Canonical Soulnests article

Journal Prompts for Couples: Questions That Help You Know Each Other Again

Fifty journal prompts for couples, for new love, long love, hard seasons and long distance, plus a simple way to share your answers so they become conversations instead of homework.

Category: journaling

Topics: journal prompts for couples, couples journal, questions for couples, relationship journaling, the Nest

Journal Prompts for Couples: Questions That Help You Know Each Other Again

It happens at a restaurant, usually. Two people who love each other sit across a small table with nothing to say. Not because anything is wrong. The calendar has been discussed, the dog's appointment has been discussed, the leak under the sink has been discussed at length. What is left is a silence that feels heavier than it should, because each of them is privately wondering when they stopped asking the other real questions.

The person across from you is not finished. Neither are you. People keep changing in small ways every season, and in a long relationship it is easy to keep loving the version of someone you met instead of the one who is here now, eating the bread.

Questions are one way back. Writing the answers down, before you say them, is a way to make them braver.

The short answer

Journal prompts for couples are questions each partner answers in writing, then shares. Writing first gives quieter people time to think and gives louder people time to listen. Below are fifty prompts in five groups: for new love, for long love, for hard seasons, for long distance, and for gratitude. Pick one a week, not fifty in a night. Answer on your own, then trade pages.

Why writing first helps

In 1997, psychologist Arthur Aron and his colleagues asked pairs of strangers to take turns answering a set of questions that grew gradually more personal over about forty-five minutes. Pairs who went through those questions reported feeling closer than pairs who spent the time on small talk (Aron et al., 1997). The questions were not magic. They gave people permission to say things they would not usually volunteer.

Couples can use the same permission. Writing adds one more thing: time. A spoken question gets the first answer that arrives. A written one gets the answer you find on the second try, which is often the truer one.

How to use these prompts

Choose one prompt together. Each of you writes for ten minutes without showing the other. Then swap. Read the other person's answer twice before you say anything, and when you do speak, start with what surprised you rather than what you disagree with. If an answer stings, it is allowed to sting. You can come back to it tomorrow.

If you use Soulnests, each of you can write the answer as a private journal entry and share just that page into a Nest you both belong to. The page lands on a shared shelf you can flip through like a book, and months later you can read back through what you were both wondering about in October.

For new love

  1. What did you notice about me before we ever really talked?
  2. What is something you have never told a partner because you thought it would scare them away?
  3. Which of your habits do you think I have not discovered yet?
  4. What did your family teach you about love without ever saying it out loud?
  5. Describe a perfect ordinary Sunday, hour by hour.
  6. What is a small thing that makes you feel cared for that most people would overlook?
  7. What are you hoping I will never ask you to give up?
  8. When you are upset, what do you need first: space, words or a hand on your back?
  9. What do you want us to be like in five years that we are not yet?
  10. What question do you wish I would ask you?

For long love

  1. What is something about me that has changed since we met, and that you like better now?
  2. When did you last feel proud of us, and why?
  3. What is one routine of ours that you love and would protect at all costs?
  4. What is one routine of ours that you quietly dread?
  5. What do you miss about the early years that we could bring back in some small form?
  6. What dream of yours have you stopped mentioning because it no longer seemed practical?
  7. When do you feel most alone, even when I am in the room?
  8. What do you know about me that no one else does?
  9. What do you still not understand about me, after all this time?
  10. Write the first paragraph of the story of us, as if a grandchild would read it.

For hard seasons

  1. What has been the heaviest thing you carried this month, and how much of it have you let me see?
  2. When we argue, what do you wish I understood about what is happening inside you?
  3. What is one thing I did recently that helped, even if I did not know it?
  4. What is one thing I keep doing that makes it harder, said as kindly as you can?
  5. What are you afraid will happen to us if this season lasts?
  6. What do you need from me this week, in plain practical terms?
  7. What is something you forgive me for that you have not said out loud?
  8. What would you like me to forgive you for?
  9. Where do you feel we are still a team, even now?
  10. What would one good day look like, in the middle of all this?

For long distance

  1. What time of day do you miss me most, and what are you usually doing?
  2. Describe the room you are writing from, so I can picture it.
  3. What is something in your town that you want to show me when I visit?
  4. What is the hardest part of the distance that you have not mentioned, so I do not worry?
  5. Which of our rituals survived the miles, and which should we invent?
  6. What do you want the first hour of our next visit to look like?
  7. What news do you save up for me instead of texting it right away?
  8. When the distance ends, what are you afraid we will lose?
  9. What makes you feel close to me on a day we do not talk?
  10. Write me a note to open on a bad day.

For gratitude

  1. What did I do this week that you noticed and did not mention?
  2. What is a quality of mine that you hope our children, friends or neighbors absorb?
  3. Which memory of us do you return to when you need comfort?
  4. What is something difficult I have made easier just by being around?
  5. What is a sound, smell or object that reminds you of me?
  6. When did I make you laugh harder than you wanted to?
  7. What did I teach you that you did not know you needed to learn?
  8. How have I changed your idea of what love is?
  9. What small, specific thing would you thank me for if this were the last letter you could write?
  10. Finish this sentence ten different ways: I am glad it is you because...

A small note on care

These prompts are meant to open conversations, not to settle verdicts. If a prompt brings up something that keeps hurting, it may be worth talking it through with a licensed couples counselor. If a relationship involves fear, control or harm, journaling together is not the right tool; in the United States, theNational Domestic Violence Hotlineis free and confidential at any hour.

Related guides