Most people want to date or marry their best friend. Besides having someone who shares your obscure taste in music, best friends as partners offer emotional security. They make you feel valued, supported, and accepted for who you are.
Since at our core, what any of us wants is to be happy, you can see why a best friend has become the number one thing most people look for in an intimate partner.
Even when they separate if the friendship was real and felt, the couple will want to stay in each other’s lives. And you have to admit, exes who can remain friends after they split, is both rare and beautiful to see.
Take the story of Mary Ziegler who gave her ex Bill Henrichs the ultimate life-saving gift when she gave him one of her kidneys.
Something happens to most people in relationships that make them forget how to be friends however: they don’t work at the friendship. They have so many other demands of their partner – such as financial security or someone to heal their childhood wounds – that the friendship soon takes a backseat.
I’ve never had an ex to whom I would donate a kidney, but I’ve thought about and consulted with some great couples therapists about friendship in a relationship and what it should look like.
Here are 7 ways you can nurture the friendship in your relationship so that the “US” of the relationship grows and thrives!
1. Be fair
Seth Godin said this about fairness:
Fairness isn’t a handout. Fairness is the willingness to offer dignity to others. The dignity of being seen and heard, and having a chance to make a contribution.
If you’ve ever had a partner who acted as if what they bring to the table (a larger salary perhaps) was worth more than what you brought, did you grow to like or resent that person?
We know what unfairness looks like and that it doesn’t feel good. One simple thing you can do to keep fairness top of mind is to remind yourself value comes in many currencies. The person who is a good parent to your children and a good friend to you should be made to feel as valuable as someone bringing in thousands of dollars every month. Give your partner as much credit as you can if you want to be fair to them.
And while we’re thinking about it, let’s look at some other ways to fair in your relationship:
- Agree on who does what chores and confirm that it feels fair to both of you.
- Work out compromises or get help for those chores that neither of you wants to do.
- If you hog the closets in every room, make sure the other person has a space of their own.
2. Be emotionally supportive
In almost all relationships, one or both people will carry a few scars with them. It’s rare that anyone makes it through life without experiencing some stuff. So let’s assume that in most relationships, there will be someone who is a little needier emotionally. With a little more thought to loyalty and being extra supportive, you can have a very healthy relationship.
Here are some ways to be an emotionally supportive partner:
- Don’t invite in-laws and friends to weigh in on important matters unless they’re unbiased and helpful.
- Know each other’s hopes, fears, and backstory, and help each other feel safe, given what you know.
- Build each other up by pointing out the good (not just the problems) in each other and your relationship.
3. Be thoughtful
You know, it was only after taking The Five Love Language quiz that I realized getting stuff meant a lot to me. I was under the somewhat-mistaken impression that I’m the Spiritual/Low Maintenance type… someone who doesn’t hold grudges or want too much. I’m neither and I love knowing this about myself now! It explains why my former partners giving me back rubs didn’t hold as much weight for me or could get them off the hook if they needed to apologize. What usually did it for me (and you can judge me all you want) was a new dress from the BCBG store.
The lesson I learned that I want to pass on here is to speak your partner’s love language, not your own if you want to be truly thoughtful.
Btw, if your person’s Love Language is words of affirmation, bookmark these examples of words of affirmation and make sure you keep their love tank filled.
4. Be kind
What’s the difference between being thoughtful and being kind? Thoughtful is more about what you do, give stuff and show up for the other person, for example. Being kind, however, is who you are. It’s the tone you use and the sub-text of what you do.
You may be familiar with the celebrity couple, Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell. I really like these two. Dax has said that he and Kristen are very different, so different that they had to have couples therapy at the beginning of their relationship. Why did he even bother pursuing the relationship and working to make it work if they’re so different? Kristen, he told USA Today, is genuinely the nicest person I’ve ever met. “She has a personality that I want to be sitting on a porch with when I’m 80 years old.”
Kindness may not matter on Twitter, but it matters in our homes. Here are some ways to show kindness in your relationship.
- Work out your work stress before you get home by going to the gym after work or doing something else that relaxes you so you can “dust off” most of the negativity of the day before you get home. That is self-care and an example of being kind to your partner.
- Accommodate a few of your partner’s idiosyncrasies and quirks because it’s kind not to nag someone about every single thing they do wrong or imperfectly.
- Assume the best of your partner. S/he will want to live up to your good expectations of them.
- If your partner puts on a few pounds, don’t just tell them to lose weight. The kind thing to do is to look at what’s changed for them (maybe they’re under more stress than usual at work) and help them handle that situation better.
5. Set healthy boundaries
Although they’re your bestie, you shouldn’t share absolutely everything with your SO or expect them to be your everything. Your partner shouldn’t be your therapist or priest, for example. Set some limits on what you share or how much you burden your partner with so they never feel responsible for your happiness.
It’s okay to let your partner know about your childhood trauma and that you have a certain sensitivity that you’re working on. But don’t stop working on yourself and those sensitivities just because you’re in a relationship. We make a huge mistake when we expect love to be a cure-all or believe that if someone loves us they should “take us as we are.”
Each person has their own healing, self-improvement, and needs to take care of, and should be working on those things separately.
6. Learn to communicate with the person in front of you
Poor communication is draining for everyone involved and I personally, have lost patience with anyone over 30 who still can’t express themselves without animus. In order to have healthy relationships, we have to learn to communicate with each person in front of us as the individual they are. You don’t treat your current partner a certain way because your last girlfriend/boyfriend/SO was a certain way.
You can avoid a lot of transference by recognizing that we all carry ghosts with us and we need to develop healthy communication skills if we’re to maintain the friendship in the relationship.
- Learn active listening because it will make your partner feel heard and valued.
- Cut down on the nagging; it hurts your intimacy.
- Is it nagging if I have to keep reminding you about my fair but important boundary? No! The fact that your old girlfriend didn’t have a problem with you calling her “thick” has nothing to do with me. I’m a different person with different boundaries and preferences.
- Don’t keep repeating your mistakes. Our apologies become hollow when we keep doing behaviors that hurt/frustrate our partner. No one has time for that!
7. Have fun with each other
In most loving relationships, your partner is going to want to stick around if you’re easy to be around. And who is easier to be around than someone you have fun with all the time?
- Don’t take everything too seriously or dial every conflict up to a “10.”
- Find your partner’s inner child, and help him/her “play” and express it.
- Have at least a few sports and interests you share and do together.
- Have a weekly date night, no matter how modest.
- Discuss your preferred sexual frequency and fantasies and look for new ways to have fun in bed.
In relationships, most of us need the same things. Affection, trust, validation, and companionship are things most of us will say are important. It’s by practicing habits like the 7 above that we make it possible to have these important things. Affection, for example, grows when you and your partner have fun together when you are kind to each other, and take care of each other’s emotional needs.
And we all know that companionship is about more than sharing space. It’s ultimately about creating a home… and who doesn’t prefer peace at home?