Key Takeaways
- Ask your partner open-ended questions to encourage deeper conversations.
- Try new things together to create fresh topics for discussion.
In the early days of a relationship, every conversation with our partner is incredibly exciting—we’re discovering more about them and sharing little bits of ourselves.
Fast forward to a few years later. We’re comfortably settled into the relationship, which is great, but it can sometimes feel like we’ve run out of things to talk about. The “What’s your favorite food?” phase feels like a distant memory. Instead, we’re having the same conversations over and over again, which, if we’re being honest, can get a little boring.
“After some time, we assume we know our partners inside and out and stop making an effort,” says Claudia de Llano, LMFT, a licensed marriage and family therapist and author of “The Seven Destinies of Love.”
However, to keep the spark alive, “it’s important to channel excitement and newness within the relationship,” says Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, a clinical psychologist specializing in relationships.
Wondering how to keep the spark alive? Here are some strategies that can help you reignite the conversation with your partner and some topics to get you started.
How to Rekindle the Conversation Spark With a Long-Term Partner
These are some strategies that can help you rekindle the conversation with a long-term partner:
- Ask open-ended questions: Ask your partner open-ended questions that encourage deeper conversations. For example, you could ask them “What’s something you’ve always wanted to try but haven’t yet?”
- Dive deeper: Go beyond surface-level questions. Instead of asking “How was your day?”, ask “What was the most interesting thing that happened at work today?” Or, if they’ve had a rough day, you could ask “What frustrated you the most today?”
- Play conversation games: Try playful conversation games like “Two Truths and a Lie” or “Would You Rather” to add a fun element to your interactions.
- Incorporate story time: Ask your partner to tell you a story—it could be about anything. The stories we tell often reflect our innermost thoughts in creative ways.
- Express interest: Show your partner you’re genuinely interested in their thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Put away distractions and actively listen to what they have to say, asking follow-up questions along the way.
- Be vulnerable: Share your thoughts, fears, dreams, and vulnerabilities with each other. Vulnerability can deepen emotional intimacy and lead to more meaningful conversations.
- Try new things together: By doing new things together, you create new material to talk about, says Dr. Romanoff. She suggests trying a new restaurant in a different part of town, visiting a museum, taking a new route home, going on a trip together, or engaging in a new physical activity, such as an exercise class, massage, or hike.
- Read or watch something together: Pick a book, movie, or TV series to read or watch together. These can provide new topics for conversation and create shared experiences. You can even listen to a podcast together—each of you could listen to an episode on your commute to work every day and then you can discuss it when you’re together at night.
- Try new things individually: You also can reignite the conversation by trying new things individually and bringing back your experiences to share with your partner, says Dr. Romanoff. “When there is stagnation in a relationship, it can reflect stagnation in other parts of your life. Remember to continue to foster a full life outside of the relationship so you can bring back that energy to your partner.”
10 Topics to Start New Conversations
These are 10 topics you can use to spark new conversations with your partner.
Hopes and Dreams
Share your hopes, dreams, and aspirations with your partner and ask them about theirs.
“You could do this in a fun way, by sharing your childhood dreams—no matter how silly or far-fetched they sound,” says Dr. Romanoff. Or, you could have a more serious conversation about the hopes and dreams each of you secretly harbor—the ones you’ve never admitted aloud to anyone, probably not even yourselves.
Dr. Romanoff recommends finding a connection between each of your dreams to the present day. “For example, if it was your partner’s dream to be a jazz musician, you could plan a date night at a jazz bar or get concert tickets to a jazz show. Alternatively, if you always wanted to be a doctor, you could explore the underlying value system driving you to the profession, i.e. helping people, and find a volunteering opportunity you both could do together.”
This will help you create new experiences, memories, and conversations with each other, while fulfilling your dreams together, in a way.
Fears
Believe it or not, you can actually have a pretty interesting conversation with your partner about your fears. Dr. Romanoff recommends starting out in a playful manner, by asking them about their childhood fears or whether they have any quirky/unusual fears, and sharing your own. It could be anything—lots of tiny holes, raisins, moths, or monsters under the bed.
