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Module 20 — The Love List
Know exactly what makes your partner feel loved, and tell them what works for you.
Watch first: the Module 20 video
A narrated video of about 4 minutes in a paper-cutout style that opens and closes on the Neurodiverse Couples Counseling Center logo. Two Love List clipboards hold twenty items each, and a chart turns vague items like “Be more affectionate” into specific ones that say what to do, when, and what to say. It shows each partner saying no to four of twenty, a couple in a video-call session, and the list hung beside the bathroom mirror.
Watch the Module 20 video: The Love List (MP4, about 4 minutes). The written lesson below covers the same ground in full.
Most of us never ask for what we want, and then we are hurt when our partner does not do it. In this session, each of you writes down twenty specific things that make you feel loved. We call it the Love List. You read your lists to each other, say which items are a no, try one in the room, and put the lists up at home where you will see them every day.
Writing down what makes you feel loved
Summary: what usually happens in the session
1 You each write twenty things that make you feel loved. At home, on your own, before the session.
2 Your therapist helps you make each item specific. One item at a time, until it says what to do, when, and the words you want to hear.
3 You read your lists out loud to each other. All twenty. Your partner listens without answering, then reads theirs to you.
4 You each say which items on your partner’s list are a no. Out loud, in the session. Saying no is part of the exercise.
5 You each do one item from your partner’s list, in the room. Right then, with your therapist there. Then you swap.
6 You decide where each list will hang at home. Before you leave. Each of you takes your partner’s list home.
Each of you owns your own list, and either of you can change yours at any time. One way this session can go, not a script. Your therapist will shape it to the two of you and to their own way of working.
Step 1. You each write twenty things that make you feel loved
You expect your partner to know what makes you feel loved. Your partner expects the same of you. Neither of you says it out loud. Then both of you are hurt when it does not happen.
We expect our partner to read our minds. In real life, that does not happen.
Research points the same way. In pooled studies, guessing each other’s feelings well had only a small link to a happy relationship, and almost all of it came from reading bad feelings.1
In a neurodiverse couple, the guessing is harder in both directions. Each of you can miss the love the other is already offering. Many people also feel that love only counts if they did not have to ask. Asking does not make it count less. For a partner who finds guessing hard, a clear request is what makes it possible to show love well.
So each of you writes it down. The instructions are on our Love List worksheet. It asks for twenty items. Each one is something your partner could do tomorrow, not a wish.
How your therapist sets it up. Write twenty each, before we meet, on your own. Not what you think you ought to want. What actually makes you feel loved.
If nothing comes. For some people the page stays empty. They do not know what makes them feel loved. This is common if you find it hard to name feelings, or if you have spent years paying attention to what everyone else needs. That is not a failure. It is the work. For a week or two, notice what warms you and what leaves you flat. Try small things. Then write the list from what you found.
Step 2. Your therapist helps you make each item specific
Most people write their items too vague the first time. So before anything is read out, your therapist goes through each list with its owner.
The way this goes wrong. She writes be more affectionate. Her partner hugs her at the door every evening for two weeks. What she wanted was a hand to hold on the walk after dinner. She decides her partner did not really try. Her partner decides nothing they do counts. Neither of them is wrong. The item was too vague to do, and the fix is a clearer item, not a better partner.
The same wish, written two ways. Be more affectionate.
Reach for my hand when we walk, hold it gently, and say I love you when you let go.
Why so specific. A specific item can be done on the way home from the store. You both know when it happened. Items can be about quiet and space as well as touch and words: twenty quiet minutes when you get home, or a word of warning before a hug.
Making an item specific. Text me is a good start. When would you like the text? At lunchtime. Which day? Wednesday. And saying what? One thing he appreciates about me. Now it is something he can do.
A vague item leaves your partner to work out what you meant, and a wrong guess feels like not caring. A specific one can be done tomorrow, and you will both know it happened.
Step 3. You read your lists out loud to each other
Next, you read your twenty out loud to your partner. Then you swap, and your partner reads their list to you.
What usually happens here. Hearing the list in your partner’s own voice lands differently from reading it. Several items usually turn out to be easier than you expected.
If it sounds like a list of complaints. Twenty wishes can sound like twenty things you have not been doing. They are really things that would help from now on. Reading your own list can feel exposed, too, as if you are asking for too much. If either of you starts to feel criticized or ashamed, say so, and your therapist will slow the reading down.
