligent, who plan carefully, with the hasty, who move forward without doing the work of thinking things through.

“The plans of the diligent surely lead to profit; and everyone who is hasty surely rushes to poverty.” (Proverbs 21:5, WEB)

The proverb isn’t only about financial planning, though that’s often how it’s applied. At its core, it’s describing two fundamentally different postures toward the future: one that does the unglamorous work of thinking ahead, and one that assumes momentum will carry things forward on its own. Hasty, in this context, doesn’t necessarily mean reckless in an obvious way. It can simply mean moving forward on assumption instead of on actual agreement, which is exactly what happens when engaged couples let major future questions go undiscussed because the relationship feels good enough that surely everything else will sort itself out.

Children are the most obvious example of a topic couples assume rather than discuss, but they’re far from the only one. Do you both want kids, and roughly how many, and when? Where will you live, and how close to extended family? Whose career takes priority if a job requires relocating? What role will each set of parents play in your household once you’re married? What are your actual expectations around holidays, caregiving for aging parents, or moving across the country for an opportunity? These are not romantic conversations. They rarely come up naturally over candlelit dinners. That’s exactly why the diligent couple has to schedule them on purpose rather than waiting for them to arise organically, because left alone, most couples default to assuming their partner wants roughly what they want, filling in the blanks with hope instead of information. Even good, healthy relationships fall into this trap, precisely because things feel easy right now, and it’s tempting to believe that ease will automatically extend to every future decision without ever being tested by an honest conversation.

The cost of skipping this diligence isn’t felt during engagement, when everything still feels flexible and far off. It’s felt three, five, ten years into marriage, when a hasty assumption made during a happy season of dating collides with a real decision that has to be made now: a job offer in another state, a fertility struggle neither expected, an aging parent who needs care. Proverbs’ warning about rushing to poverty isn’t only financial poverty. It’s the poverty of a marriage built on undiscussed assumptions, arriving at major crossroads without ever having agreed on the destination.

It’s also worth naming that this diligence isn’t a one-time checklist you complete before the wedding and then never revisit. People change. What felt like a firm answer about children at twenty-five can shift by thirty, shaped by a friend’s difficult pregnancy, a career opportunity, or simply years of growth neither of you anticipated. Diligent planning means having these conversations now, honestly and specifically, but it also means agreeing to keep having them, checking back in every few years rather than assuming the answers given during engagement are permanently fixed. A marriage that revisits its big questions periodically is practicing the same diligence Proverbs praises, just on an ongoing basis instead of a single evening.

What This Looks Like This Week

Imagine an engaged couple who sits down, not for a casual chat, but with an actual list of future-shaping questions written out ahead of time: children, career priorities, geography, extended family involvement, faith practices in the home, and long-term financial goals. They go through the list one item at a time, genuinely surprised by two or three answers they had assumed but never confirmed. It’s not a comfortable evening, and it doesn’t resolve every disagreement on the spot. But by the end, they have replaced assumption with actual information, which means they can now make real decisions together instead of discovering conflicting expectations five years into marriage when the stakes are much higher.

This week, write out five to seven future-shaping questions you have never actually asked your partner directly, even if you think you already know the answer, and sit down together to go through them out loud. Where you find agreement, celebrate it. Where you find a gap, that gap is worth far more attention now than it will get later, buried under the busyness of married life. If a gap does surface, resist the urge to solve it in the same conversation where you discover it. Some of these questions deserve their own dedicated follow-up talk, ideally with prayer in between, so neither of you feels cornered into a hasty compromise just to make the discomfort go away.

Diligence now is an act of love, not a lack of romance. A future built on honest conversation rather than convenient assumption is a future far more likely to hold steady when real life arrives, and far less likely to be blindsided by a disagreement that could have been named years earlier, while there was still time and grace to work through it together.

Reflect

1. What is one assumption you are currently making about your future together, kids, location, career, that you have never actually confirmed out loud with your partner?
2. Where have you noticed yourself filling in the blanks about your partner's expectations with hope rather than with something they actually said?
3. What future-shaping conversation have you been putting off because it feels less enjoyable than other wedding planning?

A Prayer for Today

Lord, I confess how easy it is to assume my partner wants what I want simply because our relationship feels good right now. Give us the diligence Proverbs describes, the willingness to sit down and do the unglamorous work of planning honestly for our future. Reveal any assumptions we are carrying that we have never actually confirmed with each other. Replace our hasty guessing with real conversation, and give us patience with each other where we discover we don't yet agree. Build our future on truth, not convenience. Amen.

Your Action Step

This week, write down five future-shaping questions you've never directly asked your partner and go through them together in one sit-down conversation.