If you’re looking to strengthen your relationship, curiosity is one of the best ways to do it, according to a recent article in The Washington Post. Continuing to learn about your partner fuels your connection and leaves room for excitement and exploration.
But how, exactly, can you continue to get to know the person you’ve been dating for years or even married to for decades? I spoke with a psychotherapist about the idea of curiosity in relationships—and questions to ask your long-term partner.
The Importance of Curiosity in a Relationship
Curiosity is incredibly important in romantic relationships. Even if you’ve been with your partner for years, you should never stop learning from and about them.
“When we are curious, we are open to learning more without judgement or imposing our own thoughts,” says Janel Coleman, licensed psychotherapist at Madison Square Psychotherapy and a Certified Sexuality Educator. “A big fear with being in a long-term relationship is that it will eventually become stale or boring. Curiosity supports the longevity of a long-term relationship because you maintain an active investment in being a forever student of your partner. You believe that you do not know all there is to know about them and their inner world, supporting the relationship in feeling fresh.”
As we get older and endure different life circumstances, we continue to grow and change as humans. It’s crucial to open a dialogue with your partner about their current thoughts, feelings, aspirations, and values.
10 Questions to Ask Your Long-Term Partner
If you’re looking to learn more about your current partner, you’ll have to dig deeper than the average, surface-level questions.
“We often cover a lot of ‘hopes and dreams’ questions in the early stages of a relationship, but those answers can change!” Coleman points out. “Good questions can be repeats of those earlier questions, questions about experiences already had and the future.”
Coleman offers the following 10 questions to ask your partner:
- What are some of your favorite moments that we’ve shared and why?
- What moments are you looking forward to us having together and why?
- What is the funniest experience we had together?
- What excites you most when you think about the future?
- What worries you the most?
- How would you like to spend your later life?
- What are some behaviors or habits from your parents that you see in yourself now? How do you feel about them?
- How have your values shifted since we have been together?
- What do you wish you had more time for now?
- What are your pleasure goals?
These questions will help you better understand your partner’s mindset, as well as how they’ve grown since getting into a relationship with you. For example, our values and goals often shift when we get into serious relationships. While one person might have thought they didn’t want kids years ago, meeting their partner could have opened them up to a change of heart. On the other hand, maybe one partner was perfectly content with their stable, peaceful life—until they fell head-over-heels for a digital nomad. Now, they enjoy traveling from city to city, experiencing different cultures and feeling more alive than they ever thought possible.
This doesn’t mean you should change for your partner. Rather, some connections wake us up to what we truly desire. Continuing to explore each other is crucial to understand who you’re dating today, in this very moment—not just the person you fell in love with years ago.
“After years together, couples may get into a routine of what they know works,” Coleman says. “This can look like the type of dates, meals, or even how vacations flow. Changing things up can allow for healthy friction.”
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