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<\/picture><\/div>Being someone\u2019s BFF is a big deal. You don\u2019t hand over the other half of your \u201cBest Friends\u201d necklace to just anyone.<\/span><\/p>\n Having a romantic partner who is also your best friend sounds ideal. A BFF romantic partner gives you the best of both worlds, someone with whom you can laugh, share your life, and cuddle. When you look at seemingly happy celebrity couples like John Krasinski and Emily Blunt, Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell, or Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively, not only do they appear to be in love, but they also seem to genuinely enjoy hanging out together.<\/span><\/p>\n What most people call love is mostly reliant on physical attraction, which has little to do with emotional intimacy or commitment. Holding mistaken beliefs about love leaves us vulnerable to focusing more on the unsustainable aspects of love, while missing out on what really matters.<\/span><\/p>\n Once we shake those misguided notions, we can learn to embrace the love of long-term happy relationships, or what researchers call companionate or friendship-based love (Grote & Frieze, 1994). This love involves a \u201ccomfortable, affectionate, trusting love for a likable partner, based on a deep sense of friendship and involving companionship and the enjoyment of common activities, mutual interests, and shared laughter.\u201d We need to sign ourselves up for that. If the excitement of jumping out of an airplane is similar to passionate love, companionate love is our parachute. Less flashy, but it\u2019s safe and provides a reassuring and grounding experience.<\/span><\/p>\n Is your romantic partner your best friend? (They probably should be.)<\/span><\/p>\n When our relationship has a foundation in companionate love, our partner is our BFF. But do people really think of their romantic partner as their best friend? To answer that, I asked a national sample this question, with the help of the Monmouth University Polling Institute (Lewandowski, 2017). For those in a relationship, the vast majority (83%) said their romantic partner was their best friend. For married couples, it was even higher (88%). Older respondents were also more likely to report having a best friend partner. Interestingly, men and women were equally likely to report best friend romantic partners.<\/span><\/p>\n Because it was a national poll, I had to ask the question directly, but there\u2019s a problem with that. It\u2019s full of social desirability. What I mean by that is, if you ask someone \u201cIs your partner your best friend?\u201d they\u2019re going to say yes. How could they say no? Researchers ran a subtler, sneakier version to determine best friend partner status (Pennington et al., 2025). They had 940 adults in relationships name their seven closest friends. But they left one detail deliberately vague: Whether a romantic partner could be included in the count. Participants weren\u2019t told to include their romantic partner, they also weren\u2019t asked specifically about them.<\/span><\/p>\n When inclusion on the special friend list was entirely up to the participants own discretion, only about one-third (36%) included their romantic partner. Of those, only about two out of five (39%) said their romantic partner was their best friend. If you do a little math, that means that only ~14% of people in relationships think of their romantic partner as their bestie.<\/span><\/p>\n Asked one way, 83% have best friend partners, <\/span><\/p>\n but asked another way, only 14% do.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n This may all just be a measurement artifact, but the real question is whether it\u2019s good to have a BFF romantic partner. Well, more people probably should. The Pennington et al. study found that when people did consider their partner a close friend, they felt much closer in the relationship. That sounds pretty good.<\/span><\/p>\n Some may think, <\/span>\u201cI already have a best friend, I don\u2019t need that from my romantic partner.\u201d<\/span><\/em> Well, I also asked about this in the poll I did. Those who had best friend romantic partners were more satisfied compared to those whose romantic partner wasn\u2019t their best friend. Other research corroborates this finding. When relationships have more companionate love, they are more satisfying and last longer (Hecht et al., 1994).<\/span><\/p>\n Remember, that second F in BFF stands for forever, and companionate love helps our relationship make it over the long haul. This really isn\u2019t surprising considering that a study of 622 married individuals found that those with more friendship-based love reported that their relationship was more important to them, that they felt closer to their spouse, and that they had more respect for their partner (Grote & Frieze, 1994).<\/span><\/p>\n Couples who have been happily married for over 15 years back up these findings as well. Researchers asked over 350 of these \u201cexpert\u201d couples what the secret was to their success (Lauer & Lauer, 1985). Reason number one? Easy: my partner is my best friend. Reason number two? Also easy: I like my spouse as a person. Very friendly.<\/span><\/p>\n And the best friend partner payoff isn\u2019t limited to just the relationship. You get benefits in life as well. When economists tracked tens of thousands of people across two long-running UK surveys, marriage provided a life satisfaction boost, which you probably already knew about. The part that was new, was that the bump was about twice as large for people who also called their spouse their best friend (Grover & Helliwell, 2019). Friendship even softened the mid-life dip in happiness that hits most people. So the BFF partner helps you enjoy better love and a better life.<\/span><\/p>\n Everyone likes to like their partner. But any friendship can provide that. Romantic partners have a unique role as the sole provider (in most relationships) of passionate love.