Couples Therapy, But Make it an App: The Paired App Review

HOW IT WORKS

To keep the whole endeavor from feeling like work, the app engages you with a combination of games, quizzes, exercises, and questions. When your partner completes a quiz, does an exercise, plays a game, or starts a question pack you’ll see that a prompt has been answered, but you won’t see their response until you also provide an answer. The delayed gratification brings a sense of fun (and healthy competition) to the Paired experience. This format encourages you to seek out prompts that align with what you’re interested in learning about your partner but may have been hesitant to ask (for instance, cheating, boundaries or sex expectations). 

GENRE BREAKDOWN

The content of the app is created by a panel of experts that include marriage therapists, sociology professors, relationship researchers, and more. The four main types of content to choose from are as follows: 

‍Question Packs 

There are, as of now, 128 question packs including The Orgasm Pack, Family Traditions, Married Couples Check-Up, and Becoming Pet Parents. Each has 6-11 related questions and some of them are in video format (the questions are posed by an expert in a video but you still type in your responses). 

Exercises

A bit of a misnomer, each exercise is usually a longer article-style explainer written by an expert about a discrete topic (such as jealousy, love languages, and codependency), follow by one multiple-choice question designed to spark discussion. 

Games

If you’ve ever seen The Newlywed Game, you’ll be well prepared for these. The games test how well you can anticipate your partner’s responses. You answer a set of questions from your own perspective and then predict what your partner will say. Whoever’s predictions are more accurate is the winner. These are mostly unserious and fun, covering topics like “How Lucky Are You?” and which natural wonders you have visited/want to visit. Still, the fact that a winner is declared might get a little dicey if one person is consistently the loser.

Quizzes

Quizzes consist of six questions answered on a five-point scale from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree. This format is the most reductive of all the options, but it can be helpful to see how your answers stack up against your partner’s in subjects like Support in Stressful Times, Sexual Compatability, and How Socialable Are You? Helpfully, you can add a note to your answer, which is a great feature for times when your response comes with a caveat. 

IN PRACTICE

The Question Packs are definitely the heart of the app and the greatest opportunity to connect. That being said, the prompts can sometimes feel a bit clinical (“What’s the scariest thing about sharing your feelings with your partner?” followed by “Is there anything else that stops you from opening up more?”), which puts the onus of thoughtfulness on the responder because the question itself isn’t inspiring. 

This can sometimes result in a disparity between how seriously (or thoroughly) each person answers the question. There were several instances that I experienced with my partner where one of us wrote a few paragraphs and the other provided a one-sentence response. We were able to see the humor in this and, helpfully, the app offers space to continue talking. I would bet that many couples, like us, ended up having great in-person conversations based on Paired prompts. 

There’s an element of risk built into the app because the entire point is to answer probing questions that will test your relationship. Whether it’s about sharing money, a marriage timeline, how many kids you want, or a host of other serious (and commitment-related) prompts, the app can sometimes feel more like Un-paired. You could also hit a rough patch when it comes to comparing political and religious beliefs. However, I prefer to discover incompatible beliefs as early as possible, so I appreciate that Paired is an efficient vehicle for unflinching self-examination. I think that’s only a good thing for any couple, but beware that it will quickly expose any delusions. 

LONG-DISTANCE LIFESAVER

I used Paired for several months when my boyfriend and I were in different countries and it was a useful long-distance tool because it lets you know your partner is thinking about you without the urgency of a text. I’d get a notification during my workday that he had completed a question pack and I’d look forward to seeing his answers at the end of my day. Even though he was fast asleep by the time I was winding down, I’d answer three or four questions and it was a decent substitute for the pre-bedtime conversations we’d usually have. 

Critically, when it comes to long-distance relationships, Paired conversations help keep “real talks” afloat. The app is basically a designated place to maintain asynchronous meaningful conversation. Anyone who has done long-distance knows how much effort it takes to prevent that sense of complacent ennui creep in and take hold. On an average long-distance call, you run through what you did that day, what you ate, who you talked to — and even though it feels like you communicated, did you really? When calls and texts are the only things tethering you to each other, the subject matter and quality of conversation are imperative. Your relationship can’t grow (or even survive) if you’re feeding it a paltry diet of small talk.