309 Marriage and Divorce Questions to Ask People (Storytelling)

Ask people these 309 marriage and divorce questions for storytelling.

I have interviewed hundreds of people about their experiences concerning marriage, divorce, being single, cohabitation and living together. Based on the answers I received in those interviews, I have listed writing prompts and questions about marriage and divorce to ask people when writing narratives. The marriage and divorce series includes five categories. Use these prompts and questions to help you

• Identify events and memories you can write about
• Organize and write your narrative and story
• Develop questions to ask other people about their life’s
• Organize, research and write stories about others
• Know what type of information to include in narratives and stories
• Identify memorabilia, artifacts, photos, documents to include in stories
• Develop ideas for journaling, story starters, poetry, memoirs, and more
  

Writing Prompts and Questions to Ask People

The ” Marriage and Divorce” writing prompts and questions to ask people are part of the 28 articles, 108 category series entitled “7,500-plus Questions About Life to Ask People When Writing Narratives.” The prompts and questions are provided to help you look at relationships from as many angles as possible when writing narratives about yourself, your family, and others. The categories and types of topics covered include:

• Marriage. Find 92 prompts and questions. Use these prompts and questions to gather and organize information to help you write narratives about yourself, your family, and others. These questions cover meeting each other, dating, engagement, marriage, including your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

• Cohabitation/Living Together. Find 85 prompts and questions. Use these prompts and questions to gather and organize information to help you write narratives about yourself, your family, and others. These questions cover meeting each other, dating, the decision to live together, living together, including your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

• Single Life. Find 24 prompts and questions. Use these prompts and questions to gather and organize information to help you write narratives about yourself, your family, and others. These questions cover meeting being single, opportunities to marry, decisions to be single, including your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

• Divorce. Find 53 prompts and questions. Use these prompts and questions to gather and organize information to help you write narratives about yourself, your family, and others. These questions cover experiences leading up to a divorce, divorce proceedings, life after divorce, including your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

• Additional Marriages. Find 55 prompts and questions. Use these prompts and questions to gather and organize information to help you write narratives about yourself, your family, and others. These questions cover decisions to remarry, meeting each other, dating, engagement, marriage, blending families, including your thoughts, feelings, and experiences.

Approach each topic from the point of view of the person/lives you are writing about. You don’t have to ask every question. Review the questions and determine which ones are most appropriate to ask. I would encourage you to modify and add questions as you desire.

I have prepared a couple of other resources that will provide value in interviewing for and writing individual, personal, and family narratives: “Complete Guide for Conducting Oral History Interviews” and “Complete Guide to Writing A Personal Narrative.”

Marriage

Writing Prompts and Questions

“Marriage” is part of the series for writing prompts and questions about Marriage and Divorce. Use these questions to ask, gather, and organize information to help you write narratives about yourself, your family, and others. If you are writing about a deceased person, think of the questions as if you were the person answering the questions.

