Skip to content
HeartTap

58 questions

Long distance relationship questions

Long distance does something specific to conversation. You speak more often than most couples living together, and about less. The daily texture goes missing, so calls compress into logistics and reassurance, and after a few months you can know someone’s schedule perfectly and have no idea how they are actually doing.

The questions below are built around that gap. The first section is deliberately mundane, because mundane is the thing distance steals. The middle sections cover the plan, which long distance couples are famously good at avoiding, and the emotional weather, which is easier to admit to in a question than to volunteer.

The last section is the one people skip. Distance makes it very easy to defer hard conversations indefinitely, since the next visit always feels like a better time. It rarely is. A visit has its own weather and nobody wants to spend three precious days on the difficult subject.

Questions that recover the ordinary

These sound trivial and are not. The small texture of a day is exactly what distance removes, and asking for it directly works better than hoping it comes up.

  1. 1What did your room look like when you woke up this morning?
  2. 2Who is the person you spoke to most this week who is not me?
  3. 3What is currently annoying you that is too small to have mentioned?
  4. 4What did you eat today, honestly, all of it?
  5. 5What is the walk from your door to wherever you go most like?
  6. 6What is on your desk right now?
  7. 7What sound do you hear most in your flat?
  8. 8What did you almost tell me about and then forget?
  9. 9Who made you laugh this week?
  10. 10What has changed about your routine since we last spoke properly?
  11. 11What is the last photo on your camera roll and why did you take it?
  12. 12What is something new in your city since I was there?

Questions about the plan

The section most long distance couples put off. Distance without a plan turns into a holding pattern, and holding patterns end quietly.

  1. 1What is our actual timeline for being in the same place?
  2. 2Who is moving, and have we ever really decided that?
  3. 3What would need to be true for you to move?
  4. 4What would you be giving up, and does that scare you?
  5. 5How long can you do this for before it stops being sustainable?
  6. 6What is our next visit, and when do we book the one after?
  7. 7What are we each saving toward, and is it the same thing?
  8. 8What would we do if one of us got an opportunity in the wrong city?
  9. 9How would we know if this had stopped working?
  10. 10What does the first month of living in the same city actually look like?
  11. 11What are we assuming about each other’s plans that we have never checked?
  12. 12If nothing changed for two more years, what would you do?

Questions about how it feels

Distance makes people minimise. These give permission to say the thing rather than manage it alone.

  1. 1When is it hardest for you, in the week?
  2. 2What do you miss that is not the obvious thing?
  3. 3What do you find yourself pretending is fine?
  4. 4Do you feel more or less known by me than you did six months ago?
  5. 5What makes you feel closest to me from this far away?
  6. 6When do you feel most insecure about us?
  7. 7What is something you wanted to say on a call and did not?
  8. 8Do our calls feel like a pleasure or an obligation lately?
  9. 9What do you need more of from me that distance makes awkward to ask for?
  10. 10When did you last feel lonely, and did you tell me?
  11. 11What do you tell other people about us, and is it accurate?
  12. 12What would make the gap between visits easier?

Questions about trust and boundaries

Better asked calmly and early than urgently and late. Vague agreements are where most long distance trouble starts.

  1. 1What would count as crossing a line for you, specifically?
  2. 2What do you not want to know, and what do you want to be told?
  3. 3How do you feel about the nights out I do not hear about?
  4. 4What would you want me to do if I found myself attracted to someone?
  5. 5Is there anything you have not told me because it would be hard to explain from here?
  6. 6What makes you feel secure when we have not spoken for a day?
  7. 7Do you want more contact or less than we have now, honestly?
  8. 8What would break your trust that I might not realise mattered?
  9. 9How much of your life here do you want me to be part of?
  10. 10What do you need from me when you are jealous?
  11. 11How do we handle it when one of us is having a much better time than the other?
  12. 12What have we agreed on that we should probably revisit?

Questions for the visit

Visits carry an unfair amount of expectation. These help you use them for something other than performing happiness at each other.

  1. 1What do you want this visit to feel like rather than include?
  2. 2What do you need from these days that you would not think to ask for?
  3. 3Is there anything you want to do alone while I am there?
  4. 4What is one boring domestic thing you want to do together?
  5. 5What did the last visit get wrong?
  6. 6What do you dread about the last day, and can we plan around it?
  7. 7What would make the goodbye slightly less bad?
  8. 8Who do you want me to meet, and who would you rather I did not?
  9. 9What do you want to have talked about before I leave?
  10. 10What is the thing we always mean to do and never do?

Keep asking without having to remember

The hard part of this is not the questions, it is the habit. Most couples read a list like this, have one good conversation, and never open it again. HeartTap exists mainly to remove that failure: it sends one question at a time to both of you, and hides each answer until you have both written yours, so neither of you drifts toward agreeing with the other.

Related question sets

Relationship check-in questions

A structured set for daily, weekly and monthly check-ins, with a format that avoids the argument.

Deep questions to ask your partner

Sixty questions that go past the surface, sorted from gentle to genuinely searching.

All question topics →

Frequently asked questions

What should long distance couples talk about besides missing each other?

The ordinary texture of the day, which is the thing distance actually removes. What your room looks like, what is annoying you, who you spoke to. Couples who live together absorb this passively; long distance couples have to ask for it on purpose, and calls that consist only of logistics plus reassurance are what makes people feel like strangers who are fond of each other.

How often should long distance couples talk?

Less than most people assume, and more consistently. Long scheduled calls every day can become an obligation neither person will admit to resenting. Many couples do better with brief ambient contact through the day, a photo or a note or a widget update, plus one or two proper conversations a week that are not squeezed in before sleep.

What questions should we ask before starting a long distance relationship?

The ones in the plan section, before you start rather than a year in. Who moves, when, what would need to be true, and how long each of you can sustain it. Long distance without an end date is a different arrangement from long distance with one, and the two are worth not confusing.

How do you keep a long distance relationship from feeling like admin?

Share things that are not updates. A drawing, a photo of nothing in particular, a question with no practical purpose. Widget apps like HeartTap exist for exactly this: a small piece of the other person on your home screen, which asks for nothing and does not have to be answered.

One question a day, answered together

HeartTap delivers a question at a time from a library of over 2000, and keeps both answers hidden until you have each written yours. Free on iPhone and Android.

Download on theApp StoreGet it onGoogle Play