Questions to Ask Your Partner to Feel Closer
Good questions to ask your partner are open, personal and asked when you both have time to listen. Mix everyday check-ins with deeper questions about feelings, memories and hopes, add questions about your future together, and keep a few repair questions for after disagreements. Take turns answering, follow up with curiosity, and let either of you pass.
Can questions really make you feel closer?
They can help, especially when the questions invite real feelings and both of you take turns answering. The best-known research on this comes from psychologist Arthur Aron and colleagues. In a 1997 paper in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, they described a method for creating closeness in a lab: over about 45 minutes, pairs of participants worked through self-disclosure and relationship-building tasks that gradually became more personal. In the first study, pairs who did these tasks reported more closeness afterward than pairs given comparable small-talk tasks. That procedure later became popular as the “36 questions.”
It is worth being clear about what the study did and did not show. It measured short-term closeness between people paired up for an experiment, not long-term change in established couples. In two further studies, closeness was not affected by whether pairs were matched on attitudes, whether they expected to like each other, or whether getting close was an explicit goal. The authors called some findings tentative.
A more recent set of experiments, published in 2022 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that people expected deep conversations with strangers to be more awkward than they turned out to be, and felt more connected after deep conversations than after shallow ones. People underestimated how much the other person would care about what they shared. Predictions were more accurate with close friends, family and partners, whose interest was already clearer. For couples, the takeaway is modest: asking something deeper is often less risky than it feels.
Questions are only half of it. How you listen to the answer matters as much, which is the subject of the guide’s article on emotional intimacy and how couples build it.
How to use these questions well
- Both of you answer. Take turns. A one-sided question session feels like an interview.
- Pick two or three, not twenty. One good conversation beats racing through a list.
- Follow up. “What was that like?” or “Tell me more” often leads somewhere better than the next question on the list.
- Choose a calm moment. Not in the middle of an argument, and not when one of you is exhausted or rushing out the door.
- Anyone can pass. Closeness grows when sharing feels safe, not demanded.
- Do not use answers as ammunition. Something shared in openness should not come back in the next fight.
Everyday questions to ask your partner
These are light enough for a weeknight dinner or a walk, and they keep you current on each other’s inner life.
- What was the best part of your day, and what was the hardest?
- What is something small that made you laugh this week?
- Is anything on your mind that you have not had a chance to mention?
- What are you looking forward to in the next few days?
- Who did you enjoy talking to today, and why?
- What is one thing I could do tomorrow that would make your day easier?
- If you had a free afternoon this weekend, how would you want to spend it?
- What is something you learned recently that surprised you?
When your partner shares good news, treat it as a question prompt too. Research on sharing positive events found that active, constructive responses to a partner’s good news were linked with higher intimacy and satisfaction in close relationships. “How did it happen? How did you feel when you heard?” goes a long way.
Deeper questions for when you have time
Save these for an unhurried evening, a long drive or a trip. They invite more personal answers.
- What is a memory from childhood that still shapes how you see things?
- When do you feel most like yourself?
- What is something you are proud of that you rarely talk about?
- What is a fear you have that I might not know about?
- When have you felt most loved by me?
- Is there something you wish I asked you about more often?
- What did your family teach you about love, conflict or money, and which parts do you want to keep?
- What is something you have changed your mind about in the last few years?
- When you are upset, what helps you most, and what makes it worse?
- What do you think I misunderstand about you?
Questions about your future together
These keep you heading in the same direction. If you are planning to marry, the site also has a separate set of premarital questions every couple should explore, which covers practical topics like money, children and family roles in more depth.
- Where do you picture us living in five years, and what does an ordinary day look like there?
- What is one thing you want to try or learn before the end of next year?
- What does a good weekend look like to you now, compared with a few years ago?
- Is there a dream you have put on hold that you would like to come back to?
- How do you want us to handle the next big decision we face?
- What traditions would you like us to keep, drop or start?
- What would make you feel more like a team?
Repair questions after a disagreement
Once you have both calmed down, these can help you understand what happened instead of just moving on. Ask them with curiosity, not as a cross-examination.
- What were you feeling underneath what you said?
- What did you need from me in that moment?
- What did you hear me say, and is that what you think I meant?
- Was there a moment when you felt I stopped listening?
- Is there anything you said that you would like to say differently?
- What could each of us do next time we notice this starting?
- Is there anything still unfinished for you?
If repair conversations keep turning into a second round of the fight, put them down for now. That is useful information, not a failure.
What if questions are not enough?
A list of questions can open a conversation, but it cannot fix a pattern on its own. If one of you dreads these talks, if answers lead to criticism or silence, or if the same hurt keeps resurfacing, the problem is likely the cycle between you rather than a lack of good topics. Structured exercises with guidance can help, and the guide covers some in couples therapy homework and exercises. Working with a therapist in couples counseling gives you a place to practice these conversations with support when they are too charged to manage alone.
Get support with harder conversations
If you want help talking about the things that matter most, Moshe Ratson, LMFT, MBA, offers a free phone consultation to discuss what is going on and whether couples work could help. Sessions are available in Midtown Manhattan or Online by Video. You can contact spiral2grow to arrange a call or consultation.
Common questions
They come from a 1997 study by psychologist Arthur Aron and colleagues, in which pairs of participants spent about 45 minutes on increasingly personal self-disclosure tasks and reported more closeness than pairs who made small talk. The study measured short-term closeness in a lab, not whether people fell in love or stayed together.
There is no set rule. Many couples find that brief daily check-ins about feelings, plus a longer unhurried conversation every week or two, keep them connected. What matters more than frequency is that both of you feel safe to answer honestly and that the listener responds with interest rather than judgment.
Some people feel put on the spot by direct questions. Try sharing your own answer first, asking one question at a time, or talking while doing something side by side, such as walking or cooking. If your partner still avoids personal conversations, ask gently what makes them hard rather than pushing.
Yes. The everyday and lighter deeper questions work well early on, when you are still learning about each other. Save questions about past hurts, fears and long-term plans until you both feel comfortable. Going deeper gradually tends to feel safer than trying to cover everything on a first few dates.
Sources
- The Experimental Generation of Interpersonal Closeness: A Procedure and Some Preliminary Findings (Aron, Melinat, Aron, Vallone & Bator, 1997), Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 23(4):363-377, SAGE Publications (DOI)
- Overly shallow?: Miscalibrated expectations create a barrier to deeper conversation (Kardas, Kumar & Epley, 2022), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, PubMed, National Library of Medicine
- What do you do when things go right? The intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits of sharing positive events (Gable, Reis, Impett & Asher, 2004), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, PubMed, National Library of Medicine
This article is part of the Couples Counseling Guide. It is general information, not a substitute for care from a licensed professional who knows your situation.
This article is for general education. It is not a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis or treatment.