<\/span><\/p>\n The common concern is that being too buddy-buddy or emphasizing friendship could take away from the passion. To address this, researchers compared companionate and passionate love head-to-head to see which mattered more for relationship satisfaction (Sprecher & Regan, 1998). You know when people wax poetic and say, \u201cLove always wins\u201d? Well, the love they\u2019re talking about is companionate, not passionate.<\/span><\/p>\n Sure, companionate love facilitates satisfaction, but it\u2019s hard to believe it does much for the lusty sexual aspects of the relationship. Wrong. Companionate love helps your sex life too. When researchers asked nearly 400 people in a relationship, those who reported highly valuing their friendship with their partner also reported feeling more in love, more commitment, and greater sexual gratification (VanderDrift et al., 2013). An added bonus: they were less likely to break up. Companionate love wins again.<\/span><\/p>\n Here\u2019s why: Relationships are mostly full of mundane moments. Not passion. If you\u2019re banking on romance and lust to provide enough momentum, it\u2019s going to be a difficult journey. Every relationship is full of grocery runs, laundry, chores, scheduling fights, and a hundred forgettable errands. None of it is romantic. But if you get to do those things with a friend, it\u2019s suddenly much more bearable.<\/span><\/p>\n The dishes pile up either way. The difference is who\u2019s standing next to you at the sink. Spending time with someone you genuinely like makes a huge difference.<\/span><\/p>\n Want the tools, frameworks, and step-by-step strategies that make the real difference between understanding something and being able to do something with it?<\/p>\n That\u2019s what paid subscribers get, plus access to the full archive (everything unlocked) of science-backed scripts, exercises, and coaching frameworks from 4+ years of working with real people in real relationships.<\/p>\n Less than a therapy co-pay. Infinitely more actionable.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n We take our best friendships very seriously. They\u2019re our person. The one we share our deepest fears, insecurities, and secrets with. The person who sees the most genuine version of ourselves. We expect a lot from our best friend in terms of their ability to make us feel seen, heard, understood, accepted, supported, cared for, and free. If a best friend doesn\u2019t live up to our expectations, that person doesn\u2019t stay our best friend for very long.<\/span><\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s time to start holding our partner to the same standards that we have for a best friend. All too often we\u2019re overly forgiving of a relationship partner\u2019s bad behavior when they would never accept similar behaviors from a friend. Put another way, if our best friend was routinely grumpy, inconsistent, argumentative, nagging, unkind, rude, unwilling to talk or hang out, purposefully mysterious, or just generally shady, what would we do? Most likely we wouldn\u2019t put up with it. Yet, when our romantic partners do these types of things they all too often get a free pass. No more. The stakes are too high. Having companionate love in our relationship is too important.<\/span><\/p>\n We teach people in our lives how to treat us.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Stop putting up with behaviors from a romantic partner (e.g., disrespect) that you would never tolerate from a best friend.<\/span><\/p>\n Pick partners based on how good a friend they are, <\/span><\/p>\n rather than how good they are in bed.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Weirdly, romantic love isn\u2019t always all that romantic. We expect love to be unconditional, but then we act like love is will automatically stick around simply because we defined the relationship, made a promise, or signed some papers. Love shouldn\u2019t be an obligation. Friendship never worked that way. Nobody keeps a friend out of duty.<\/span><\/p>\n You keep a friend because they still add something to your life, because you trust them, because you\u2019re better off with them in it. When that starts to slip, you work on the friendship. If that doesn\u2019t help, the friendship fades, and no one calls that a moral failure. Seeing your partner as a friend means admitting your relationship runs on the same rule. It doesn\u2019t survive because just because you\u2019re in it or because it has to. It survives because you keep finding reasons to want them in your life. (That\u2019s not a threat. It\u2019s an easy standard to meet for anyone who is a good partner for you.)<\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a simple \u201ctest\u201d to know if your partner could be the \u201cone.\u201d If you take away all of the romance, the physical attraction, and the passion, what\u2019s left? Do you like your partner? Is this still someone you\u2019d go out of your way to spend an afternoon with? The best relationships answer both questions without a pause.<\/span><\/p>\n In other words, <\/span>\u201cIs your partner your best friend?\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Hopefully your answer is a quick and certain \u201cyes.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Rather than worrying about whether we\u2019re having enough sex in our relationship, we should consider whether we have enough mutual respect, kindness, and friendship. The best way to achieve true love forever is to be best friends forever first.<\/span><\/p>\n Best friendship status isn\u2019t a question your grandparents, or even your parents asked or worried about in their romantic relationships. Expectations for modern relationships have evolved, and in this way, for the better. Couples now expect their relationships to promote personal growth and help individuals fulfill their own goals. The idea that a relationship can help an individual become a better person, is a useful one because those relationships are higher quality. To hit your self-improvement targets, you may need more from a spouse or romantic partner than was expected in years past, and a partner who is also your best friend is a step in the right direction.<\/span><\/p>\n Hope this helps,<\/span><\/p>\n Dr. L<\/span><\/p>\n If this helped, a like, share, or restack helps more people find it.<\/span><\/p>\n Have a comment? Please share. I read every one.<\/span><\/p>\n\n