Handing over the reading. Read them to him, not to me. All twenty, at your own pace. He is not answering yet. He is just listening.
Step 4. You each say which items are a no
Now each of you goes back through your partner’s list. You say which items you will not do. Some may be more than you can manage. Some you may simply not want to do. Both are allowed. A no is about the item, not about your partner. Often the item costs more than you knew, because of a sound, a touch or the energy it takes. You say the noes here, in the room, so nobody finds out at home a month later.
This is why there are twenty. With twenty items, saying no to four or five is not a problem. What is left is still more than anyone could do in a week.
Items about touch or sex. The same rule holds: a no is a full answer, and it is not argued at home later. If either of you feels pressured, or afraid to say no, tell your therapist on your own. That comes before this exercise.
Each of you marks the noes on the sheet as you say them, so nobody has to remember later which ones they were.
Saying no. Which ones are a no for you? Tell her now. You can say why if you like, but you do not have to.
You can always say it. If any of this starts to feel like too much, you can say I am uncomfortable. That is a complete sentence. Nobody has to explain it or defend it. We stop, we look together at what is happening, and we decide as a group whether to stay with it or to understand first what is getting in the way.
Hearing a no about an item that matters to you can sting. Saying no to someone you love is hard too. This is the moment in this session where you are most likely to need it.
Step 5. You each do one item from your partner’s list, in the room
Your partner picks one item from your list and does it, right then, with your therapist there. Then you swap, and you do one of theirs. It feels staged, and most couples laugh partway through. Pick one you can do in front of someone. If none feels possible today, say so, and do one together right after the session instead.
Once you have done an item in the room, doing it at home is easier.
Practicing one. Pick one from her list that you could do now, while I am here. It will probably feel a little staged, and that is fine.
Step 6. You decide where each list will hang at home
A list kept in a drawer gets forgotten. So before you leave, you decide where each list will hang: somewhere you stand still twice a day with nothing else to do.
Where it goes. Where do you brush your teeth? Tape her list up beside the mirror when you get home.
If children or visitors use that bathroom, the inside of a cabinet door by the mirror works too.
A list taped where you brush your teeth gets read twice a day, without anyone having to remember it.
After the session
One item a day, in any order. Aim for one item a day, whichever one you can manage. Some days it will be the easiest thing on the page, and that still counts. If you miss a day, start again the next one. This is not a score. If the list on the wall starts to feel like pressure, that is worth saying out loud too.
When your partner does one of yours, tell them you noticed. In studies of couples sharing good moments, a warm response made the good feeling last longer. Couples who usually answered each other warmly also felt closer day to day.2 A thank-you is enough. There is no need to grade it.
If an item did not land, or you have changed your mind, rewrite it and put up a new list.
If this is hard to do. If this is too much right now, there is no need to push through it. Spend some time with your partner talking about what makes it hard, and share the feelings that come up: awkwardness at asking, worry about asking for too much, sadness that you had to ask at all. That conversation is part of the work.
Doesn't it count less if I have to ask?
Many people feel that love only counts if they did not have to ask. Asking does not make it count less. In a neurodiverse couple, guessing is harder in both directions, and each of you can miss the love the other is already offering. For a partner who finds guessing hard, a clear request is what makes it possible to show love well.
What if I do not know what makes me feel loved?
For some people the page stays empty. This is common if you find it hard to name feelings, or if you have spent years paying attention to what everyone else needs. That is not a failure. It is the work: for a week or two, notice what warms you and what leaves you flat, try small things, then write the list from what you found.
What if my partner's list has things I will not do?
You say which items are a no, out loud in the session, so nobody finds out at home a month later. Some may be more than you can manage, because of a sound, a touch or the energy it takes, and some you may simply not want to do. Both are allowed. A no is about the item, not your partner, and with twenty items, four or five noes still leave plenty.
Why make each item so specific?
A vague item like 'be more affectionate' is hard to do, and both partners can end up hurt even when both are trying. A specific item says what to do, when, and the words you want to hear, such as reaching for a hand on a walk and saying I love you when you let go. You both know when it happened. Items can be about quiet and space, too.
Your workbook
Your answers save to this device only - we cannot see a word of what you write. This one holds your list of twenty, the items you said no to on your partner's list, and where the lists hang.
