Questions to Ask a Truck Driver Boyfriend

The questions

Open any question to see why it works.

1. 1

   What kind of driving do you do: long haul, regional, local, or a dedicated route?

   This is the answer everything else depends on, because it decides whether he is home nightly, at weekends, or every few weeks. Ask it first, and ask whether the current arrangement is what he wants or what he could get.

2. 2

   How does your pay actually work?

   Drivers are paid by the mile, by a percentage of the load, hourly, or on salary, and the difference changes his whole week. Per mile pay means that sitting at a dock or waiting on a repair earns nothing, which explains a lot of moods you might otherwise take personally.

3. 3

   Are you a company driver, leasing, or an owner operator?

   The three carry different money, different risk and very different amounts of control over when he comes home. If he is leasing or owns the truck, ask what happens financially in a week when the truck is in the shop.

4. 4

   How much home time do you get, and how predictable is it?

   Ask for the pattern and then ask about the exceptions, because the exceptions are what you will actually be planning around. Find out who decides it, since in many jobs a dispatcher does rather than the driver.

5. 5

   What hours do you usually run: nights, days, or whatever you are given?

   His sleep schedule may never line up with yours, and it can change week to week. Knowing when he is driving tells you when a call is company and when it is a distraction he cannot say no to.

6. 6

   When is it good for me to call, and when should I just text?

   Set this early rather than learning it through a bad conversation. He may be legally able to talk hands free and still not be able to think about anything but the road, and the honest version of that is easier to say before it happens.

7. 7

   What does your day look like from the moment you wake up?

   Most people outside the industry have no picture of the waiting: fuel stops, scales, sitting at a dock for hours, finding parking before the clock runs out. Hearing the shape of it makes the phone calls make more sense.

8. 8

   How do the driving hour rules work, and how much do they box you in?

   Driving hours are regulated in most countries, logged, and enforced, so the clock is not something he chooses. Understanding it stops you from hearing I cannot get any further tonight as a decision rather than a rule.

9. 9

   Where do you sleep, and what is it like in there?

   Ask him to show you, on a video call or in person. The sleeper is his home for half his life and almost nobody asks him about it, so this is usually a warmer conversation than it sounds.

10. 10

    What do you eat out there, and how do you feel about it?

    Food on the road is an unglamorous and genuinely difficult problem, and the answer often opens into health, weight and sleep, which drivers rarely raise unprompted. Ask what would actually help rather than offering a plan.

11. 11

    What is the loneliest part, and what do you do about it?

    Ask it directly, because he has probably been trained by the culture of the job not to bring it up. Listen for whether he has anything other than the phone, since a relationship carrying the entire load is a fragile arrangement for both of you.

12. 12

    What scares you out there?

    Drivers tend to be matter-of-fact and specific about this: ice, mountain grades, cars cutting in front of a loaded trailer, other people's fatigue. It is the fastest way to understand what the job asks of him, and it usually earns a real answer.

13. 13

    What is the best thing you have seen from the cab?

    A deliberate counterweight to the last question. Long haul drivers see an enormous amount of country at odd hours and are almost never asked about it, so this one tends to produce something he has been carrying around unsaid.

14. 14

    What do you need from me while you are out, and what do you need when you first get home?

    These are often opposites: contact and news while he is away, then quiet and sleep on the first day back. Naming that in advance prevents the standard argument where an excited welcome meets an exhausted person.

15. 15

    How much of your first day back is really just sleeping?

    Home time shrinks once recovery sleep is subtracted, and a four day break can be two usable days. Planning around the real number rather than the advertised one removes a recurring disappointment.

16. 16

    Who handles everything at home while you are gone, and is that arrangement fair?

    The person at home absorbs the repairs, the appointments, the school runs and the emergencies, and resentment here builds quietly. This conversation only goes badly when it is had late, so have it early and revisit it.

17. 17

    How do you actually feel about being gone this much?

    Many drivers are ambivalent and do not say so, either because the money is good or because it is the only trade they have. The answer tells you whether this is a season of your life or its permanent shape, which is a different question than whether you can cope with it.

18. 18

    Do you want to still be doing this in five years, and what would you move to?

    The usual exits are local or regional driving, dispatch, training, safety work, or ownership, and each has a pay change attached. Ask what would need to be true for the switch, because most drivers have thought about it in detail.

19. 19

    What happens if there is an emergency here and you are a thousand miles away?

    Better to have a plan than a feeling: who you call first, how quickly he could realistically get back, what the company allows, and whether the load has to be covered before he can leave. Ask once, calmly, when nothing is wrong.

20. 20

    What would make you feel secure while you are away, and what do you need to hear from me?

    Distance makes ordinary silences feel like something else, and this is the standard failure mode for these relationships. Asking for his terms first makes it much easier to state your own straight afterwards.