Counselling questions for couples: 25 to ask each other — and 7 exercises that actually help.
Advice bounces off a couple. A good question gets in.
25 questions from the counselling room to ask each other — and 7 exercises that change the pattern, not just the evening.
Laura Clair KowalczykPsychologist & Gestalt therapistReading time: approx. 8 min.Last updated: August 2026Good counselling questions for couples interrupt the usual argument and restore curiosity: ask about beginnings, everyday closeness, conflict, needs and the future — one asks, the other only listens. Pair them with small, repeatable exercises (a daily ten-minute check-in, repeat-before-you-reply, a pause word, saying the wish instead of the complaint). Where an exercise keeps collapsing into the same fight, that is where couples therapy starts.
When couples ask me for “tips”, I usually give them questions instead. Not because I am being coy, but because advice lands on the surface (“communicate more”) while a question lands where the relationship actually lives — in what you haven't said to each other for a while. Below are the counselling questions for couples I return to most, and the couples therapy exercises that hold up outside the session. Use them at home; bring the ones that get stuck to the room. (If you first want to know whether any of this works: Does couples therapy work?)
Why questions work better than advice
Most couples don't lack information — they lack contact. In Gestalt terms: the two of you are running a well-rehearsed cycle (one pushes, one pulls away; one explains, one goes quiet), and inside that cycle nobody is actually curious anymore. A real question interrupts the cycle, because you cannot ask it and defend yourself at the same time. That is the whole trick of a first couples counselling session, and it is something you can borrow.
Two rules before you start: one asks, the other answers — and the asker only listens, no corrections. And you don't do all 25 in one night. Five is plenty; a walk or a kitchen table beats the sofa in front of the TV.
25 counselling questions for couples — by theme
Beginnings
- What first drew you to me — and is it still there?
- What did you hope our life together would feel like?
- What is one thing you understood about me early on that other people miss?
- When did you last feel we were a team?
- What do you miss from our first year — not the events, the feeling?
Everyday closeness
- When during the week do you feel closest to me? When furthest away?
- What is one small thing I do that makes you feel loved — and one that makes you feel alone?
- How do you know I am listening to you — what does it look like?
- What would you like more of from me: words, time, touch, help, or being left in peace?
- What do you not tell me because you think I already know?
Conflict
- What do you do when you are hurt — and what does it look like from the outside?
- Which sentence of mine sends you straight into the old fight?
- What do you actually want when you criticise me?
- How did your parents argue — and what did you decide you would never do?
- What would help you come back after a fight: time, a word, a hand?
Needs and boundaries
- Where in our life do you say yes when you mean no?
- What do you need that you have stopped asking for?
- Which of your boundaries do I cross without noticing?
- What part of yourself do you hide to keep the peace with me?
- What do you carry alone that we could carry together?
Future
- If nothing between us changed for five years, what would you feel?
- What is one thing you would like us to try that we have never tried?
- What would you want us to be better at before children, a move, a big decision — or the next one?
- What do you admire in me that you have not said out loud lately?
- What would “us, at our best” look like on an ordinary Tuesday?
7 couples therapy exercises you can do at home
Couples counselling exercises are not worksheets. The good ones are tiny, a little awkward, and repeatable. These seven are the ones my couples actually keep doing after therapy ends:
The ten-minute check-in.
Phones away, same time each day. Each of you: one thing that was hard today, one thing you appreciated about the other. No problem-solving allowed — that is the point. Ten minutes of being heard beats an hour of being right.
Repeat before you reply.
When it gets tense: before you answer, say back what you heard — “so you feel that when I…” — and ask “did I get it?”. Only then your side. Slows the cycle from 200 km/h to walking pace, which is where change becomes possible.
The pause word.
Agree on one word or gesture that means “we are in the loop — stop, breathe, continue in twenty minutes.” Either of you can call it; both of you must honour it, including the return.
Say the wish, not the complaint.
Under most criticism there is a wish. Practise translating: “you never…” becomes “I would love it if…”. It feels exposed. That exposure is the contact you have been missing.
The body check before the hard talk.
Before a difficult conversation, each of you names what your body is doing — tight jaw, racing heart, numb. Just naming it lowers the temperature and tells your partner what they are actually meeting.
Appreciation out loud.
Once a day, one specific appreciation, said to your partner's face — not about the dishes, about them. Couples who do this for three weeks describe the house as “softer”. The research on positive-to-negative ratios agrees.
The weekly “state of us”.
Twenty minutes, once a week: what went well between us, what got stuck, one thing for next week. Calendar it. It is unromantic and it is where many of the couples I work with quietly turn things around.
Couples counselling tips: how to use all this at home — and when to bring it to the room
Start with the questions that make you slightly nervous, not the safe ones. Keep the exercises small enough that you will still be doing them in a month. And notice when an exercise turns into the old fight — that is not failure, it is a map: the spot where you keep getting stuck is exactly what couples therapy is for. In the session we slow that spot down, look at what each of you does in it, and practise something different while it is happening — online, the three of us, in English, German or Polish. For international couples, the questions about family, home and “how we argue where I come from” tend to be the most revealing: more on that in therapy for expats, and if saying no at all is the hard part, here is setting boundaries without losing yourself.
Signs the questions are doing their job
- One of you says something the other genuinely did not know
- A question makes you both go quiet — in a good way
- You notice the old cycle starting and one of you names it
- A complaint turns into a wish halfway through the sentence
- You end the evening closer, even if nothing was “solved”
Talk about it — together, online.
A free 20-minute intro call for the two of you. Afterwards you decide in peace. Couples sessions online: 60 minutes, €150 — in English, German or Polish, also mixed.
Book a free intro callFrequently asked questions
Couples therapy questions — your questions
What questions does a couples counsellor ask in the first session? +
What brought you here now, what drew you to each other, what happens between you when it goes wrong, what each of you would want to be different — and, importantly, what each of you is willing to look at in yourself. The first session is a map, not a verdict.
Do couples therapy exercises work without a therapist? +
Often, yes — for couples whose pattern is not yet hardened. When the exercises keep collapsing into the same fight, that is the signal to get a third person in the room; the exercise isn't wrong, it has just found the knot.
How often should we do these? +
Little and often beats a big weekend: a daily ten-minute check-in and one longer conversation a week is the rhythm most couples can sustain. Questions: a handful at a time, not the whole list.
What if a question turns into another fight? +
Use the pause word, come back in twenty minutes, and write down where it tipped. That spot is gold — it is what we would look at together in a session.
About the author
Laura Clair Kowalczyk is a psychologist (M.A.) and Gestalt therapist (IGG Berlin) with a background in family counselling (couples, parents, adolescents). Since 2019 she has been working with individuals and couples online — in English, German and Polish — on anxiety, relationships and life transitions.
More about Laura