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01 Making it last
What do you believe are the real reasons relationships fail, and what would you do, concretely, to make yours last a lifetime?
Why we ask
Almost everyone can name a reason relationships fail in the abstract. Far fewer can say what they would personally do differently, on a Tuesday, when it is happening to them. The gap between the diagnosis and the plan is where this question does its work. It also tends to reveal whether someone thinks a marriage is something you find or something you build, and those two people want quite different lives.
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02 Communication style
When something is bothering you in a relationship, how do you typically bring it up, or avoid it? What do you wish you did differently?
Why we ask
The second half matters more than the first. Anyone can describe their style; describing what they wish were different requires having watched themselves and not liked everything they saw. Two people can be very compatible in values and still exhaust each other over years because one raises things immediately and the other needs a day, and neither ever said so out loud.
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03 Conflict and repair
How do you behave when you are at your worst in a relationship, and what does repair look like for you?
Why we ask
This is the question that predicts most, and the one people least want to answer. Everybody is reasonable when things are going well; a marriage is largely decided by what each of you does in the twenty minutes after it stops going well. We ask about repair in the same breath because the behaviour on its own is only half the picture. Two people who both go quiet can still do fine if one of them reliably comes back. Nobody is disqualified for a hard answer here. People are matched by it.
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04 Money
How do you think about money in a marriage, joint, separate, or a mix? What does true financial partnership look like to you?
Why we ask
Money arguments are rarely about money. They are about safety, fairness, freedom and who is allowed to decide. Couples routinely discover in year three that one of them assumed everything would be pooled and the other assumed it would not, and that neither assumption was ever stated because both felt too obvious to mention. It is a cheap conversation to have now and an expensive one to have later.
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05 Values for children
What are the 3 to 5 most important values you want to instill in your children, and how would you actually teach them?
Why we ask
The second clause is the question. Naming values is easy and almost everyone names similar ones. How you would teach them is where the real differences live: by example, by explanation, by rule, by consequence, by faith. Two people who both say honesty matters can raise children in ways the other finds unrecognisable, and that disagreement usually surfaces once there is already a child in the house.
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06 Dependability
Describe a time you truly showed up for someone who needed you. What does being dependable mean to you in practice?
Why we ask
We ask for an instance rather than a self-assessment, because everybody rates themselves dependable and the word means something different to each of them. For one person it means answering the phone at 3am. For another it means never promising what they cannot deliver. Both are real. They are not the same, and a marriage between them will have arguments neither can name.
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07 Fear and vulnerability
What are you most afraid of in a committed relationship?
Why we ask
This is the question people most often answer too quickly, and the one most worth slowing down for. Being left, being trapped, being fully known, becoming your parents, losing yourself — these are not interchangeable fears, and they pull a person toward very different behaviour under stress. Someone who knows their own answer can warn a partner in advance. Someone who does not will simply act it out.
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08 Your biggest block
What is the biggest thing standing between you and the relationship you say you want?
Why we ask
Most people looking for a partner have one honest obstacle, and most of the time they already know what it is: a fear of committing, a past that is not finished, a career that takes everything, a city, a lack of trust. Naming it does not remove it, but an unnamed obstacle tends to get blamed on whoever turns up next. This is the question we are most often advised to remove, and the one people most often close the app on. It stays, because a search that avoids it is a search that goes nowhere slowly.
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09 Dealbreakers
What are your true, non-negotiable dealbreakers in a partner, things you cannot overlook, no matter how much you love someone?
Why we ask
The word we lean on is true. Most stated dealbreakers are preferences with strong feelings attached, and they quietly dissolve on contact with someone charming. The genuinely non-negotiable ones are usually few, often uncomfortable to admit, and worth far more than a long list. Naming them honestly is also a kindness to everyone you will not be right for.
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10 Philosophy of life
How do you make sense of your life, what do you believe it is for, and how do you try to live it?
Why we ask
Couples do not need matching answers here, but they do need to be able to hear each other on it. This is where faith is asked about directly rather than reduced to a checkbox, and where people with no faith at all get the same room to say what they are actually building toward. A marriage between two people who cannot discuss this at all runs into it eventually, usually at a funeral or a birth.
Honest beats polished.
If you take one thing from this page, take that. We are not grading these answers and there is no version of them that gets you a better match. An accurate answer, including an unflattering one, gets you someone who can live with the real person. A polished one gets you someone who chose a version of you that you will have to keep performing.
If you are answering them on your own rather than with us, we would suggest writing rather than thinking. Most people find they do not know their own answer until they have had to finish the sentence.
