Questions for couples: 204, in twelve sections

Most question lists are one long undifferentiated pile, which is why people scroll a third of the way in and give up. This one is sorted by situation: what you need on a third date is not what you need after eight years, and neither is what you need when something is quietly wrong. Twelve sections, 204 questions, and a link at the top of each to the longer list if that is the one you want.

How to use these

Ask fewer than you think. Three good questions with real answers beat thirty asked in a row, which turns into an interview and makes both of you perform rather than answer.

Answer first when you ask something heavy. It changes what you get back, because the other person now knows roughly how honest the honest version is allowed to be.

Do not ask a question from section eleven or twelve on a night that was going well. Those are for when there is something to talk about, and using them as entertainment is how a good evening turns strange.

If you are doing this across a time zone, the async half of 40 long distance date ideas is built for exactly that.

If you would rather be handed one at a time than pick from a list, today's round gives the two of you three to answer and reveal together.

Early on: the first few dates

Curious without being an interview. These work when you do not yet have shared history to draw on, so they ask about the person rather than about the two of you.

1. What did you think this would be, before you got here?
2. What is something you are unreasonably good at?
3. What did you spend far too much time on last year?
4. What is the best thing you have watched or read recently, and why that one?
5. Where did you grow up, and would you go back?
6. What is a strong opinion you hold about something unimportant?
7. What were you like at sixteen?
8. What is the last thing that genuinely surprised you?
9. How do you spend a day with nothing in it?
10. What is something people assume about you that is wrong?
11. What did you want to be, and what happened to that?
12. What is the furthest you have been from home?
13. What are you working on that has nothing to do with work?
14. What makes you say yes to something immediately?
15. What is a small thing that reliably improves your day?
16. What do you find easy that other people find hard?
17. Who do you talk to when something goes wrong?

Fun questions, for a light night

No weight to them at all. Good for a first date, a long drive, or an evening where neither of you wants anything heavier.

If you want a lot more of these, there are 87 conversation starters and 160 would you rather questions.

18. What is the worst haircut you have ever had?
19. Which fictional character would you actually get on with?
20. What is the most useless thing you know a lot about?
21. What would you do with a completely free Wednesday?
22. What food would you eat every day without getting bored?
23. What is your most irrational fear?
24. Which of your habits would drive a stranger mad?
25. What is the best bad film ever made?
26. What would your talk show be about?
27. What is the strangest job you would genuinely consider?
28. What is something you loved as a child that you would still enjoy?
29. Which animal would you be, and be honest about why?
30. What is the pettiest hill you would die on?
31. What would you spend a small unexpected windfall on?
32. What song would you have to leave a room to avoid?
33. What is the worst advice you have ever been given?
34. What smell takes you straight back somewhere?

Getting to know each other properly

The middle ground: more than small talk, less than a serious conversation. These are the ones that produce stories rather than answers.

35. What is a decision you made quickly that turned out to matter?
36. Who has influenced how you think more than they know?
37. What is something you changed your mind about completely?
38. What is the hardest thing you have done that you would do again?
39. Which friendship shaped you most?
40. What is a rule you were raised with that you have kept?
41. What is a rule you were raised with that you have dropped?
42. When have you been braver than you expected?
43. What is something you have never been able to explain properly?
44. What did you get wrong about adulthood?
45. What is a compliment that changed how you saw yourself?
46. What do you do when you cannot sleep?
47. What is a place you think about more than you visit?
48. Which of your own qualities do you like most?
49. What is the kindest thing a stranger has done for you?
50. What did you inherit from your parents that you did not choose?
51. What is something you are still trying to be better at?

Questions about your history together

Both of you were there, which is exactly why the answers rarely match. That mismatch is the interesting part.

The scored version of this is 60 how well do you know me questions, and the party version is who knows the couple best.

52. What did you actually think of me the first time we met?
53. When did you know this was going somewhere?
54. What is the first thing you noticed about me?
55. What did you tell your friends about me early on?
56. What was our best day, and why that one over the obvious ones?
57. What did I do early on that you found strange and now like?
58. What is the moment you would relive exactly as it was?
59. When were you most nervous about us?
60. What did we get wrong in the first year?
61. What is a small thing from years ago that you have never forgotten?
62. Which version of me did you fall for hardest?
63. What is the funniest argument we have ever had?
64. When did you first tell someone you were serious about me?
65. What was the first meal we ate together?
66. What is your favourite photo of us, and what is happening in it?
67. What did you assume about our future then that turned out wrong?
68. What would you tell yourself on the day we met?

Date night questions

For a night out or a night in, when you want the conversation to be the thing rather than background to it.

