6 Key Qualities That May be Missing From Your Relationship

The idea that like turns to love at some point in a relationship is one that most people can understand. If you’re now in love, you may recall the time that you once thought of your partner in platonic terms. Maybe, though, things were better then. Jason and Sherry knew each other for years before they suddenly fell in love. Although she considers herself happy now, she wonders if their relationship lost something when liking was replaced by loving.

A New Model of Friendship in Intimate Relationships

Brigham Young University’s Otgonbileg Erdenebaatar and colleagues (2026) propose in a new study that the sense of connection between partners is what allows a relationship to grow. And that sense of connection is, they propose, captured by the element of friendship: “a foundational element of meaningful human connection.” Borrowing from Aristotle, they describe true friendship as “one soul dwelling in two bodies.”

As important as friendship is to that sense of connection, Erdenebaatar et al. note that it isn’t all that well defined or examined in the relationship literature. Specifically, the “lived, process-oriented experience” of friendship is left unexplored. The purpose of their study was to delve into this experience using what’s called “grounded theory,” allowing the dimensions of friendship to emerge from close analysis of the words that couples used to describe their relationship.

Identifying Friendship’s Six Key Qualities

The findings from the BYU study came from in-depth analysis of interview material collected from couples in the United States and the United Kingdom. The 81 couples ranged in age from 20 to 74 (mean age 37). Almost half (49 percent) defined their relationship as healthy, and the rest as either unhealthy (21 percent) or a combination of the two (30 percent).

Overall, participants described friendship as an active process that required cultivation over the course of daily interactions. This active process occurred across the following six dimensions, defined below:

1. Chemistry and closeness. Chemistry is a concept you might associate with romance (or science class!), but the study’s couples regarded this as a quality they experience both with their friends and loved ones. You feel drawn to a person you like; you want to talk to this person and simply share the same space. Chemistry doesn’t fade when infatuation ends; it only grows over time.
2. Laughter and shared joy. You have fun with your friends, but according to the Erdenebaatar et al. study, you can—and should—be able to have fun with your romantic partner. Fun can range from sharing jokes, “being silly,” and even teasing each other in bed. This quality doesn’t arise spontaneously, though; it needs to be cultivated as partners continue to amp up their investment in the relationship.
3. Emotional connection and vulnerability. When you’re with a friend you’ve known forever, you have no trouble opening up to this person and showing your true side. With romantic partners, similarly, the BYU study showed the importance of disclosing their feelings and experiences without fearing they’ll be judged or rejected. One couple described this process in terms of getting through hard times: “He showed up 110 percent, and I showed up 110 percent, and because we have this friendship, we kept leveling up.”
4. Common interests. Again, thinking of your best friend, it’s quite likely that you enjoy the same activities, going together to cultural events, shopping, cooking together, or just sitting on the couch watching a movie. Romantic couples, similarly, reported the same sense of mutual enjoyment. However, they don’t just slide into this. The study’s participants intentionally created opportunities to share their interests. What’s more, they didn’t always have the exact same interests. As long as they could enjoy each other’s company or chat about each other’s favorite hobbies, that was all that mattered.
5. Rituals. Relationships are often marked by rituals, whether anniversary celebrations or just daily check-ins. Friends have their own rituals, such as a weekly lunch date, but in romantic relationships, participants reported that these took on a daily form. They might kiss goodbye when leaving the house, hello when returning home, or cook the nightly meal together. The study’s couples also engaged in rituals with a capital “R,” in which they worked on legacy-building and memory-making activities such as taking photos while on vacation.
6. Teamwork and mutual support. The idea of teamwork permeates many good relationships, whether at work or with the people you care about. You want to feel that you’re on the same side and that you share each other’s successes as well as burdens. With friends, you’ll show up when they need help, such as bringing meals to them if they’re sick. In romantic relationships, similarly, the couples reported that they get each other through tough times. Reliability became the underlying basis for this dimension. Cooperation, sharing the load, and providing support—much like friends would—all helped to foster closeness as a couple.

Checking Out What’s Missing in Your Relationship

There were no statistical data presented in this study, given its framework of qualitative analysis. Thus, you can’t compare your “scores” on these dimensions with those of the healthy couples. But the dimensions themselves should be able to provide you with a gut check on your relationship.

Thinking back on Sherry’s concerns about what’s missing in her connection to Jason, she might start by ticking off the qualities that characterized their friendship. Did they in fact talk and laugh more? Did they go out of their way to connect on a daily basis, doing some of those basic check-ins from dimension five (rituals)?

Maybe they’ve grown apart because they took so many of these opportunities to connect for granted. After all, if you’re living in the same house, or if you legalized your relationship through marriage, hasn’t the idea of friendship now become immaterial? Why bother if you have made your love for each other explicit?

As it turns out, taking your partner for granted can be the fatal flaw in a relationship described as romantic versus a friendship you regard as platonic. Everyone knows how easy it is for a friendship to dwindle if it’s not worked at. Just because you’ve made an emotional commitment to your partner, that work becomes equally important.

To sum up, a loving relationship can—and perhaps should—become a liking one. These six dimensions of friendship will help keep the love and like both alive and fulfilling.

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