Couples are constantly looking for ways to improve their relationship. Intimacy is extremely important for our mental and physical health. By asking a potential partner these 36 questions, you can determine if that person is a good mate for you and use these questions to jump-start your relationship with them. These questions are not to help people fall in love, but to help guide people to gain great intimacy with their partner. These questions are grouped into 3 sets of 12. The 3 sets increase in levels of self-disclosure they require, and within each set, the level of self-disclosure increases from question to questions. By covering each of the 3 categories you are giving yourself a better chance at gaining knowledge that may help promote your intimacy with that person:
Set 1:
1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?
3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
4. What would constitute a ‘perfect’ day for you?
5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?
7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.
9. What in your life has made you feel the most grateful?
10. Is there anything you would want to change about the way you grew up?
11. Take 4 minutes and tell a story about your life in as much detail as possible.
12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained anyone quality or ability, what would it be?
Set 2
13. If there was a way to know the truth about yourself, your life, the future, or anything else, what would you want to know?
14. Is there something that you have dreamed of doing? Why haven’t you done it?
15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
16. What do you value most in friendship?
17. What is your most treasured memory?
18. What is your most terrible memory?
19 If you knew that in one year you would die, would you do anything differently? Why?
20. What does friendship mean to you?
21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?
22. Share 5 characteristics you each consider a positive thing about your partner.
23. How close and warm is your family? Do you consider your childhood was happier than most other people’s?
24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?
Set 3:
25. Make 3 true “we” statements each.
26. Complete this sentence: I wish I had someone with whom I could share….”
27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.
28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.
29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life
30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.
32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone, why haven’t you told them yet?
34. You house catches on fire, what is one thing you would save and why?
35. of all the people in your family, whose death would you find the most disturbing? Why?
36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it.
