50 Inspiring Ways To Be A Better Girlfriend (2024)

You already are pretty amazing if you want to know how to be a better girlfriend for your boyfriend.

How To Be A Better Girlfriend
Photo by Vera Arsic

So as a man and a coach, I’d like to give you tested tactics that make you an exceptional girlfriend your man would feel extremely lucky to have. 

Let’s get started!

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How To Be A Better Girlfriend – 50 Do’s And Dont’s

How To Be A Better Girlfriend – 50 Do’s And Dont’s

No matter what stage you are in your relationship, there’s always a way you can become a better girlfriend.

Here’s how you can go about it –

1. Work On Being The Best Version Of Yourself

Any successful relationship in life starts with you. After all, you can’t pour from an empty cup.

In this case, being a better girlfriend would mean being a better version of yourself every opportunity you get. So you must dive into self-care by:

  • Listening to your needs first and fulfilling them
  • Practicing self-love to boost your self-esteem
  • Following your interests to better your sense of self
  • Reconnecting with your values to ensure flow in your relationships
  • Setting and enforcing boundaries to keep your life organized
  • Taking a break from some activities to focus more on what you need
  • Asking for help whenever you need some

You can only meet the needs of your boyfriend when you’ve met your own needs.

2. Be His Friend First

Romantic relationships work best when you’re more of a friend to your partner than simply a sexual partner in love.

Being a friend to your boyfriend is about being a safe, non-judgmental space for your boyfriend to share anything with you.

Sex and romantic intimacy come naturally once you’ve made up your mind to be the best human for your partner.

3. Work In More Quality Time Together

Your boyfriend needs to look forward to spending alone time with you. You have to keep him in anticipation for when you’re going to meet.

And you can only achieve this by being the best company to him ever.

You need to remember the things he has loved about time with you, stay focused on him when you plan dates and try doing other fun things to see what makes him enjoy himself most.

You have to be intentional about having the best time together.

4. Let Him Have His Personal Space

Spending quality time isn’t about being together everywhere all the time. You have your own life to live and they have theirs too. So you need to let him have his own space.

Let him make his own plans with his buddies, leave him to his own hobbies, and sometimes even leave him to experience boredom alone.

5. Do Regular Check-Ins

Check in on your boyfriend depending on how often you need to communicate to stay connected. If you feel that checking on him daily would make him feel great, do so.

It’s all about what you both feel to be reasonable. You can ask him about it to know what he feels.

6. Embrace His Loved Ones

Every man deeply desires a girlfriend who can get along pretty well with his loved ones. Even better, any man would feel the luckiest if his girlfriend would embrace his loved ones as her own.

It all boils down to respecting his family and friends, noticing their needs and doing stuff for them that you can, and simply being a safe space for them.

7. Appreciate Him For Simply Being In Your Life

“I just think about you and feel so grateful for you coming into my life.” 

“I’m so lucky to have you as my boyfriend. You have such an amazing soul.”

A great girlfriend doesn’t wait for her boyfriend to do something for her to appreciate. She appreciates him for just being him.

8. Appreciate Him For His Contributions In Your Life

Men feel appreciated mostly through their contributions to the relationship since they have the goal-oriented masculine polarity.

So you can be the best girlfriend to your man simply by appreciating the little as well as the big things he does in your relationship to make you both comfortable. Perhaps he just fixed your faucet, helped you move, took you out on a date, or simply opened the door for you.

9. Listen To Him

Most men feel love when they feel respected. And you can do this by listening to him attentively.

Moreover, you’ll get to learn more about his likes and dislikes which helps you know what to do to make him feel loved plus what not to do. This helps you be a better girlfriend.

10. Step In His Shoes For A Deeper Understanding Of Him

To love your boyfriend better, you need to know him deeper. So you have to often immerse yourself in his perspective by thinking in the sense of:

Why does he think this way? How do his background, circumstances, and personality play in this?”

You don’t need to embrace his perspective as your own. You only need to exercise kindness by viewing things in his thinking. This way you’d understand him better and hence treat him better. 

11. Respect Your Differences

Being compatible isn’t about being similar in every way as some wrongly think. It’s about having similar core values and appreciating differences in each other.

To be a great girlfriend, you’ll have to respect some of these differences and stop nagging him to change.

12. Take Criticism Positively

Simply put, to be a better girlfriend you have to accept and analyze your boyfriend’s criticisms of you in a positive light.

He might be mean about the way he points out your flaws sometimes. You’d probably experience negative emotions from it. But you need to take the facts about your need to change and act.

