Here are things to know before you ask me to marry you

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not desperate – I’m just a planner. I love to have things planned out in my head before executing them.

The other day I came over to Bosun’s place for the weekend and while doing chores, I noticed this shoe box in the wardrobe. I’ve always seen it but this time, I was curious to know what was in it.

I opened it gently and saw a ring box. My heart started beating rapidly like the beats from a rap music. I held my chest afraid my heart would jump out. Then I opened the box to see the most beautiful engagement ring I’ve ever clapped eyes on. Tears filled my eyes, Bosun was finally going to do it!

Finally, what I’d dreamed would become a reality. I closed my eyes to imagine our future but opened it right back in shock. I saw love, but I also saw disorganisation – a life without focus.

Nah! That’s not me. Before Bosun asks me to marry him, I need for us to deal with some vitals.

They include these issues:

Outstanding debt

Roll not your eyes oh ye ‘judger’ – this is serious business. I want both of us to come clean on who has any outstanding debt and what plans we have to pay them off. Because face it, would you like to marry your spouse along with debt you didn’t know existed?

Managing household finances

I have watched enough marriages to know that committing to a lifetime together means committing to saving for long-term goals, supporting each other’s career changes, planning for retirement and how to raise children together.

That said, I’ll really like Bosun and I want to be on the same page regarding how finances are managed. At least we should deal with issues like:

Do we divide expenses evenly or based on earnings?
How do we track our spending?
What should be priority for our budget?
Do we pool our finances in joint or separate accounts?
What happens if one person loses their job?

I strongly believe that it will help us plan together responsibly. Even though the plan can always change as our lives change, it is a good first step as our lives together begin.

Short and Long-term goals

I’m a saver while Bosun on the other hand is a spender and that means we have to figure out what our priorities are to ensure our goals are aligned.

Our plan will help us identify what our short-term goals are, make plans to meet them while we dream together about what we want the future to look like, and plan towards making it a reality.

While we’ll need to pay rent, we should also dream of having our own home. While we’ll need to buy this and that, we need to remember the place of investment and retirement.

We both need to decide how much we can afford to put aside for our goals each month and get it directly debited into a savings account automatically.

Children

My sister wanted two kids, but her husband wanted four. They didn’t agree before marriage and I know the fight it caused and is still causing till date. I don’t have energy for fight, so we must agree before the journey begins.

Second to how many children we will have, we also need to agree on what level of education we want for them, what kind of schools (foreign or local), will they do Masters here or abroad – then whatever we decide, it will be ideal to plan towards opening an education savings account to make that plan happen.

Will, insurance, demise

Please don’t call me a pessimist – I’m simply being real. Everyday we see families torn apart and lifestyles changed for innocent kids because their parents didn’t expect demise, but it happened. I have no qualms about getting life insurance and writing a will, and I want to be sure Bosun is okay with that too. We both need to plan especially for the children we will have. God forbid one of us passes, that shouldn’t affect the life we foresee for the kids.

Division of household labour

Bosun has always shoved the idea of getting a live-in nanny under the carpet especially with all the nanny-from-hell horror stories in the news. Seeing as he and I work full time, I reckon it will be appropriate to decide who does what in the house.

If he doesn’t like the idea of doing chores, then now will also be the right time to decide if we’ll get a nanny that comes and goes or something else that can work for us both.

Location

A change of location due to work transfer may never happen, but it’s still worth discussing just in case.

I’m looking forward to getting all these sorted with bae, because I already see our future now and it looks awesome.

Meanwhile, you need to discuss these things too and plan ahead to avoid unnecessary fights in the future (You can start here…thank me later).

I hear him coming, let me hide the ring and pretend I haven’t seen it.

Later…

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