Your list of twenty
Make each item specific enough that your partner could do it tomorrow without asking you anything: what to do, when, and the words you want to hear.
Your twenty, one per line. Start each one: I feel loved when you...
Could your partner do every one of these tomorrow without asking you anything? — All twenty, Most of them, Some are still wishes, not things to do, I could not write the list yet
If you could not write it yet: what made you feel loved this week, and what small things did you try?
Your partner's list
What happened with your partner's list in the session, in their words.
The items on your partner's list you said no to
The one item from your partner's list you did in the session
Where the lists hang
Somewhere you see it every morning and every night.
Where is your partner's list up? — Beside the bathroom mirror, Somewhere else I see morning and night, It is not up yet
This week: which of your items did your partner do, and did you tell them you noticed?
Where this comes from
Every source below was checked against the published record. They are grouped by the kind of evidence they are, so the numbers may not run straight down the page — a number points back to where the source is used in the lesson.
Research discussion
The Love List is our own exercise, and its instructions are on the Love List worksheet. It comes from clinical practice, in a long line of couples exercises where partners agree on small, specific caring acts. It has not been tested in a trial. What the lesson claims is modest: a specific request gets met more often than a vague one, twenty items leave room to say no, and a list you see twice a day gets used more than one you have to remember.
The first study1 combined 21 studies of 2,739 people. How well partners read each other’s feelings had a small link to how happy they were together, and almost all of it came from reading negative feelings. The couples were tested in a lab, none of them were neurodiverse couples, and the study shows a link, not a cause.
The second2 is four studies from 2004 that used diaries and questionnaires. People who shared good news and got a warm, interested response felt better for longer, and couples who usually answered this way were closer. The studies show that the two go together, not that learning to respond warmly causes the closeness.
Who this research was done with. The studies behind this module, neither of them of neurodiverse couples, drew heavily on white, comparatively well-off, English-speaking participants. If your household carries pressures those samples did not — money, immigration, racism, disability, unsafe housing — the practice still applies, but the room you are practicing in is harder. That is the room, not you.
Clinically reviewed by Harry Motro, PsyD, LMFT · California LMFT #53452 · Founder and Clinical Director, Neurodiverse Couples Counseling Center · Clinical supervisor · Updated September 28, 2026
Peer-reviewed research
1. Sened H, Lavidor M, Lazarus G, Bar-Kalifa E, Rafaeli E, Ickes W (2017) Empathic accuracy and relationship satisfaction: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Family Psychology, 31(6), 742-752. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000320 Meta-analysis of 21 studies (2,739 participants) using the dyadic interaction paradigm. Empathic accuracy showed a small but significant association with relationship satisfaction (r = .134); accuracy for negative emotions was more closely related (r = .171) than accuracy for positive emotions (r = .068, not significant); gender and procedural variations did not moderate the association. Limitation: general-population couples in laboratory paradigms; correlational.
2. Gable SL, Reis HT, Impett EA, Asher ER (2004) What do you do when things go right? The intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits of sharing positive events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87(2), 228-245. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.2.228 Four studies of capitalization, sharing personal positive events with others. Sharing was associated with increased daily positive affect and well-being beyond the event itself, more so when others responded actively and constructively; close relationships in which a partner typically responded enthusiastically showed higher relationship well-being, including intimacy and daily marital satisfaction. Limitation: correlational and diary-based; shows an association, not that coaching the response causes the benefit.
Further reading
• Neurodiverse Couples Counseling Center (2026) Worksheet 20: Love List (and the earlier Love List Instructions and Loom walkthrough). Practice materials, Neurodiverse Couples Counseling Center. https://www.sherocksthespectrum.com/worksheets/love-list The practice's exercise: at least twenty specific, actionable items; read aloud in session; each partner says which items they cannot do; tape your partner's list up where you will see it and do one thing a day; either partner may change their list at any time. Limitation: a clinical exercise in the behavior-exchange tradition, developed in use.
Say what makes you feel loved, and put it where you both see it
The Neurodiverse Couples Counseling Center works with couples where one or both partners are autistic, ADHD or AuDHD. In the Love List session, you each read your list of twenty aloud, say which items are a no, do one item in the room, and decide where the lists will hang before you leave. Therapy for clients in California, coaching worldwide, all by telehealth. A first conversation costs nothing.
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