Deep questions to ask your partner, and what the answers tell you

Deep questions to ask your partner are open questions about the things you rarely talk about on a normal day: where you come from, what matters to you, what scares you and what you want next. Good ones have no right answer and invite a story.

An example: on a long drive to her sister's wedding, Maya asked Tom a question she had saved for months: "What were you most afraid of as a kid?" Tom said, "Dogs, I guess," and turned up the radio. Maya felt silly for asking. Two hours later, at a gas station, he said out of nowhere, "It was being the new kid. We moved four times before I was ten." Then he talked until they reached the hotel.

What makes a question deep?

A deep question asks about meaning more than facts. "Where did you grow up?" is a fact. "What did home feel like when you were ten?" is a deep question about the same thing.

Deep questions tend to have a few things in common:

• They are open. Nobody can answer them with yes, no or a single word.
• They ask for a story or a reason. "Why" and "what was it like" go further than "what".
• They carry no test. There is no right answer, and the person asking is curious, not checking.

You can ask a deep question after ten years together and still be surprised. People change, and so do their answers.

Questions about your past and where you come from

These help you understand the person your partner was before you met. Start here if you are new to this kind of talk, because memories are easier to share than opinions.

1. What did home feel like when you were a child?
2. Who was the adult you felt safest with growing up?
3. What is a family rule you still follow without thinking?
4. What is a moment that changed how you saw the world?
5. What did you want to be at fifteen, and what happened to that dream?
6. What were you proud of as a kid that nobody noticed?

Questions about what matters to you

Values sit under most of the choices a couple makes, from money to holidays. These questions bring them into the open before they turn into a fight. Relationship expectations covers what happens when they stay hidden.

1. What does a good life look like to you, on an ordinary Tuesday?
2. What would you never do, even for a lot of money?
3. Who do you admire, and what is it about them?
4. What do you think you owe your parents?
5. What does success mean to you now, compared with five years ago?
6. What would you hope people say about you after you leave a room?

Questions about love and closeness

1. When do you feel closest to me?
2. How did the people around you show love when you were growing up?
3. What do you need from me when you have had a bad day?
4. When did you first know you loved me?
5. Is there a way I show care that doesn't reach you?
6. What do you miss from our first months together?

Emotional intimacy goes further into why couples feel close in such different ways.

Hard questions to ask your partner

These are the serious questions many couples put off. Ask them when you are both calm and rested, never in the middle of an argument. Choose one, not five.

1. Is there something you keep to yourself because you think I would react badly?
2. What do we argue about that is really about something else?
3. When do you feel alone in this relationship?
4. What is one habit of mine you find hard to live with?
5. What scares you most about our future?
6. What do I do that makes it hard for you to be honest with me?

Thank them for the answer, even if it stings. The point of a hard question is to hear the truth, and people stop telling it when it costs them.

Questions about the future you want

1. Where do you see us in ten years, on one ordinary day?
2. What do you want to have done before you turn seventy?
3. Where would you live if work and family did not matter?
4. Which new skill or hobby would you like the two of us to pick up?
5. What do you want more of next year, and what less?
6. How much of the future do you like to plan, and how much do you like to leave open?

Thought provoking questions for couples that are still fun

Not every deep talk needs to be serious. These "what if" questions are playful and often say just as much, a bit like the philosophy questions friends argue over at dinner. For a party game where one of you guesses the other's answers, try newlywed game questions.

• If you could relive one day of our relationship, which would you pick?
• If we had a free year and enough money, how would you spend it?
• What would you at ten think of your life now?
• If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be?
• If you could swap lives with anyone for a week, who would it be?

What the answers tell you

Listen less for the facts and more for what is under them.

• What lights them up. The topic they talk about longest is usually close to what they care about most.
• What they skip. A short answer to a big question often means the person needs more time. Note it and come back another day.
• Where you differ. Two different answers about money or family are useful early. They are much harder to find out after a move or a wedding.
• How they answer. Some people answer with a feeling, some with a fact and some with a plan. That often tells you as much as the answer itself.

Much of that last point comes from personality.

Why one partner finds deep questions easy and the other hard

You ask the same question, and one of you answers in a minute while the other freezes. That doesn't mean one of you is more open. Each personality type has topics it walks into easily and topics it needs time for. A compatibility test shows how yours and your partner's fit.

Here is how it often looks for six of the 16 types in Typeza:

• Ideator: loves "what if" questions and big ideas, and can talk for an hour about a world where nobody needs sleep. Questions about how they feel right now can stump them.
• Vitalizer: happy to talk about feelings and people, and will ask you three questions back. A cold, analytical question can feel like a test.
• Mentor: made for deep talk about meaning, dreams and what people are really like. They may want you to match their intensity.
• Inspector: gives clear answers about plans, rules and what is fair. Vague questions with no point annoy them, so say why you ask.
• Dreamer: opens up about moods, meaning and the future, and closes up when a question feels rushed.
• Craftsman: says little and means it. They often answer better side by side, on a walk or in the car, than face to face.

Read these as tendencies. A slow or short answer often says more about the question than about you or your relationship. If you know your partner's type, you can choose a question they can walk into, and ask the harder ones in a setting that suits them.

How to ask deep questions without it feeling like an interview

• Pick a good setting. A walk, a long drive or a slow dinner works better than the sofa with the TV on. Side by side is easier than face to face for many people.
• Ask one question, then follow it. "What happened next?" or "Why that?" often goes further than the next question on the list.
• Answer it yourself. Take turns, so nobody feels examined.
• Let silence sit. Some people need a minute, or a day, to answer.
• Don't judge the answer. If you react badly to an honest reply, you will get fewer of them.
• Ask a little and often. One deep question a week does more than fifty in one night.

If these talks keep turning tense, how to get to know someone has gentler questions to start with, and they work just as well between partners of many years. When a question feels too direct, start from a topic instead, like the ones in deep conversation topics.

See which questions come easy for you two

Tom needed two hours and a gas station to answer. Some partners open up fast and others slowly, and personality type explains a lot of the difference. On the couples compatibility test page there is a free test of paired statements, and your type appears at the end with no account needed. Pass the invite link on your result along to your partner. They answer on their own, about themselves. Once you have both answered, your two types and your relationship type show up, and you get a better feel for which questions to ask and how to ask them.

Questions people ask

What are some deep questions to ask your boyfriend?

Try "What did home feel like when you were a child?", "What does a good life look like to you?" and "When do you feel closest to me?" Ask one at a time, and follow up on the answer.

What are good questions to ask my girlfriend?

The same deep questions work for any partner. Good ones are open and personal: what she is proud of, what she wants more of next year and what she misses from your first months together.

What if my partner doesn't like deep questions?

Pick a lighter "what if" question, ask while you do something together, and answer first yourself. Some people open up slowly and do better with one question a week.

What should you ask before getting married?

Ask about the everyday things you'll share. Good ones are "How do we handle money, and do we keep it together or apart?", "Where do we want to live, and in what kind of home?", "Who does which chores?", "How often do we see each family, and what do they expect from us?", "How did your parents argue, and what do you want to do differently?" and "When we disagree, what helps you calm down?" The questions about the future you want, earlier in this list, go further. Spread them over a few evenings.

Written by Virko Kask, founder of Typeza
Written with the help of AI tools.