Get to know your Partner even better to thrive!

With some tips and exercises, you will discover new aspects of your partner. And besides being fun, it contributes to building your connection. Depth brings connection but requires a conscious step!

What is depth?

You can find many descriptions for it when you search online. In this blog, it's about the next step in the connection you feel with your loved one. You feel it when you go deeper together. It's the feeling I'm talking about. If you don't feel this (yet) in your relationship or have not felt it, you may find it hard to imagine. Think back to a deep friendship you've had in the past. But let me start with an important distinction. There's a difference between knowing a lot about each other and depth. If you've been together for a long time, you naturally know a lot about each other. It's logical that when you've spent a lot of time together, you have many shared memories. That, in itself, creates a bond. But that's not yet depth. Depth arises when you reveal more of yourself. It goes further than what you've told or shown so far. What are your real motives, deeper thoughts, beliefs?

Why does depth create connection?

I can explain it best with the seven relationship needs. Pay attention to the order. They are all equally important, but the underlying ones need to be filled in sufficiently for the fulfillment of the ones above. I'll say something about that at the end.

To be really connected is in fifth place. It's an important need that makes the difference between a beautiful friendship and two hearts deeply connected to each other. Moreover, what you share on a deeper level makes you vulnerable to the other. They know more about you than anyone else, without the veil of the image games we all play to the outside world. Vulnerability and depth go hand in hand.

But we've known each other for so long... we know everything about each other!

Wanna bet? It's precisely the intention that you start searching - and allow yourself to reveal what you don't yet know about each other or know only a little. What can help is focusing on the following areas: life history, life views, relationship needs, dreams, desires, fears, and failures? How well do you know each other in these areas, and what can you tell in them that you know the other doesn't know yet? Maybe you need a cozy dinner to start the conversation or just an evening on the couch together. Perhaps the following questions can initiate a beautiful and, at times, vulnerable conversation.

• If each letter of our names represented a life goal, what goals would they be?

• What does each of you bring to the relationship that the other might not do as well? Name that for each other.

• What do you appreciate most about each other and why?

• What common goals or dreams do we have?

• How important is money to you?

• Which friend/person has influenced your life the most, and why?

• Have you ever had a run-in with the police?

• What were the biggest failures in your life?

• What were the 10 most fantastic experiences in your life? And in your relationship?

• If you could be someone other than yourself, who would you want to be, and why?

• What is your best quality and why?

More fun questions to ask...

The following questions are not everyday and require a detailed answer. The rule is that each question should be answered by both of you. Make it a fun conversation and get to know each other in a different way...

• If a movie were made about your life, which actors would play in it, and in which genre would it come out? • What music do you think suits each personality?

• If you could travel to the future once and back, where would you like to go, and why?

• What question would you like to ask God or the Universe?

• Who in the world should be immortal, and why?

• If you could do your whole life over, what would you do differently, and why?

• Do you think people are fundamentally good or bad?

• If you could manage all the money in the world for a week, what would you do with it?

• Do social media make people lonely or not?

• Would you do anything for money?

If the underlying Relationship Needs are not sufficiently fulfilled, we are not open

If the underlying Relationship Needs of safety, support, acceptance, attention, and appreciation are significantly below par, then you should first pay attention to them. Then you or your partner are not yet open to a conversation for more depth. See also my blogs about the seven Relationship Needs we have in an intimate relationship. If you have room for improvement in all areas, it may sound like a very long journey, but it doesn't have to be. It's just important that you know what you can do today to get those Relationship Needs to a sufficient level. Take advantage of it by working on it.

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