There is a full set of date night questions, and if you would rather have something to do, 30 date night games and 40 date night ideas by mood.

69. What has been the best part of your week, and do not say this?
70. What are you looking forward to that is more than a month away?
71. What would make the next three months feel like a good stretch?
72. What is something you want to do together that we keep not doing?
73. If we had a free weekend next month, what would you want it to be?
74. What do you wish we talked about more?
75. What is the best thing either of us has cooked this year?
76. Which of our routines would you keep forever?
77. What is a tradition you would like us to start?
78. What do you want more of in an ordinary week?
79. What is something you did recently that you are quietly pleased with?
80. Where should we go next, money aside?
81. What is the best thing about tonight so far?
82. What have you changed your mind about lately?
83. What is one small thing I could do that would help this week?
84. What made you laugh most recently?
85. What would a perfect Sunday look like for you now?

Playful and hypothetical

No right answers, which is why these travel well: nobody can be wrong, so nobody gets defensive.

The long versions are 110 what if questions and 80 truth or dare questions.

86. What if we had met five years earlier, what would have happened?
87. What if we had to move abroad next month, where and why?
88. What if you could be excellent at one thing overnight?
89. What if we swapped jobs for a week, who copes better?
90. What if you had to give up either music or films?
91. What if we could live one year of our life again exactly as it was?
92. What if you had to describe me to someone who will never meet me?
93. What if we had unlimited money but had to stay in this town?
94. What if you could ask one person one question, who and what?
95. What if you found out you had a year of complete freedom?
96. What if we had never met, where do you think you would be?
97. What if you could keep only five possessions?
98. What if we had to start again in a city neither of us knows?
99. What if you could know one thing about the future for certain?
100. What if we opened a business together, what would it be?
101. What if you had to teach a class tomorrow on anything?
102. What if we had to spend a month with no phones at all?

Questions about how you both work

Practical, and unglamorous, and probably the most useful section here. Most recurring arguments are two people with different defaults who have never compared them out loud.

103. When you are upset, do you want space first or company first?
104. When you complain about work, do you want advice or agreement?
105. How do you behave when you are stressed and hiding it?
106. What does a good apology look like to you?
107. How long do you need after an argument before you can talk properly?
108. What makes you feel looked after when you are unwell?
109. How do you prefer to hear that something is wrong?
110. What kind of help actually helps you?
111. What do you do when you are avoiding something?
112. How do you like to be told good news?
113. What is your honest relationship with plans changing?
114. When are you at your best in a day, and do we respect that?
115. What do you need before a big social thing?
116. What do you need after one?
117. How do you know when you are burnt out?
118. What is the fastest way to reassure you?
119. What is the difference between you being quiet and you being upset?

Questions about the two of you now

The state of the union, asked gently. Best on a calm evening rather than a tense one, because the point is maintenance and not repair.

120. What are we better at than we were a year ago?
121. What do you think we are actually good at as a pair?
122. When do you feel closest to me?
123. What do I do that makes you feel looked after?
124. What do you wish I noticed more?
125. What is something you need that you have never asked for directly?
126. What is the best decision we have made together?
127. What do we spend energy on that is not worth it?
128. What would you like less of from me?
129. What do you think I worry about that I should not?
130. Where do you think we are strongest under pressure?
131. What do you want us to protect as things change?
132. What is a habit of ours you would keep for good?
133. What have I got better at that you have not mentioned?
134. What do you find hardest to say to me?
135. What is something small I do that you would miss?
136. What are we avoiding talking about?

Questions about the future

For the conversations that are easier to have early than late. None of these require a decision tonight, which is the point of asking them on an ordinary evening rather than at a crisis.

137. Where do you want to be living in five years, honestly?
138. What does a good version of the next decade look like to you?
139. What do you want to have done by the time you are sixty?
140. How do you feel about where we are, financially and otherwise?
141. What would you want us to do if one of us got a big opportunity elsewhere?
142. What do you want our home to feel like?
143. How much of the future do you want planned?
144. What is a risk you would take if I said yes?
145. What do you want from work in ten years?
146. How do you want to spend the money we do have?
147. What would you want us to do differently if we had more time?
148. What are you afraid we will run out of time for?
149. What do you want to be true about us at seventy?
150. What kind of older people do you want us to be?
151. What would you want said about us by people who know us?
152. What is something you want to learn while there is time?
153. What do you want the next year to be about?

Questions about family, money and the practical things

The unromantic ones that decide more than the romantic ones do. Ask them when nothing is at stake, which is the only time they are easy.