13. Critique Him Constructively

To be a better girlfriend is also about building your man up with constructive criticism. But you can do it respectfully through positive suggestions instead of berating unsolicited advice.

14. Learn To Communicate Assertively

Assertive communication is direct but respectful which helps you be a better girlfriend by making you communicate effectively instead of complaining and nagging which men hate.

You can learn more about assertive communication through this resource on Assertive Anger.

15. Be Ready To Offer More Than You Take Sometimes

Healthy relationships are about “give and take” – around 50-50 efforts from both partners. But you don’t find people making the same amount of effort at the same time – that’s unrealistic.

So to become a better girlfriend, you must be willing to make an extra effort whenever you need to so that your partner can get on board in investing in the relationship as well. 

16. Join Him In His Adventures

Your boyfriend wants to spend time with you on trips, hobbies, as well as other adventures such as volunteering for a cause.

Adventures
Photo by Алекке Блажин

While some things your boyfriend likes might not thrill you, you can sacrifice your comfort and join him. This wins you more best girlfriend points than you can ever imagine.

17. Support His Dreams

Men love women who are supportive of their goals and dreams. 

Your boyfriend treasures everything from the small notes of encouragement you give him while he’s chasing the promotion to the big support gestures such as investing financially in their business idea.

So you want to be a better girlfriend? This is a strategy you don’t want to miss out on.

18. Look Good For Him

Men love it when the hot girl in the room is their girlfriend. So wear something they told you makes you beautiful. 

Look stunning for your boyfriend.

19. Stay Loyal To Him

Your boyfriend should see you as one of the people they can trust most in the whole world. So quit trying to make him jealous. Make him feel safe with you.

Reassure him with your words and actions that he can trust you.

20. Learn Of His Idea Of A Good Girlfriend

While many of these tips help make you a good – even best girlfriend, you must be aware that people have different ideas of what makes an amazing girlfriend.

So listen to your boyfriend’s language of love. Observe what he admires most in you. Discover his “girlfriend goals.” Then work on being those goals.

21. Inspire Him To Be The Best Version Of Himself

Inspire your partner to not only be a good boyfriend but also the best version of themselves they can be. Quit competing with your boyfriend and start encouraging him with words and action to embrace the greatness within himself.

22. Be Responsible For Your Own Happiness

To bring happiness to your boyfriend, you must be happy within yourself. That’s why you need to stop depending on your boyfriend for your happiness and start finding fulfillment in your individual life.

23. Make The Changes He’s Been Asking You To

Before everything else, it’s best to remember everything your boyfriend has been telling you to do that you haven’t done yet. 

Doing the things he’s been trying to tell you to do is the first step to being a great girlfriend for your boyfriend.

24. Respectfully Communicate Your Different Opinions

You don’t need to agree with your boyfriend’s opinions for you to be a good girlfriend. But you need to keep discussions positive even if you have different opinions.

25. Praise Him Publicly

Your boyfriend has to know that you’re proud of him in private as well as in public. So you can provide him a boost of self-confidence by expressing his best parts among family and friends as well as in front of co-workers whenever relevant.

26. Make Asking His Opinion A Habit

One thing that makes us know that someone respects and treasures us is when they ask our opinion about things. Even if they don’t take our opinion, it feels nice to have it requested from time to time.

Your boyfriend is no different. So keep asking what he thinks about many things in life, especially topics that interest him most.

27. Respect His Boundaries

We all have lines we don’t like being crossed. So spot your boyfriend’s boundaries and avoid crossing them if you want to be a better girlfriend.

28. Appreciate His Way Of Doing Things

Since you come from different backgrounds, your boyfriend may have some weird ways of doing things. Don’t make fun of him.

Instead, appreciate his way of life and show him smarter ways of dealing with the same issues.

29. Treat Him

Most women think it’s only the man’s duty to spoil them. But that’s far from the truth.

Your boyfriend would appreciate it if you take him out on a dinner date on your tab, buy him a gift – even flowers, and something as simple yet thoughtful as a home-cooked meal he likes. 

30. Learn Constructive Fighting

Fighting doesn’t have to be nasty. Check out the Best Relationship Advice When Fighting to know how to be a better girlfriend amid disagreements.

31. Trust Him

If you have trust issues, you need to work on the insecurities behind them. Your boyfriend would love it if his girlfriend has confidence in herself and doesn’t need to snoop around her man to find him unfaithful.

This goes much deeper than infidelity issues.

32. Be Your True Self

Your boyfriend loved you because you are you. While it’s wise to improve yourself, you don’t become a whole different person.

