

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Good Life" by Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
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Do you have a “secure base” relationship? Do you share everything with your partner?
Even if a relationship is going well, there’s always room for improvement. Rather than pointing the finger outward, consider what you can do. Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz share some practical tips in their book The Good Life.
Keep reading to learn their advice on how to be a better partner in a relationship that you can put into practice starting today.
Your Relationship With Your Partner
Waldinger and Schulz assert that a positive and long-lasting relationship with a romantic partner can provide comfort to your life. Psychologists have found that adults who feel like they have a “secure base”—someone they can rely on for comfort and support no matter what—recover faster from stressful situations. So, it’s important to understand how to be a better partner in a relationship so you can do your part.
Not All Romantic Relationships Are Created Equal Just because you have a romantic partner doesn’t mean that they’re your secure base. In Attached, Amir Levine and Rachel Heller explain that people relate to intimacy in three ways: Secure attachers are comfortable with intimacy, avoidant attachers prefer to maintain some emotional distance from their partners, and anxious attachers desire a lot of intimacy and are highly attuned to any threats to that intimacy. Secure attachers tend to have healthy relationships—the kind that provides a protective effect from both physically and mentally challenging situations. However, when anxious and avoidant attachers date each other, their clashing intimacy needs often lead to a relationship in which one partner is regularly stressed out and so feels insecure and unhappy. |
Waldinger and Schulz name several techniques for improving your relationship with your partner. First, pay attention to and thank your partner for the little things they do. Doing so will improve your impression of them (because you’re paying attention to their positive qualities) and your partner’s mood (because they’ll be happy you noticed).

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Here's what you'll find in our full The Good Life summary:
- That the key to a good life has nothing to do with your career or success
- How to evaluate the current quality of your relationships
- How to improve relationships with your friends, partner, family, and coworkers