1. Who is your spouse?
2. How many years have you been married?
3. When did you first meet your spouse?
   • How old were you?
   • Where were you?
   • Describe the situation?
   • What else do you remember
4. Was it love at first sight?
5. Describe your dating experience and how the relationship grew?
   • When did you realize that you wanted to marry your spouse?
   • What were the most memorable experiences?
   • When did you meet the parents? Describe the experience.
   • What did you like and dislike about dating?
   • What did you like about your future spouse?
   • What concerned you about your future spouse?
   • Who brought up the conversation about marriage?
   • What did you talk about around the topic of marriage?
6. Describe your engagement?
   • Who proposed?
   • What was the proposal like?
   • Was the proposal expected?
   • How long did it take before you both decided to get married?
   • What was your response to the proposal?
   • How did your parents respond to the proposal? Explain.
   • How did your siblings respond to the proposal? Explain.
   • How long was the engagement?
   • Describe your engagement period?
   • What were your most memorable experiences?
   • What else did you learn about your future spouse?
   • Before marriage, did you have any classes or discussions with others about what to expect in marriage? Explain.
   • Did you have to clean up any personal issues before marriage?
   • Did you talk about issues related to finances, religion, heritage, places to live, career, etc.? What do you remember?
7. When were you married?
   • Where were you married?
   • Describe your wedding day?
   • What were the most memorable experiences?
8. Describe some of the details of your wedding.
   • Who were the best men and bridesmaids?
   • Who attended the wedding?
   • Did family and friends attend the wedding?
   • Describe the food and cake.
   • Was there dancing?
   • Were there any customs, rituals that you followed at the reception?
9. Did you go on a honeymoon?
   • Where did you go on your honeymoon?
   • Describe memorable experiences of your honeymoon.
10. What were your expectations of marriage?
11. How did those expectations change over time?
12. How did you adjust to marriage?
13. Was there anything you had to give up when you became married?
    • Such as Home? Career? Independence? Friends? Religion?
    • Explain.
14. What there anything you gained when you became married? Explain.
15. Did you plan on having a family?
    • Describe your family?
    • How is your family different than planned?
    • What are the most and least memorable moments of being a family?
16. Describe the various stages of your marriage?
    • What do you remember most about those states?
17. Did your y spouse have struggles?
    • Describe the struggles. Such as finances, work, children?
    • Were you able to work things out? How?
    • Did your marriage become stronger or weaker? Explain.
18. How did you grow together over time? Explain.
19. How did you grow apart over time? Explain.
20. In what ways did they make them compatible and incompatible?
21. What roles did you take on in the home and marriage?
22. What did you have in common with each other?
23. What were your differences?
24. What do you consider to be the most memorable times of your marriage?
25. What were the least memorable times of your marriage?
26. What plans did you have about your marriage?
    • Did those plans change over time?
    • Explain.
27. Describe the relationship with the in-laws during the marriage?
    • Were they easy to get along with? Explain?
    • Most and least memorable experience?
    • How did you work out holidays with the family?
28. How did your family accept your spouse?
    • Were they easy to get along with? Explain?
    • Most and least memorable experience?
    • How did you work out holidays with the family?
29. Describe your spouse.
    • Likes and dislikes?
    • Talents and hobbies?
    • Type of person?
    • Friends?
30. Was there a time when you consider divorce?
    • Explain what happened? Stay together, divorce, separate?
    • Were you able to work things out? Explain.
31. What advice would you give others about marriage?
32. What would you do differently if you had to do it over?

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Cohabitation/Living Together

Writing Prompts and Questions about Marriage and Divorce

“Cohabitation/Living Together” is part of the series for writing prompts and marriage and divorce questions. Use these questions to ask, gather, and organize information to help you write narratives about yourself, your family, and others. If you are writing about a deceased person, think of the questions as if you were the person answering the questions.

