Questions to ask your partner
After a few years together, most talk is logistics: who's picking up groceries, what time the dentist is. These 38 questions are for couples who already know each other's middle names and still want to know who the other person is now. They're grouped by moment, from a ten-minute weekly check-in to the talk after a fight.
How to use these. Pick one or two and leave the rest for another night. Ask when you're both fed and not in a hurry, and answer each one yourself too. If a question opens something hard, you can stop and come back to it.
This page skips "test" and "trap" questions. They're built to catch someone out. That's a different conversation.
A ten-minute weekly check-in
Five questions for Sunday night. Same questions every week. The answers change, and that's the point.
What was the hardest part of your week that I might not know about?
Answer this with Joy"Closest to you? Tuesday, when you made coffee before my early call and didn't say anything about it. Hardest part was the meeting on Thursday. I didn't tell you because I was too tired to explain it."
The example was written for this page.
What's changed since we met
People keep changing long after the early dates, so the person across the table tonight has opinions, worries and friends that the person you met didn't. These questions catch up.
What's something you believe now that you didn't believe when we first met?
Answer this with JoyWho are you closest to right now, other than me, and what do you like about them?
Answer this with JoyWhen something good happens
For the evening one of you walks in with news. How you answer matters as much as what you ask, and the next section shows why.
How you answer good news
Shelly Gable and her colleagues studied what couples do when one partner shares good news, which they call capitalization.1 People who told others about good events felt better day to day, beyond the event itself, and the boost was bigger when the listener responded actively and constructively rather than passively or destructively.1 Couples where one partner usually answered good news with enthusiasm reported more intimacy and daily satisfaction.1
The four ways to answer come from that work. Here is one piece of news, answered each way, in examples written for this page.
- Active and constructive: That's huge! When did they tell you? What did you say?
- Passive and constructive: Nice, well done.
- Active and destructive: That's going to mean longer hours, isn't it?
- Passive and destructive: Did you remember to call the plumber?
The first answer asks questions. That's the habit the questions above try to build.
Trying something new together
Couples who did a 7-minute novel and arousing task together reported a bigger rise in relationship quality than couples given a more mundane one, in a set of experiments by Arthur Aron and colleagues.2 Seven minutes. These questions help you find the next new thing.
What's something neither of us has ever tried that you'd be willing to try with me?
Answer this with JoyWhich trip, class or day out from the past few years do you still think about, and why that one?
Answer this with JoyWhat's a small thing we used to do together that we've stopped doing?
Answer this with JoyFinish this: "If we had a free Saturday and no chores, I'd want us to..."
Answer this with JoyMoney, home and the everyday
The practical stuff, the rent, the dishes, whose turn it is to call which parent on Sunday, is where couples stop asking each other and start assuming they already know. Ask these when nothing is wrong. Not in the middle of a bill.
What's one thing we spend money on that you'd happily cut, and one you'd never cut?
Answer this with JoyFinish this: "One money decision I'd like us to make together this year is..."
Answer this with JoyAfter a hard conversation
For a day or two after a fight, once you've both cooled down. Use them to understand each other, and leave the argument itself where it ended.
Tell me about a time we handled a disagreement well. What was different?
Answer this with JoyWhat's one thing I could say next time that would help you feel heard?
Answer this with JoyFinish this: "What I wish you knew about why this matters to me is..."
Answer this with JoyIf questions about where someone was, who they texted or who they can see keep coming back, that's worth reading about on its own. See trust issues and red flags in a relationship.
Closeness with other people, together
Richard Slatcher had 60 couples spend 45 minutes with another couple, either doing self-disclosure tasks or making small talk.3 The couples who disclosed felt closer to the other couple and were more likely to meet up again within a month, and they also felt closer to their own partners.3
Which couple do we know that you'd like to get to know better, and what would you ask them?
Answer this with JoyWhat's a friendship of yours I don't understand as well as I'd like?
Answer this with JoyTell me about a time you saw another couple handle something in a way you'd like us to copy.
Answer this with JoyThe years ahead
Plans change. Ask these once a year, maybe on an anniversary, and see what moved.
Where would you like us to be living in ten years, and what draws you there?
Answer this with JoyFinish this: "The kind of couple I'd like us to become is one that..."
Answer this with JoyQuestions people ask
What are the 36 questions to fall in love?
They come from a 1997 study by the psychologist Arthur Aron and his colleagues.4 Pairs of strangers spent 45 minutes on self-disclosure tasks that slowly got more personal, and felt closer afterward than pairs who made small talk.4 A 2015 New York Times essay by Mandy Len Catron, who tried them on a date, made them famous.5 The study measured closeness between strangers, not love, and this page doesn't reprint the list.
What are deep questions to ask a partner?
Questions about feelings tend to go deeper than questions about facts, and the best ones ask about now. "What do you worry about these days that you didn't used to?" is one. The "What's changed since we met" group has five more.
What are 21 questions to ask your partner?
"21 questions" is a game where you take turns asking each other anything. For a couple who's been together a while, the weekly check-in and the "years ahead" group make a good set of ten, and each of you can add the rest.
How do I get my partner to open up?
Ask one open question. Then listen to the whole answer before you add your own, and answer the same question yourself so it turns into an exchange instead of a quiz. If they don't want to answer tonight, let it go.
More questions and guides
- Questions to ask your boyfriend, for the early months of getting to know someone.
- Questions to ask your girlfriend, on why deep questions feel riskier than they are.
- Love languages, and how to use them without keeping score.