100 Questions to Ask Your Partner That Actually Bring You Closer

• What are you proud of yourself for this year that I might have missed?
• What do you need more of from me that you find hard to ask for?
• Which memory from our early days comes back to you most?
• What would you change about how we spend our weekends?
• When did you last feel really wanted by me?
• What's something you dream about but have never said out loud?
• What makes you feel safe with me?
• What have you been scared of lately and kept to yourself so you wouldn't worry me?
• If we could start over, what would you do again?
• Is there something you'd love to try together but feel shy to suggest?

Everyday and light questions

Start here if your conversations have circled the bills and what's for dinner for months. Light questions loosen things up, and a loose conversation tends to find its own way to the deeper stuff.

1. What made you laugh today?
2. What are you most looking forward to this week?
3. Which song always reminds you of us?
4. What small thing did you buy recently that genuinely made your day?
5. If we could get in the car tomorrow and drive anywhere, where to?
6. What food could you eat forever and never get sick of?
7. What do you do when you've got the whole place to yourself?
8. Which of our little routines do you secretly love?
9. What movie or show would you happily rewatch with me?
10. What would you do if nobody expected anything from you for a whole week?
11. Are you more of a morning or a night person, and why?
12. What small thing can turn your whole day around?
13. If you had a free afternoon all to yourself, how would it go?
14. What surprised you in a good way recently?
15. What spot in our town do you love but we hardly ever go to?

Memories and the past

These reach back to what shaped you before we met, and to how we began. This is where people tend to say things they don't usually put into words.

16. Which childhood memory comes back to you most often?
17. What did you want to be when you were little?
18. What did you think of me the first time you saw me?
19. When did you realize this was something serious?
20. What did we laugh about most in the early days?
21. Which decision from years ago changed your life the most?
22. What did you learn from your parents that you still carry?
23. What's the best day we've ever had together?
24. What would you tell your younger self?
25. Whose advice did you ignore that you wish you'd taken?
26. Which trip of ours stayed with you the most?
27. When were you last really proud of yourself, before we met?
28. What object from your past do you wish you still had?
29. What have you changed about yourself over the years that you're glad about?
30. Which version of your younger self do you miss a little?

The future and dreams

Here the talk turns to where you're headed. It can get surprisingly practical, because often you both want to change something and neither of you has said it first.

31. Where would you like us to be in five years?
32. Which trip do you dream about that we keep putting off?
33. What do you want to try before you turn fifty?
34. How do you picture our perfect weekend a year from now?
35. What do you wish we did more often?
36. What skill would you love to master?
37. If money were no object, what would you spend your days doing?
38. What kind of home or place to live do you think about?
39. What would you want people to say about us in twenty years?
40. What shared goal would you like us to set ourselves?
41. What do you want for us that we rarely talk about?
42. Which dream did you shelve that you'd like to come back to?
43. What would you want to leave behind?
44. If we could live in another country for a year, where?
45. What do you want us to do together while we still can?

Values and beliefs

Questions about what truly matters to you. They show where you think alike and where you differ, and both are worth knowing.

46. What does being a good partner mean to you?
47. What couldn't you picture a happy life without?
48. Which value is non-negotiable for you?
49. What disappoints you most in people?
50. When do you feel you're living true to yourself?
51. What does success mean to you now, not a decade ago?
52. What wouldn't you give up, even if it were the easier way out?
53. How would you like us to handle disagreements?
54. What moves you most?
55. Who or what are you most grateful for?
56. What saying or rule guides you through life?
57. What would you want our kids, or the people close to us, to remember about you?
58. When did you last change your mind about something important?
59. What angers you that you rarely talk about?
60. What did the hardest thing you've been through teach you?

Closeness and desire

Closeness is hardest to talk about for the couples who've been together longest, because it's so easy to assume the subject is settled. It rarely is. Desires shift over the years.

61. When did you last feel really wanted by me?
62. What makes you feel close to me outside the bedroom?
63. What was there more of between us early on that you miss now?
64. How do you most like me to show you affection?
65. What makes you feel attractive around me?
66. Is there something you'd like to try but find hard to bring up?
67. When do you feel closest to me?
68. What could I do more often to make you feel good with me?
69. Which little gesture of mine means the most to you?
70. What's on your mind that you don't quite know how to start saying?
71. What relaxes you when you're with me?
72. When did you last feel something new spark between us?
73. What do you need in order to feel safe being close?
74. What do you wish I knew about what you want?
75. Which evening, just the two of us, do you remember best?

"What if" questions

Light on the surface, but they uncover more than you'd expect. Good for when you want to talk without the weight, but not about the weather.

76. What if we could drop everything for a year - what would we do?
77. What if you could swap lives with me for one day?
78. What if you won enough that you never had to work again?
79. What if we had to write a book together - about what?
80. What if you could meet yourself from ten years ago - what would you say?
81. What if we had to move tomorrow - where to?
82. What if you could keep one of our days frozen forever?
83. What if you could have one more talent - which one?
84. What if we could invite anyone in the world to dinner?
85. What if you could relive our first trip together?
86. What if we swapped roles for a week - what would you discover?
87. What if you could undo one decision but not know what came next?
88. What if we made one shared dream come true this year?
89. What if you could give me one piece of advice for the rest of my life?
90. What if we spent a year without phones - what would change?
91. What if you could see us thirty years from now?
92. What if each of us had one evening a month for absolutely anything - what would you do?
93. What if we met today - would you choose me again?
94. What if you could teach me one thing you know and I don't?
95. What if there were a book about your life - what would the title be?
96. What if we could relive one day from this year - which one?
97. What if you could send a message to yourself a year from now?
98. What if we could live anywhere, as long as it's close to each other?
99. What if you had to describe us in one sentence to someone who's never met us?
100. What if we started asking each other questions like these every week?

How to use them so it doesn't feel like an interrogation

This list isn't a checklist to tick off. Three things decide whether the questions turn into a real conversation rather than a string of answers:

• Ask one at a time and listen to the end. Five in a row without listening is an interrogation, not a talk.
• Don't correct or grade the answer, even if you disagree. The question was meant to reveal something, not start an argument.
• Answer it yourself too. A question you only aim at the other person sounds like a test. The same one asked both ways is an exchange.

If you want more like these, take a look at our list of questions to ask your partner, where we show how to match them to the mood and the moment.

And if you'd rather the questions came to you and you just answered, that's exactly what we built Privé for. It's a game for two: you each answer over a hundred questions on your own, then see where your answers meet. From our analysis of couples' preferences, roughly one in three couples discovers at least one thing they're both curious about that neither had ever brought up. On the bolder questions, only what you both said "yes" to is revealed - a single "no" stays private. The first round is free and takes a few minutes.