1. Who is your partner?
2. Are you engaged? Good friends? Other?
3. How many years have you been together?
4. When did you first meet them?
   • How old were you?
   • Where were you?
   • Describe the situation?
   • What else do you remember?
5. Was it, love, at first sight?
6. Describe your getting to know each other experience and how the relationship grew?
   • When did you realize that you wanted to be with this person?
   • What were the most memorable experiences?
   • When did you meet the parents? Describe the experience.
   • What did you like and dislike about dating/being together?
   • What did you like about your partner?
   • What concerned you about your partner?
   • Did you ever talk about marriage? What do you remember about the conversation?
   • What did you talk about around the topic of marriage?
7. When did we decide to move in together?
   • Who proposed?
   • What was the proposal like?
   • Was the proposal expected?
   • What was your response to the proposal?
   • How did your parents respond? Explain.
   • How did your siblings respond? Explain.
   • What were your most memorable experiences?
   • What else did you learn about your partner once you moved in together?
8. Did you ever become engaged to be married?
   • Who proposed?
   • What was the proposal like?
   • Was the proposal expected?
   • How long did it take before you both decided to get married?
   • What was your response to the proposal?
   • How did your parents respond to the proposal? Explain.
   • How did your siblings respond to the proposal? Explain.
   • How long was the engagement?
   • Describe your engagement period?
   • What were your most memorable experiences?
   • What else did you learn about your future spouse?
   • Before marriage, did you have any classes or discussions with others about what to expect in marriage? Explain.
   • Did you have to clean up any personal issues before marriage?
   • Did you talk about issues related to finances, religion, heritage, places to live, career, etc.? What do you remember?
9. What were your expectations of being together?
10. How did those expectations change over time?
11. How did you adjust to living together?
12. Was there anything you had to give up?
    • Such as Home? Career? Independence? Friends? Religion?
    • Explain.
13. What there anything you gained when you moved in together? Explain.
14. Did you plan on having a family?
    • Describe your family?
    • How is your family different than planned?
    • What are the most and least memorable moments of being a family?
15. Describe the various stages of your relationship?
    • What do you remember most about those states?
16. Did your partner have struggles?
    • Describe the struggles. Such as finances, work, children?
    • Were you able to work things out? How?
    • Did your marriage become stronger or weaker? Explain.
17. How did you grow together over time? Explain.
18. How did you grow apart over time? Explain.
19. In what ways did they make them compatible and incompatible?
20. What roles did you take on in the home?
21. What did you have in common with each other?
22. What were your differences?
23. What do you consider to be the most memorable times together?
24. What were the least memorable times together?
25. Describe the relationship with the in-laws?
    • Were they easy to get along with? Explain?
    • Most and least memorable experience?
    • How did you work out holidays with the family?
26. How did your family accept your partner?
    • Were they easy to get along with? Explain?
    • Most and least memorable experience?
    • How did you work out holidays with the family?
27. Describe your partner.
    • Likes and dislikes?
    • Talents and hobbies?
    • Type of person?
    • Friends?
28. Was there a time when you consider separating?
    • Explain what happened? Stay together, divorce, separate?
    • Were you able to work things out? Explain.
29. What advice would you give others about living together?
30. What would you do differently if you had to do it over?

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Single Life

Writing Prompts and Questions

“Single Life” is part of the series for writing prompts and questions about Marriage and Divorce. Use these questions to ask, gather, and organize information to help you write narratives about yourself, your family, and others. If you are writing about a deceased person, think of the questions as if you were the person answering the questions.

1. What kept you from marrying someone?
   • Did you want to marry another person?
   • Did you date? Explain your experience?
   • If you did not want to marry, why not?
2. Was there ever a time in your life when you concluded that you were going to be single?
3. How would you describe being single?
   • What did you like and dislikes?
   • What were the challenges and opportunities? Explain.
   • What were the pros and cons?
4. How did your family respond to you being single?
5. Were your friends married or unmarried?
6. Were you ever treated differently because you were single?
7. Talk about the stages of being single?
   • Single from the age of 18-25?
   • Single from the age of 25-45?
   • Single from the age of 45-65?
   • Single from 65+?
8. In what ways did being single affect your life?
9. Did you ever have anyone try to play matchmaker?
10. Where other respectful of you being single? Explain?
11. Were you associated with a person with whom you were close and considered marriage?
    • Who was the person?
    • What kept you from getting married?
12. What else would you like to say about being single?

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Divorce

Writing Prompts and Questions about Marriage and Divorce

“Divorce” is part of the series for writing prompts and questions about Marriage and Divorce. Use these questions to ask, gather, and organize information to help you write narratives about yourself, your family, and others. If you are writing about a deceased person, think of the questions as if you were the person answering the questions.

