15 Questions To Ask Your Significant Other To Deepen Your Trust & Confidence In Each Other
When you meet a new partner, you may be curious and want to know everything you can about who they are and what they like. The market is flooded with quizzes, games and activities that help you learn about your partner. Looking at all this material, you may wonder: what are the best questions to ask your significant other to deepen your trust and confidence?
Before you figure out which questions to ask, let’s understand what happens in relationships and why asking questions will deepen your trust and confidence.
How Do You Build Trust With Your Significant Other?
The beginning of any relationship is fun because you are in the honeymoon phase of the relationship. During this time, your brain chemistry is altered temporarily to focus your energy and attention on your new partner.
As time progresses, your brain chemistry returns to normal and you begin to automate each other. At the same time, we have a tendency to get caught up in the minutia of school, work, bills and chores.
You can forget that you need to continue to build your trust and confidence in each other. Relationships take effort. You need to be in the driver’s seat actively engaging in and directing the relationship.
Using questions can help you create a sense of newness and connection and re-active earlier states of closeness. In addition, these questions will provide a platform to develop an increased understanding about your partner and deepen your trust and confidence in each other.
Before addressing the questions, you will want to establish a conducive atmosphere for sharing your thoughts and feelings. For example, plan where you want to sit to discuss these questions. In addition, you can explore the best time and day to have this discussion so it’s convenient for both of you. Also, you may not want to ask all 15 questions in one day. For example, you can discuss with your partner how you would like to divide the list or pick one question at a time to address.
What Are Some Deep Relationship Questions?
There are many different types of questions you can ask to learn more about your partner. Some are light, and some are more serious in nature, other questions are to learn and understand more about your significant other’s family (your partner’s family will impact you at some point), and still other questions may address your goals, values and beliefs.
Whatever questions you choose to ask your partner, take this opportunity to be open, curious and compassionate. If these questions begin fights and arguments, then you may want to contact a therapist,
As a couples therapist for over 10 years, I find that couples whose approach is “we care for each other” can use these questions to learn, build and strengthen their relationship.
15 Questions To Ask Your Significant Other To Deepen Your Trust & Confidence In Each Other
- Describe traits and qualities of a good friend. You can ask your partner, “What aspects do I embody as a good friend to you?”
- How do you feel appreciated? If you are familiar with the Five Love Languages, then you can use those topics to draw from, such as spending time together or words of affirmation.
- Where do you see yourself in one, five and 10 years? This question can refer to issues such as a physical location, your career, and your relationship.
- When you are upset, how would you like me to respond and help you?
- Describe emotional intimacy. How can we create a greater sense of emotional intimacy or do we have a close emotional bond?
- How do we protect and care for each other around our family and friends? Are there other things that we could do that would help us feel a greater sense of trust and confidence in our relationship?
- Do you feel that we listen to each other? Do we judge each other? Do we give solutions and try to fix things? Do we listen and validate each other? Oftentimes couples struggle with this question, so you may want to pay particular attention to how you can improve your communication.
- Do we use the Four Horsemen? If you are not familiar with the term Four Horsemen, then read the following article for more information: Why Gottman’s Four Horseman Are So Destructive To A Happy Marriage If you are familiar with the term, then are there things we can do or not do to decrease the use of the Four Horsemen.
- What areas do you trust me? What areas do you need to develop more trust? For example, some areas may be money, family, opposite sex, substances, secrets, parenting, and work.
- Describe what romance looks like for you. How can we create more romance, or are we compatible in this area?
- What brings you joy and happiness? What do we do for fun? When was the last time we had fun? Do we need to build more joy, fun and happiness into our relationship?
- Do we express appreciation and gratitude intentionally? Could our relationship benefit from more appreciation and gratitude? If so, what can we do?
- Do we apologize? Will you say “I’m sorry”? Do we apologize quickly enough? Are we forgiving people? Did we see forgiveness in our family of origin?
- What is success? How are you successful? Is success a value of yours or your relationship? How might success look different for you in one, five or 10 years?
- Lighter questions can also be asked of your partner to improve connection, such as: “What would be your dream vacation?” or “When you listen to music, do you focus on the words or the music?”
There are so many questions that you can find that will help you build a more enduring relationship. Use these questions to ask your significant other to stay connected not only in the honeymoon phase but when you are together for one, five or 50 years.
Additional reading to support your relationship as you explore options for couples therapy and healing:
How To Communicate With A Man That Won’t Communicate
How To Discuss Relationship Problems Without Fighting
Stuck In A One-Sided Relationship? Here’s How To Talk About It So Resentment Doesn’t Take Over
