Free relationships tools
20 short exercises on relationships, 2 to 8 minutes each, free and with no account needed. Open one and it runs right in the page.
The 20 tools
What you value most in closeness
Choose and rank the five things that matter most to you in a close relationship. Knowing your own list makes it easier to see when it is being met.
One relationship, five dials
Think of one important relationship and set a dial for trust, ease, honesty, reciprocity, and closeness. It works for a partner, a friend, or a family member.
How you show up in conflict
Rate how often a set of conflict habits has been true for you: going quiet, getting loud, fixing, fleeing, keeping score.
Your conflict moves
Sort a list of things people do during disagreements into what you do often, sometimes, and rarely. Then look at what your "often" list has in common.
From frustration to a clear ask
Take one frustration with someone close to you and work it into a need and a request they could actually say yes to.
An appreciation inventory
Write down what you appreciate about one person in your life, specifically enough that it could only be about them. Then decide whether to tell them.
Your support circle
Place the people in your life on a grid of how close they feel against how much you actually lean on them. The gaps are often revealing.
Repair after conflict
Turn over cards showing what people often want to say after a fight on one side and what tends to reach the other person on the other.
When a friendship is drifting
Think of one friend you have felt further from lately and tick the small signs of drift you recognize. Drift is quiet, and naming it early is most of the work of stopping it.
Where your relationship effort goes
Divide 100 points across the people in your life to show where your effort actually lands: the messages, the visits, the remembering, the showing up.
When you actually talk
Mark the times in your week when you and the person you live with have a real conversation, not logistics or a screen between you. Most couples and roommates find the map is emptier than they assumed.
How to help me when I am struggling
Rank the ways people try to help from most to least useful for you. Then you have a list you could actually hand to a partner, friend, or family member.
Seven days of contact
Each evening, rate how connected you felt to other people, how much you reached out, and how much others reached you. By the weekend, the three lines start to explain each other.
Keeping friendships alive
Build a small, realistic routine for the friendships that matter to you: the low-effort touches, the rituals, and what you do when one of you is struggling.
Before you hit send
A short exercise for the message you are about to send in a heated moment, whether to a partner, a group chat, or a coworker. Five minutes between the draft and the send button.
When they go quiet
Turn over the stories your mind writes when someone does not reply, cancels, or goes distant, and see the other explanations and the question you could ask instead.
The invisible load at home
Place the jobs that keep a home running on a grid of who mostly does them against how visible they are. For couples and roommates, the bottom corners are where the arguments come from.
The roles you play with people
Choose the parts you tend to play in your relationships: the planner, the listener, the fixer, the one who fades. Then look at which ones you chose and which ones were handed to you.
The conversation you keep putting off
Write your way toward a conversation with a family member or someone close that you have been avoiding. Not to rehearse a speech, but to find out what you actually want from it.
What you say to coworkers, and what you swallow
Sort things people could say to a coworker into what you say readily, what you say eventually, and what you never say. The last column is where work relationships get stuck.
What these tools are, and are not
Every tool here is free and works without an account: choose cards, move dials, sort a list, follow a paced breath, or keep a seven-day log, and read back what you noticed at the end. They are built to make a vague feeling more specific, which is often the first useful step.
None of them diagnoses, screens for or treats anything, and nothing you see at the end is a score or a label. If something you notice worries you, a licensed therapist is the right next conversation, and the directory is free to browse.