Lovon

150 Questions to Ask Your Partner

Six sets, from Tuesday-night light to the ones couples put off for years. Deal them one at a time, or read all 150 below. No sign-up, nothing stored.

Low stakes, current life. The ones that work over dinner on a Tuesday.

What was the best part of your day, and what was the worst?

1 of 25 in Everyday

All 150 questions

Everyday

Low stakes, current life. The ones that work over dinner on a Tuesday.

  1. What was the best part of your day, and what was the worst?
  2. What have you been thinking about lately that you have not said out loud?
  3. Is there anything you are quietly dreading this week?
  4. What is something small I do that you like?
  5. When did you last feel genuinely rested?
  6. What are you looking forward to in the next month?
  7. What is taking up the most space in your head right now?
  8. Is there anything you have been meaning to ask me?
  9. What would make tomorrow a good day for you?
  10. What do you wish we did more of on an ordinary week?
  11. Where do you feel most like yourself?
  12. What is something you changed your mind about recently?
  13. Who did you talk to today that you enjoyed?
  14. What is currently annoying you that you have decided not to mention?
  15. If you had a completely free afternoon, what would you actually do with it?
  16. What is the last thing that made you laugh properly?
  17. What are you better at than you were a year ago?
  18. What do you need more of at the moment, and less of?
  19. Is there a conversation you have been putting off?
  20. What is something you are looking forward to that has nothing to do with me?
  21. What did you believe this morning that you no longer believe tonight?
  22. What is the most tiring part of your week, and could any of it be mine?
  23. When you get home, what do you most want the first five minutes to look like?
  24. What is one thing you would like to stop doing?
  25. What is on your mind that you assume I already know?

Going deeper

Values, history, the inner world. Best when you have time and are not tired.

  1. What is a belief you hold that most people around you do not?
  2. What is the hardest thing you have lived through that I do not know much about?
  3. Who shaped how you think about love, and were they a good example?
  4. What did you learn about conflict growing up?
  5. What is something you are still working through?
  6. When have you felt most alone?
  7. What do you think you are wrong about?
  8. What part of yourself do you find hardest to like?
  9. What did you need as a child that you did not get?
  10. What is a decision you made that changed the direction of your life?
  11. What do you want people to say about you when you are not in the room?
  12. What frightens you that you rarely admit?
  13. What is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?
  14. When did you last feel proud of yourself, and did you tell anyone?
  15. What do you carry that is not yours to carry?
  16. What would you do if you were not afraid of it going badly?
  17. What does a good life look like to you, specifically?
  18. What is something you have forgiven that you did not expect to?
  19. What is a version of yourself you have outgrown?
  20. What do you think I misunderstand about you?
  21. What is the loneliest you have felt inside a relationship?
  22. What is something you want but feel you are not allowed to want?
  23. Who do you miss?
  24. What is a story about your family that explains a lot about you?
  25. What do you hope is still true about you in ten years?

How we love

What actually lands for each of you. Where most couples find they have been guessing.

  1. What makes you feel most loved by me, in a normal week?
  2. What do I do that you wish I did more of?
  3. When you are upset, what do you want from me first?
  4. Do you prefer to be comforted, listened to, or left alone for a bit?
  5. What is something I do that you find affectionate that I might not realize?
  6. When did you last feel really seen by me?
  7. How do you like to be told that something is bothering you?
  8. What is a compliment you would like to hear more often?
  9. What does closeness look like to you when we are both exhausted?
  10. Is there a way I show love that does not land for you?
  11. How do you want to be treated on a bad day?
  12. What is something small that would make you feel cared for tomorrow?
  13. What did you think love was supposed to look like before you met me?
  14. When do you feel most connected to me?
  15. What makes you pull away?
  16. Is there something you want more of physically that you have not asked for?
  17. How do you want me to react when you cry?
  18. What is the difference, for you, between being close and being comfortable?
  19. What would you like me to notice more?
  20. How do you know I am listening?
  21. What is a need of yours that you feel bad about having?
  22. When you imagine being loved well, what is happening in the picture?
  23. What is something I said once that you still think about?
  24. How can I be useful to you when you are stressed rather than just present?
  25. What do you need from me that you have never asked for directly?

Conflict and repair

How you fight and how you find your way back. Ask these when things are calm, not mid-argument.