1. Would you be willing to talk about your divorce?
   • How long were you married?
   • What was the name of your spouse?
   • What year did the divorce take place?
   • Where were you living?
2. What were the circumstances that led up to the decision to divorce?
   • Can you share the experience?
   • Who asked for the divorce?
   • Was the divorce a joint decision?
   • What were the stated issues?
   • Did you try to work out your differences? How? Results?
   • Did you seek any form of counseling individually or together?
   • Were you separated before the divorce took place?
3. Did you have anyone that you trusted and shared your feelings?
   • Who was this person?
   • How did they support you?
4. When did you talk to the children about the divorce?
   • How did the children respond?
5. Did you tell anyone else about the divorce?
   • Who did you tell?
   • What was their response?
   • Was it a surprise, or was it expected?
   10. Did you use a lawyer or other type of person to help you with the divorce?
   • Who was this person?
   • Talk about the process and details about preparing for the divorce?
6. Who represented your spouse?
   • Talk about the process and details as it relates to the divorce?
7. How did you feel about the divorce?
   • What were you feeling?
   • Did you have different feelings as the divorce progressed?
   • Were you in the same home or separate living arrangements before the divorce? Explain.
   • How did you feel?
8. What do you remember about the divorce proceedings?
   • Can you share any details about the settlement?
   • What decisions were made about the children?
   • What decisions were made about home, belongings, business, etc.?
   • What are your feelings about the settlement?
   • What would you have done differently?
9. How did you feel after the divorce was finalized?
10. Talk about life after the divorce?
    • How did it affect your relationship with your children?
    • What was the relationship with your former spouse like?
    • How did it affect your work?
    • How did the divorce affect your personal life?
    • How did the divorce affect your friendships?
11. Talk about the different stages of life after the divorce.
    • Start with the first few months?
    • Expand to include the years that followed?
    • Was there ever a time when you felt like the divorce was the right thing to do?
12. How were you different after the divorce?
13. How did you go about rebuilding your life after the divorce?
14. Did you consider dating again? If yes, explain why and what happened.
15. Is there anything else you would like to add about the divorce?

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Additional Marriages

Writing Prompts and Questions about Marriage and Divorce

“Additional Marriages” is part of the series for writing prompts and questions about Marriage and Divorce. Use these questions to ask, gather, and organize information to help you write narratives about yourself, your family, and others. If you are writing about a deceased person, think of the questions as if you were the person answering the questions.

