One of the quieter dangers of a long relationship is the feeling that we already know the person we love. We know what they order, how they take their coffee, what irritates them, what they are likely to say about a certain friend, and which stories they tend to repeat.

Familiarity gradually becomes a kind of confidence, and that confidence can make further curiosity seem unnecessary.

The difficulty is that the person beside us has continued to change. Their ambitions may have shifted, old fears may have disappeared while new ones have emerged, and experiences may have altered how they understand themselves, their relationships and the future.

We can therefore remain extremely familiar with someone while becoming less familiar with their inner life.

This is what makes Arthur Aron’s famous 36 questions so interesting.

In the original research, two people were asked to move through three sets of questions that became progressively more personal. The exercise was designed to create interpersonal closeness through reciprocal self-disclosure, and although it later became famous as the “36 questions to fall in love,” its deeper value lies in something less dramatic and perhaps more useful: it creates a reason to ask questions we might otherwise not do.

For couples who have been together for some time, this matters because intimacy is partly an act of continued discovery. We need occasional opportunities to meet again the person we think we already know.

Set I

1. If you could invite anyone in the world to dinner, who would you choose, and why?
2. Would you like to be famous? If so, what would you want to be known for?
3. Before making an important phone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why do you think you do that?
4. What would a perfect day look like for you, from morning to night?
5. When did you last sing to yourself? When did you last sing for someone else?
6. If you could live to 90 and keep either the mind or the body of a 30-year-old for the final 60 years of your life, which would you choose, and why?
7. Do you have an instinctive feeling about how you might die?
8. What are three things you think you and your partner have in common?
9. What are you most grateful for in your life right now?
10. If you could change one thing about the way you were raised, what would it be?
11. Take four minutes to tell your partner the story of your life in as much detail as you can. What moments feel most important to include?
12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one new quality, strength, or ability, what would you choose?

Set II

1. If you could know the complete truth about one part of yourself, your life, or your future, what would you want to know?
2. Is there something you have wanted to do for a long time but still have not done? What has been holding you back?
3. What achievement in your life are you most proud of?
4. What qualities do you value most deeply in a friendship?
5. What is one of your most treasured memories? What makes it so meaningful to you?
6. What is one of the most painful or difficult memories you carry with you?
7. If you knew you had only one year left to live, what would you change about the way you are living now? Why?
8. What does a truly good friendship mean to you?
9. What role do love, affection, and physical closeness play in your life?
10. Take turns naming something you genuinely admire or appreciate about your partner until you have shared five things each.
11. How would you describe the emotional atmosphere in the family you grew up in? Did your childhood feel happier, harder, or simply different from those around you?
12. How would you describe your relationship with your mother, and how do you think it has shaped you?

Set III

1. Take turns making three true statements that begin with “We.” For example: “We both seem to feel…”
2. Complete the sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share…”
3. Imagine your partner were becoming one of your closest friends. What would be important for them to understand about you?
4. Tell your partner what you most admire or appreciate about them, including the things you might normally feel too shy, sentimental, or vulnerable to say aloud.
5. Share an embarrassing moment from your life that you can now look back on with some distance.
6. When did you last cry in front of someone else? When did you last cry by yourself?
7. Tell your partner something you have come to appreciate about them, even if you have never said it before.
8. Is there anything you believe is too serious, painful, or sacred to joke about?
9. If you knew you were going to die tonight and had no chance to speak to anyone again, what would you most regret leaving unsaid? Why have you not said it yet?
10. Imagine your home is on fire. After making sure the people and animals you love are safe, you have time to save one object. What would you choose, and why does it matter to you?
11. Whose death in your family would affect you most deeply? What makes that relationship especially significant to you?
12. Share a personal problem you are currently dealing with and ask your partner how they might approach it. Then ask them to reflect back what they think you are feeling, rather than only offering a solution.
    

There is no benefit in rushing through the questions simply for the sake of finishing them. If one answer opens a thirty-minute conversation, remain there, because the value of the exercise comes from discovering something meaningful rather than completing the list.

The evening has served its purpose if you leave knowing something about the person you love that you did not know before.

Keep rediscovering each other

Long relationships naturally create routines, and those routines are useful because they make a shared life possible. The problem appears when efficiency begins to replace curiosity, and when familiarity makes deeper questions seem unnecessary.

It can therefore be helpful to deliberately create occasions for discovery. Once a month, go somewhere pleasant and bring a few questions about fears, memories, regrets, or the unusual things occupying each other’s minds.

There is something profoundly romantic about refusing to believe that someone you love has become completely knowable. A person continues to change for as long as they are alive, which means that a long relationship always contains the possibility of further discovery.