7 Questions to Spark Connection

Whether your relationship is lacking depth due to routine/habit or you are in rapturous love, we can always use semi-structured conversation to increase intimacy. Referencing Dr. Brene Brown work; intimacy is impossible without shared vulnerability. The following video and bulleted questions are laid out in an effort to have a weekly conversation with your partner where vulnerability and intimacy are the qualities that guide the talk. So sit down over dinner/wine/snacks, move past the initial awkward "forced" aspect of structured talk, look your partner in the eyes, hold hands for bonus points and GET REAL!

Question 1: The things I would like to be appreciated for ... This isn’t the moment to be vindictive or self-pitying. Being taken for granted is pretty much unavoidable in any established relationship. It’s crucial to be able to drain the potential lake of bitterness by communicating what we feel we contribute and are good at. At the start of the relationship, what was decent about both of us was automatically very obvious. Then with time, we got spoilt.

Question 2: When I’m in a panic, I ... When the pressure is on us, we’re all capable of acting in pretty tricky ways. In calm moments, we should dare to acknowledge our eccentricities with grace. We’re trying to put together our own translation manual, and make some of the least lovable bits of our behavior seem less alarming and a little more forgivable.

Question 3: I’d probably be more normal if the following hadn’t happened to me in childhood ... A knowledge of the partner’s past shifts our ideas of their present behavior. They’re not just being difficult –they’re struggling with the complex legacy of a past they still don’t know how to grapple with.

Question 4: What I would like to be forgiven for ... In our most honest moments, we know that we have brought certain troubles into our partner’s life. It would be strange if we hadn’t. We’re complex individuals; we’re not remotely perfect. We’re going to try to do better—if we’re given the chance.

Question 5: Where I’d love you to realize you hurt me is ... We’re carrying around wounds that we have found hard to articulate. What matters is that each person can be heard and can lay out areas where the other wounded them. This exercise shouldn’t reignite problems. It should help solve them once and for all—and should be repeated regularly, as often as once a week.

Question 6: What would help me to change is if you ... We want to change, but we can’t do it alone. We need the other’s help and for them to behave in particular ways towards us. In saying there’s something we’d like to change, we’re not making a promise we can easily do it. We’re showing that we’re not indifferent to our own failings.

Question 7: What I’d miss so much about you is ... Suppose you weren’t to see your partner again, and you could look back from a distance and think about your relationship. What would you miss?