  1. What does a fair fight look like to you?
  2. What do I do in an argument that makes it worse?
  3. How do you know when we have actually finished a disagreement?
  4. Do you need space before you can talk, or does space feel like punishment?
  5. What is the fastest way to make you feel dismissed?
  6. What is an apology that works on you?
  7. Is there something you have never quite forgiven me for?
  8. What subject do we keep circling without resolving?
  9. When you go quiet, what is usually happening inside?
  10. What did repair look like in your family, if it happened at all?
  11. What do you wish I understood about how you handle anger?
  12. What is a criticism of me you have been holding back?
  13. How do you want me to bring something up when I am upset with you?
  14. What makes you defensive fastest?
  15. When we argue, what are you most afraid of?
  16. Is there anything you agreed to that you have quietly resented since?
  17. What would help you calm down that I am not currently doing?
  18. Do you think we fight about the thing we are actually fighting about?
  19. What is a rule you would like us to have for hard conversations?
  20. When have I got it right after getting it wrong?
  21. What do you need to hear before you can let something go?
  22. Is there a topic you avoid because you think I cannot handle it?
  23. What does it feel like when I say sorry?
  24. What is something you would like to redo?
  25. If nothing changed about how we handle conflict, how would you feel in five years?

The future

Direction, money, and the practical shape of a life. The ones couples put off longest.

  1. What do you want your life to look like in five years, honestly?
  2. What are you hoping we decide together this year?
  3. How do you feel about how we handle money?
  4. What would you want to change if money were not the constraint?
  5. What is a compromise you have made that you would not make again?
  6. Where do you want to live, and how strongly do you feel about it?
  7. What does a good week look like for us in ten years?
  8. How do you want us to handle it if one of our careers has to give?
  9. What do you want more of that our current life does not allow?
  10. How do you feel about the pace we are moving at?
  11. What would you want me to do if something happened to you?
  12. Is there a plan you have that you have not fully told me about?
  13. What are you saving for, and what are you actually saving for?
  14. How do you want to handle family expectations over the next few years?
  15. What is something we should decide sooner rather than later?
  16. Do you feel like we are building the same thing?
  17. What are you willing to sacrifice, and what are you not?
  18. What does security mean to you?
  19. What would you regret not doing?
  20. How do you want us to make big decisions?
  21. Is there something about our future that worries you?
  22. What would you want our home to feel like?
  23. What role do you want work to play in your life at forty, at sixty?
  24. What is a promise you would like me to make?
  25. What do you want us to be like when we are old?

Playful

Light and specific. Good for a car journey, a queue, or breaking a heavy mood.

  1. What was your first impression of me, and how wrong was it?
  2. What is the most unhinged thing you would do for a million dollars?
  3. What is a compliment you have received that you still think about?
  4. What would your reality show be called?
  5. What is the pettiest thing you have ever held a grudge about?
  6. If we had to swap jobs tomorrow, which of us would collapse first?
  7. What is a song that makes you think of me?
  8. What is your most controversial food take?
  9. What is something you pretended to like to impress me?
  10. What would you spend the whole day doing if it had no consequences?
  11. What is the best gift you have ever been given?
  12. What is your most irrational fear?
  13. What do you think my most annoying habit is?
  14. If our relationship had a theme tune, what would it be?
  15. What is a talent you have that almost nobody knows about?
  16. What is the worst haircut you have ever had?
  17. What is something you were obsessed with as a teenager?
  18. What would you title the story of the last year of your life?
  19. What is a small thing that makes you disproportionately happy?
  20. Who would play us in the film?
  21. What is the most embarrassing thing you have done in front of me?
  22. What is a rule you break constantly and feel no guilt about?
  23. What is the best meal you have ever eaten?
  24. What is something you want to try that you keep not trying?
  25. If we could only keep one memory from our whole relationship, which one would you keep?
1

How to actually use these

Do not work through them in order. A list of 150 questions answered end to end is an interview, and it stops being interesting for both of you around question nine.

Pick one set, ask two or three questions, and let the conversation leave the list. The questions are a way in, not the agenda. If an answer opens something up, stay there. You can always come back to the deck next week.

Two practical things. Ask your own question back, every time, or it turns into a quiz with one person on the stand. And do not ask the heavy sets when either of you is exhausted or already annoyed; the Conflict and repair questions are good ones, but they only work when nothing is currently on fire.