1. Were you married more than once?
   • Would you like to share your experiences in those marriages?
   • Where would you like to begin?
2. Why cause the previous marriage come to an end?
   • Was it a divorce? Explain.
   • Was it death? Explain.
3. When did you first start to think about dating and the possibility of remarriage?
   • What were the pros and cons in your mind?
4. When did you first meet your spouse?
   • How old were you?
   • Where were you?
   • Describe the situation?
   • What else do you remember?
   • Had your spouse been married before?
   • What did you know about your spouse before you met? Such as children, work/career, divorce?
5. Describe your dating experience and how the relationship grew?
   • When did you realize that you wanted to marry your spouse?
   • What were the most memorable experiences?
   • When did you meet the parents? Describe the experience.
   • What did you like and dislike about dating?
   • What did you like about your future spouse?
   • What concerned you about your future spouse?
   • Were you concerned about getting remarried? Explain.
6. Did you have talks about your previous marriages?
   • What did you talk about?
   • Was it a hard or easy discussion? Explain.
   • What did your future spouse share about their life?
7. Did the person you were dating have children/family?
   • What did you learn about the family?
   • When did you meet the family?
   • What was meeting the family like?
   • How did the family respond to you?
   • What were your first reactions?
   • What were your concerns?
   • How did being with the family evolve?
   • Did you ever meet the previous spouse? Your thoughts and experience?
8. Did you have a family from a previous marriage?
   • What did you share about your family?
   • When did you decide to introduce your family to the person you were dating?
   • What was meeting the family like?
   • What were your first reactions?
   • What were their concerns?
   • How did being with the family evolve?
   • Did you ever introduce your previous spouse? Your thoughts and experience?
9. If you had children/family from a previous marriage,
   • Did you talk about the possibility of getting married?
   • What did you say?
   • How did the children respond? Pros and cons.
   • How did you respond to their feelings?
10. Did you discuss with your previous spouse about getting married?
    • What did you say?
    • How did they respond? Pros and cons.
    • How did you respond to their feelings?
11. Did you discuss with your future spouse’s children/family before you decided to get married?
    • What did you say?
    • How did they respond? Pros and cons.
    • How did you respond to their feelings?
12. Describe your engagement?
    • Who proposed?
    • What was the proposal like?
    • Was the proposal expected?
    • How long did it take before you both agreed to get married?
    • What was your response to the proposal?
    • How did your parents respond to the proposal? Explain.
    • How did your siblings respond to the proposal? Explain.
    • How did your children respond? Explain?
    • How did your future spouses’ children respond? Explain.
    • How long was the engagement?
    • Describe your engagement period?
    • What were your most memorable experiences?
    • What else did you learn about your future spouse?
    • Before marriage, did you have any classes or discussions with others about what to expect in marriage? Explain.
    • Did you have to clean up any personal issues before marriage?
    • Did you talk about issues related to finances, religion, heritage, places to live, career, etc.? What do you remember?
13. If you both had children before marriage, how did you go about helping them get used to the idea, experience, relationship of a new blended family?
    • Pros and Cons?
    • Most and least memorable experiences?
14. What were your expectations going into this marriage?
    • How were these expectations different from the first marriage?
    • What were your concerns about going into this marriage?
    • How did you resolve those concerns?
    • What expectations did your future spouse have of you?
    • How did you respond? Explain.
15. Were there any previous financial or other obligations that you were brought into the marriage? Such as child support, alimony, bankruptcy, running a business?
    • What were the pros and cons of the obligations?
    • How were those obligations going to affect the future of marriage?
    • How did your future spouse respond to those obligations?
    • What plan did you make together about dealing with those obligations?
16. Before marriage, did you develop a prenuptial agreement?
    • Are you willing to share any details?
    • Who brought up the topic?
    • How did you both respond to the topic? Explain.
17. When were you married?
    • Where were you married?
    • Describe your wedding day?
    • What were the most memorable experiences?
18. Describe some of the details of your wedding.
    • Who were the best men and bridesmaids?
    • Who attended the wedding?
    • Did family and friends attend the wedding?
    • Describe the food and cake.
    • Was there dancing?
    • Where child/families from previous marriages attending?
    • Were there any customs, rituals that you followed at the reception?
19. How did those expectations change over time?
20. How did you adjust to marriage?
21. How was this marriage different from the previous marriage?
22. Was there anything you had to give up when you became married?
    • Such as Home? Career? Independence? Friends? Religion?
    • Explain.
23. What there anything you gained when you became married? Explain.
24. Did you plan on having a family?
    • Describe your family?
    • How is your family different than planned?
    • What are the most and least memorable moments of being a family?
25. Describe the various stages of your marriage?
    • What do you remember most about those states?
26. Did your y spouse have struggles?
    • Describe the struggles. Such as finances, work, children?
    • Were you able to work things out? How?
    • Did your marriage become stronger or weaker? Explain.
27. How did you grow together over time? Explain.
28. How did you grow apart over time? Explain.
29. In what ways did they make them compatible and incompatible?
30. What roles did you take on in the home and marriage?
31. What did you have in common with each other?
    • What were your differences?
32. What arrangement did you both make about your role as step-parent? Such as in discipline, mentoring, financial responsibility, religion?
    • What decisions/agreements did you make?
    • Did it change after marriage? Explain.
    • If it did change? Why?
33. What do you consider to be the most memorable times of your marriage?
34. What were the least memorable times of your marriage?
35. What plans did you have about your marriage?
    • Did those plans change over time?
    • Explain.
36. Describe the relationship with the in-laws during the marriage?
    • Were they easy to get along with? Explain?
    • Most and least memorable experience?
    • How did you work out holidays with the family?
37. How did your family accept your spouse?
    • Were they easy to get along with? Explain?
    • Most and least memorable experience?
    • How did you work out holidays with the family?
38. Describe your spouse.
    • Likes and dislikes?
    • Talents and hobbies?
    • Type of person?
    • Friends?
39. Was there a time when you consider divorce?
    • Explain what happened? Stay together, divorce, separate?
    • Were you able to work things out? Explain.
40. What advice would you give others about marriage?
41. What would you do differently if you had to do it over?

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