30 Questions to Ask a Potential Co-Parent

Drawn from our 200-question workbook · Ask across multiple conversations, not as an interrogation

The goal of these questions isn't to find someone with identical answers. It's to find where you differ while differences are still cheap, and to watch how the other person handles being asked. Someone who engages seriously with hard questions is demonstrating the exact skill co-parenting requires. Someone who deflects, jokes past them, or gets defensive is also giving you an answer.

Spread these across several conversations. Write answers down, both of you. Memory is an unreliable narrator, and written answers become the raw material for your agreement later.

Money (the #1 source of disputes)

1. What does your complete financial picture look like: income, savings, debt, obligations?
2. How should we split conception and medical costs, and what's your ceiling before we stop and reassess?
3. How do we divide ongoing costs: proportional to income, or 50/50 regardless?
4. What happens financially if one of us loses a job or becomes unable to work?
5. Private school, braces, therapy, college: how do we decide on big discretionary costs neither of us must agree to?
6. Would you agree to formal child support calculations even if we never go to court?

Parenting time

7. Describe your ideal week with our child at age 2. At age 10. Be specific.
8. Where will the child live in year one: one home base or true splitting?
9. Holidays, birthdays, and your extended family's expectations: what does December look like?
10. What happens to the schedule when one of us starts a serious romantic relationship?
11. How much say does a future partner of yours get in raising our child?
12. If your career offered you a big opportunity in another city, what happens?

Values

13. What role does religion, or its deliberate absence, play in this child's upbringing?
14. Public, private, homeschool? And who gets the deciding vote if we split?
15. How were you disciplined as a child, and what will you keep or reject from that?
16. Vaccines, antibiotics, therapy, ADHD evaluation: any medical positions I should know now?
17. What do you believe about screens, phones, and social media by age?
18. What's one thing your parents did that you're determined never to repeat?

Logistics and disclosure

19. Full health history: physical, mental, genetic. What should I know, and will you share records?
20. Are you open to mutual background checks? (The answer matters as much as the results.)
21. Who in your life knows you're pursuing this, and how has your family reacted?
22. What does your support network actually look like within 30 minutes of home?
23. Any past relationships, custody arrangements, or legal matters that could touch this arrangement?
24. What's your realistic timeline, and what's driving it?

Conflict and commitment

25. Tell me about the last serious conflict you had with someone you couldn't walk away from. How did it end?
26. When you're angry with someone, what do you do: pursue, withdraw, explode, go quiet?
27. Will you commit to mediation before any court filing, in writing?
28. What would have to happen for you to want out of this arrangement, and what do you think you'd owe then?
29. If one of us dies, who raises the child? Who's your backup answer?
30. Why me? What made you choose to have this conversation with me specifically?

Scoring what you hear

After each conversation block, run the compatibility checklist, which converts these conversations into a scored map of where you're aligned, unsettled, or in disagreement. The full 200-question workbook adds the follow-up questions under each of these, deal-breaker flags, and space for both parties' written answers side by side.

Related: How to find a co-parent · Legal red flags · Agreements explained