2

Why questions like these do anything at all

There is real research behind the idea, though it is narrower than the internet suggests.

The best known is Arthur Aron's 1997 closeness study, the one usually described online as "the 36 questions that lead to love". Pairs of strangers who worked through a set of escalating personal questions reported significantly more closeness than pairs who made small talk. The mechanism was not the questions themselves, it was sustained, reciprocal, escalating self-disclosure. Which is exactly why asking your own question back matters more than which question you picked.

The other useful idea is John Gottman's "love maps": the running mental model you hold of your partner's inner world, their worries, their history, who irritates them at work. Couples who keep that map current tend to weather conflict better, and the map goes stale quietly. Most people do not notice it has until they get an answer they did not expect.

3

What to do with an answer you did not expect

This is the part the listicles skip. Somewhere in the deeper sets, you will get an answer that lands badly, and what you do in the next thirty seconds decides whether these questions were a good idea.

Do not fix it, argue with it, or explain why they are wrong to feel that way. Ask one more question about it instead. "How long has that been true?" is almost always the right follow-up. You asked because you wanted to know; the answer is not a problem to solve on the spot.

If something surfaces that neither of you can put down, that is worth taking seriously rather than smoothing over. It was already there before you asked.

4

If you want a different angle

If you want to know how out of date your picture of them actually is before you start asking, the how well do you know your partner quiz measures exactly that in three minutes.

The love language quiz covers the same ground as the "How we love" set but ends in a specific answer rather than a conversation. The are we compatible quiz is the one to take if the real question underneath is whether you want the same things. And if the conflict questions were the ones that made you flinch, why do we keep having the same fight is built for exactly that.

If what you are short of is not questions but something to say, 120 things to say to your partner is the other half of this.

Nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored, and there is no account. The page records the same anonymous usage events every page here does, and no question or answer is part of them. Lovon itself is a voice app you can talk to out loud, built on CBT and EFT methods with PhD psychologists. It is not a licensed therapist and it does not treat anything.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What are the 36 questions that lead to love?

They come from a 1997 study by Arthur Aron and colleagues, which paired strangers and had them work through three sets of increasingly personal questions. The pairs who did it reported far more closeness than pairs who made small talk. The set became famous through a later New York Times essay, and several details commonly attached to it online, including a four-minute staring exercise, come from that retelling rather than from the paper. The finding is real but often oversold: what produced the closeness was escalating, mutual self-disclosure, not those particular thirty-six sentences. Any set that gets both people opening up gradually and reciprocally does the same job, which is how the sets on this page are ordered.

How many questions should we actually ask in one sitting?

Two or three. This list is 150 long so you have somewhere to go over months, not so you can get through it in an evening. Working down a list in order turns into an interview, and both of you will feel it by the tenth answer. Pick a set, ask a couple, and let the conversation wander off the page. The deck above is built for that: it hands you one at a time rather than showing you a wall.

What are good questions to ask your boyfriend or girlfriend specifically?

The same ones. Nothing on this page depends on gender, and lists that split by it usually just swap the pronouns and change nothing else. If you want the ones that tend to land early in a relationship, use the Everyday and Playful sets. If you have been together a while and the conversation has gone flat, How we love and Going deeper are the ones that reopen it, because they ask about the present rather than about facts you both already know.

What if a question starts an argument?

Stop asking questions and deal with what came up. If it turned into an argument, you found something live, and pushing on to the next question tells your partner the list mattered more than the answer. The Conflict and repair set is deliberately marked as the one to use when things are calm, not when they are not. If the same subject keeps detonating whenever it gets near the surface, that is a pattern rather than a bad question.

Do these work if we have been together for years?

That is when they work best, and it is the case the research speaks to most directly. John Gottman's work describes a "love map", the mental picture you hold of your partner's inner world, and the finding is that it goes out of date without anyone noticing. Long-term couples usually know each other's history perfectly and each other's current week barely at all. The Everyday and The future sets are aimed at exactly that gap.

Is anything I answer saved or sent anywhere?

No. There is no account, no email and no sign-up, and nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored. To be exact about the rest: like every page on this site, it records anonymous usage events — that the tool was opened, which set was chosen, that a question was dealt. Neither the question you land on nor anything you enter is part of that. The trade-off is that the tool does not remember where you were, so if you find a question you want to keep, screenshot it or write it down before you close the tab.