What is the most important relationship in your life? Relationships are core to who you are, and are central to your story. Plus, talking about love in any form is just plain fun. That’s why we prepared a special edition of relationship questions as interview or writing prompts to elicit these reflections. We prepared this for Valentine’s Day, but these questions apply equally well to best friends, close family members and even business partners.
What makes your relationship?
How strong is your relationship? What have you learned about making it work? Subscribe to our weekly email with tips to tell your story and get this special edition of our relationship question prompts.
Relationship questions – some of the best parts of your story!
Plus, talking about those most special relationships with family and friends creates a close bond that is difficult to break. Remember when you would see your parents kiss or even hold hands? Your first instinct was to exclaim, “Ooh, gross!” All the while silently smiling inside because two of the most important people in your world were showing love to each other.
The same thing comes into play when your children or grandchildren, even nieces and nephews, hear you tell (or read) your love story. Not only does it make them feel happy, it gives them a sense of self worth to know those stories.
Related: Getting it Right: Five thing Bruce Feiler Taught me About Happy Parenting
In this vein, here are a couple of my favorite questions to get the ball rolling. Our printable has these questions along with quite a few more to fill in your relationship story.
How did you meet?
I found this to be true today as my two youngest daughters were working on their school Valentines and I was whipping up a batch of sugar cookies. I looked at them and saw them busily working and smiled at their complete and utter cuteness. “Do you know how dad and I met?” I asked my 6-year-old. “Yes!” my 11-year-old said before her little sister could get the words out. “Can I listen again?” my 11-year-old quickly added. My youngest had put her markers down and was all ears. I launched into the story of how I met their dad – college sweethearts and a case of mistaken identity. You see, my husband thought my name was my friend’s name and it took a few days for us all to figure out that he was smitten (as was I) but I thought he liked my friend. I slowly started to figure it out when he miraculously ended up in every one of college classes. (I was clueless about boys liking me.) As the story rose to its height, both my girls giggled, my youngest even throwing her hand over her mouth to contain her laughs when she heard how their dad asked for my phone number and I still didn’t believe he liked me. I then explained we had seen each other nearly every day since then for over 25 years. “True love!” my 11-year-old shouted out. “I really like that story,” my baby girl said, with a shy grin like she’d just heard a big secret.
That story is now emblazoned in their memory, hopefully forever. I’ve written it down as well, when it was fresh in my mind all those years ago. Now it’s time to re-write it with my adult musings.
What do you admire most about the other person?
This question is a special one. Over Christmas, I was interviewing a couple who decided to slowly start writing a memoir of their life story for their children. We started with the relationship portion of their story because they really wanted their family to know of their love for each other. It was a sweet and tender project for me, because it made me reflect on my own relationship with my spouse.
The best part for me was when we got the question, “What do you admire most about each other?” My client had a list right away because it was obvious she had been thinking about it. As she described each quality, describing in detail, the smile on his face was big and the love in his eyes was real.
But when he was posed with the same question – that’s when things got tender. He thought for a few minutes; he wanted to be careful and precise. As he sincerely described his wife’s best traits there was a tenderness to his voice, to his face and to his overall being that struck a chord in me. The love in the room was palpable and as I wrote, she wiped tears. He did too. The story of how you met your love is special, but the story of why you stayed and qualities you admire most, that is the stuff of a truly good life together. It’s magic.
There are other directions where your relationship story can go too like, “How does inspiration and spirituality play into your relationship?” Please enjoy some of our other articles about love stories we’ve experienced or written about. Make sure you click to receive our full relationship free printable to use this week. Answering these questions, writing them down or recording them will be special for generations to come!
Related: God and Marriage, how does it fit?
Related: Who is your best friend?
In love, is truth better than fiction? Read about the Jim and Norma Kier story then decide.
What makes your relationship?
How strong is your relationship? What have you learned about making it work? Subscribe to our weekly email with tips to tell your story and get this special edition of our relationship question prompts.
Rachel J. Trotter is a writer at Evalogue.Life – Tell Your Story. We we tell personal and family stories that inspire, and help you tell yours. She has worked as a writer since her college days over 20 years ago. She loves telling people’s stories. She lives in Ogden, Utah and is busy raising six children and loves working on family history alongside her husband, Mat.
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