154. What did money feel like in your house growing up?
155. What do you consider worth spending on without thinking?
156. What do you feel guilty spending on?
157. How much should either of us be able to spend without checking?
158. What do you want our relationship with our families to be?
159. What did your parents do well that you want to copy?
160. What do you want to do differently from how you were raised?
161. How do you feel about living near family, honestly?
162. What obligations do you take on that you resent?
163. How do you want to split the things neither of us wants to do?
164. What does fair look like to you when the work is uneven?
165. What do you want to be able to say no to?
166. How do you feel about the way we make decisions?
167. What would you want to happen if one of us could not work?
168. What do you want us to have saved for?
169. What is something practical we keep postponing?
170. What would make the admin of our life feel lighter?

Deeper questions, for a quiet night

Not hard, but not light either. These are the ones most people have never been asked by anyone, which is why they are worth having somewhere findable.

171. What are you quietly proud of that you have never mentioned?
172. What do you think people get wrong about you?
173. What is a fear you have that you would not call a fear?
174. When did you last feel completely certain about something?
175. What have you forgiven that you have never talked about?
176. What do you miss that you cannot get back?
177. What is the loneliest you have been, and when?
178. What do you think about on a long drive alone?
179. What would you do differently if nobody would know?
180. What is a version of your life you sometimes imagine?
181. What do you believe that you cannot prove?
182. When have you felt most like yourself?
183. What is something you have never said out loud to anyone?
184. What do you want to be remembered for by the five people who matter?
185. What is the thing you most want me to understand about you?
186. What are you carrying at the moment?
187. What would you say to yourself ten years ago?

The hard ones, for when something is wrong

Use these when there is a reason to, not for entertainment. They are written to open a conversation rather than to win one, which mostly means they ask what someone needs rather than what they did.

Answer first if you are the one asking. And if a question lands badly, stop and talk about that instead. The point was never to get through the list.

188. What is this actually about, underneath the thing we are arguing over?
189. When did you start feeling like this?
190. What did you need from me that you did not get?
191. What have I been missing?
192. What would you like me to do differently, specifically?
193. What do you need from me right now, tonight?
194. Is there something you have been waiting for me to notice?
195. What have you stopped telling me about?
196. What would make this easier to talk about?
197. What do you think I do not understand?
198. Are we solving this or are we repeating it?
199. What would you want to happen next if it were up to you?
200. What am I doing that makes this harder?
201. What do you need to hear from me?
202. What is the smallest thing that would help this week?
203. Do you want me to fix this or to listen to it?
204. What do we both want on the other side of this?

One a day beats two hundred at once

A list this long is useful as a reference and terrible as a plan. Nobody works through 204 questions, and a couple who tries will do forty on a good night and none for the next six months.

The version that actually holds is small and regular: one question, both of you answer, and you find out what the other said at the same moment. That is precisely what Ottermates does, so neither of you has to remember to pick one, and neither of you can shade an answer after seeing the other's.

Frequently asked questions

What are good questions to ask your partner?

Good ones ask for something specific rather than a verdict. What do you need from me when you are stressed produces something usable, are you happy does not. The best question also depends entirely on the situation: early on you want questions about the person, after years you want questions about the two of you and about what has gone unsaid.

How many questions should you ask in one go?

Three with real answers beat thirty in a row. A long run turns into an interview, and once it feels like an interview both of you start performing rather than answering. That is also why one a day works better than a list: it never becomes a session.

What questions should you ask before getting serious?

The unromantic ones, because they decide more than the romantic ones do. What money felt like in your house growing up, what you want your relationship with each other's families to be, how you want to split the things neither of you wants to do, and what fair looks like when the work is uneven. Ask them when nothing is at stake, which is the only time they are easy.

What are deep questions to ask your partner?

The ones nobody else has asked them: what they are quietly proud of and have never mentioned, what they think people get wrong about them, what they think about on a long drive alone, what they are carrying at the moment. Answer first yourself when you ask one, because that sets how honest the honest version is allowed to be.

What questions help when a relationship is struggling?

Questions that ask what someone needs rather than what they did. What is this actually about underneath, what did you need from me that you did not get, do you want me to fix this or listen to it. Ask them when there is a reason to rather than as entertainment, and stop the moment one lands badly and talk about that instead.

Do couples questions actually help?

They help when they create an occasion that ordinary life does not. Nothing in a normal week prompts you to ask what your partner is quietly proud of, so it never gets asked, and after ten years both people can still be surprised by the answer. The mechanism is regularity rather than depth: a small question you both actually answer beats a profound one you never get to.

Keep going

The longer lists: 87 conversation starters, 160 would you rather questions, how well do you know me: 60 questions, the 50 question couples quiz, the best couple games.