By Nicole Merritt

Sometimes, when you are knee-deep in a relationship or a marriage, years in, you lose sight of one another. You lose sight of what originally drew you to your partner. You forget which of their qualities were once endearing to you. You fail to see past the flaws that have now become your pet peeves, and you stop looking at — and listening to — them as you once did.

To avoid this easy-to-fall-into trap so many long-term relationships succumb to, it's been intriguing, informative, and fun to ask my husband the same set of questions a few times every year.

I am an advocate for families improving internal communication through "periodic performance reviews." Marriages need these same sorts of "wellness checks" regularly to maintain emotional intimacy. Asking each other provides an opportunity for feedback and growth as a couple.

Though the questions you ask each other should not always remain the same, it is vital to a relationship’s survival and success that couples ask and answer questions like these from time to time to ensure that both of you are aware of one another’s changing (or constant) perspectives on life and your partnership.

Below you will find a list of the twenty questions that I asked my husband, and he gave me candid answers, some of which made me laugh, some of which made me think, and some of which made me smile. Asking questions has been shown to make you more likable, research from 2017 states.

To fall in love with your partner again, ask these 20 questions:

1. What was the first thing you noticed about me?

2. What is the first thing you notice about me now when you see me in the morning?

3. What was your favorite thing about my appearance early in our relationship?

4. What is your favorite thing about my appearance now?

5. What impresses you about me?

6. What do you think my three main flaws are?

7. If you could change one thing about me, what would that be?

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8. What is something you would never change about me?

9. Have I surprised you in any way throughout our relationship?

10. What has been your favorite stage of our relationship up until now and why?

11. What stage has been the hardest?

12. If you could go anywhere with me on vacation, where would we go, what would we do and why?

13. Do you think I have changed since we first met? If so, for better or worse, and in what ways?

14. Did you ever expect your life would turn out like this? If not, what did you expect?

KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA / Pexels

15. If you weren’t my husband and the father to our three children, what would you like to be doing?

16. Do you feel that our marriage holds you back from anything?

17. Is marriage harder or easier than you thought? In what ways?

18. Is parenthood harder or easier than you thought?

19. Are you afraid of aging and how that will affect our relationship?

20 Is there anything I can do to make you feel more satisfied and happy with your life?

Take a few minutes, tonight or one day this week, to sit down with your partner, have some coffee or a drink, and ask them these questions. Don’t like my questions? Then come up with twenty of your own.

The point is to ask questions and check in with your partner. If you want to sustain your relationship or marriage and you want it to remain healthy, you have to care about it enough to take the time to check in with your partner. It's important to understand how your partner is feeling about the relationship, one study from 2021 confirms.

Nicole Merritt is a freelance writer and editor. She has been featured in Scary Mommy, The Good Men Project, BLUNTmoms, Thought Catalog, Everyday Family, Elephant Journal, and more.

This article was originally published at Good Men Project. Reprinted with permission from the author.