From there, you can have a deeper conversation with your partner about what keeps each of you up at night as adults. Common themes are money, job security, health, losing loved ones, and our own mortality, says Dr. Romanoff. “Our fears often reveal personality traits, childhood experiences, and parts of our identity.”
Tread lightly if they’re sensitive about something though, you don’t want to push them and make them feel uncomfortable.
Life Goals
Talk to your partner about your life goals and encourage them to share theirs with you. They can be big goals, related to your career, finances, personal growth, or relationships. Or, they could be smaller goals, like wanting to be able to do 100 push-ups by the end of the year. You can even set some goals together, like trying a new restaurant every month, making a new recipe every week, or going on vacation every year.
When you talk to your partner about goals, Dr. Romanoff recommends discussing the underlying motivations behind them as well. “Don’t stop at just discussing the goal, rather seek to understand the why, to uncover what it represents to each of you and why it’s so important.”
Relationship Reflections
Reminisce with your partner about the early stages of your relationship. What were some of your first impressions of each other? What was your funniest date? What did you appreciate most about each other? What did you tell your friends after your first meeting? When did you know they were the one?
These conversations can help you see your relationship from their perspective, bringing you closer together.
Memories
Talk to your partner about your childhood memories and the defining moments of your life. Ask them about theirs.
Talking about your memories helps you relive them in the present, says Dr. Romanoff. “Sharing fond childhood memories or interesting travel experiences helps you bring them to life, so you both can experience it together.”
Family Traditions
Tell your partner about your family’s traditions growing up and invite them to share theirs with you. More importantly, discuss how each one made you feel. Did you love it or hate it? Would you continue it?
You can also talk to your partner about creating new traditions together. They could be small additions to your daily routine, like writing each other a cute note every day. Or, they could be fun activities you do together, like a weekly date night or a couples massage. You could even make your own traditions for holidays and special occasions, such as breakfast in bed on birthdays.
Travel and Adventure
Talking about travel and adventure can be an exciting escape from the routine of daily life. You can discuss your dream destinations with your partner and make a bucket list together. Every now and then, you can revisit the bucket list to update it.
Whenever you are able to, plan trips with your partner. Try to incorporate both your interests into the itinerary. Whether it’s a short getaway or a longer vacation, it’ll probably give you and your partner lots of talk about—before, during, and after the trip.
Fantasies
Another fun topic of conversation is fantasies. You can ask your partner hypothetical questions such as:
- If they could move somewhere else for the rest of their lives, where would they go?
- If they could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, who would they pick?
- If they could wake up as someone else tomorrow, who would they be?
- If they could have three wishes, what would they ask for?
- If they could have any superpower, which one would they choose?
- If they could be an animal, which one would they want to be?
- If they could star in a movie, which one would they want it to be?
Apart from asking your partner these questions, also remember to ask them why. These questions help us share our innermost fantasies, increasing intimacy and closeness with our partners, says de Llano.
Interests
Talk to your partner about your hobbies and interests. It could be art, music, books, technology, food, fitness, spirituality, or anything else you’re interested in.
Share your passion with your partner and include them in it—you can take them along with you if they’re up for it, or tell them all about it when you spend time together.
Similarly, encourage them to follow their passions and ask them to share their thoughts and experiences with you.
Gratitude
Remember to tell your partner everything you’re grateful for, when it comes to them and your relationship.
In long-term relationships, complacency can set in, and before you know it, you’re nagging each other about doing the dishes and keeping the bathroom clean. This can get frustrating for both of you. According to a 2021 study, spending more time arguing with one’s partner than talking to them is linked to lower relationship satisfaction.
Focusing on gratitude can help you break the negative cycle of arguing. Everyone likes to feel appreciated and a little gratitude often goes a long way! Your partner will appreciate it and you’ll be happier too—research shows us that gratitude and life satisfaction go hand in hand.