Show him your amazing authentic self and he’ll love you for it,

33. Embrace His True Self

The same goes for how you treat his authentic self as well. Accept him with his strengths and imperfections. He’ll love you for it.

34. Embrace Change With Love

Change is a constant. Even in relationships. So instead of fighting shifts in your relationship, adapt to them affectionately. 

This way, your boyfriend can understand that he can trust you to grow together in a long-term relationship.

35. Surprise Him

To be the best girlfriend to your boyfriend, you need to not only carry out normal girlfriend duties but also shock him with affectionate gestures you don’t have to make.

Do something unusual to make him feel loved.

36. Be Especially Present For Him In Trying Times

When your boyfriend is sick, heartbroken, or is going through a hard time, you need to jump on the opportunity to show him that you’re there for him.

Here are some ideas on How To Be There For Someone.

37. Let The Small Stuff Go

Maybe your boyfriend doesn’t help in taking out the trash. Maybe he doesn’t open the door for you often. Or perhaps he leaves crumbs on the kitchen counter even after you’ve called him out about it a million times.

We all have some small things that matter to us. But you have to let it go if you want your boyfriend to feel more accommodated. 

Anything that doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, let it go.

38. Quit The Drama Queen Fantasy

If:

  • You often blow things out of proportion so your boyfriend can be sorry
  • You love guilt-tripping your boyfriend
  • You crave being the center of attention
  • You blackmail your boyfriend to get what you want
  • You’re addicted to emotional highs and lows
  • You’re mean

Then you are a drama queen.

Your upbringing might have something to do with it but ultimately, you must dial down on drama if you want to become a better girlfriend.

39. Keep Your Dirty Laundry Private

All short and long-term relationships have their ups and downs. So you don’t need to tell everyone about fallouts with your boyfriend since it makes you a terrible girlfriend.

Instead, have someone trustworthy to open up to and help you regain your emotional stability amid your relationship struggles.

40. Never Compare Him With Any Other Man

Nothing makes a man resent you as comparing him to some other man. It not only derails his confidence but also tears down the affections he has for you.

So even when tempted to, never compare your man to anybody else.

41. Don’t Bring Up Past Mistakes

Even if your boyfriend is repeating the same mistakes, keep correcting the present context instead of telling them how they never do something right.

42. Deal With Every Issue While Small

Don’t wait for problems to become big. Instead, handle them gracefully while they’re still minor issues so you can gain the best girlfriend points and also build a good boyfriend out of your man.

This means you have to –

43. Stay Present In Your Relationship And Life

Spotting problems while small needs undivided attention on your relationship and overall life. 

You need to practice more intentional living if you’re going to succeed in being a better girlfriend and maintaining your well-being.

44. Be Kind To Yourself

While it’s great to push yourself to become a better girlfriend, you have to remember self-compassion for the sake of your mental health and long-term success. 

Do your best and be content with progress instead of pushing for perfection. 

45. Be Kind To Your Partner

While being kind to yourself as you make progress, have the same attitude toward your partner. 

Be Kind To Your Partner
Photo by Gustavo Fring from Pexels

As he too learns to exercise more self-control and be more mindful of your feelings among other things, you need to be gentle on his failures. It’ll make him treasure you a ton for it.

46. Encourage Him To Fulfill His Goals

While the world is full of enough discouragements to bring your boyfriend down, he needs to find enough encouragement in you to keep him going. So motivate your man. Be his best friend and cheerleader.

47. Be Grateful For Everything

The more you’re grateful to your boyfriend, the more he’d love doing nice things for you, and the more he’d see a fantastic girlfriend in you.

48. Don’t Force Change On Him

Men can never be forced to change in case you never knew that fact. So if you want to be a better girlfriend, you’d be better off not trying to make your boyfriend a different person but would inspire him to change by being a better person yourself.

49. Use Quotes To Express Yourself Sometimes

If you get lost on what to tell your man to express your affections, why not check out quotes to help you. 

Love quotes not only show you what to say but also remind you of the things you need to do to love your boyfriend better.

50. Be Confident In Yourself

Last but not least, you need to stop second-guessing yourself and be confident with the best you can offer to your boyfriend. 

He can appreciate the little changes you manage each time so you don’t need to be perfect immediately – no one can be anyway.

What Makes A Girlfriend A Good Girlfriend?

A good girlfriend first strives to love and care for herself,  gets to know her boyfriend’s needs, and supports him with all the love they have. They focus on having a healthy relationship where they can both live happily individually and have a thriving partnership with each other.

Here are basic things that make up a good girlfriend:

  • She learns what makes her boyfriend happy
  • She showers her boyfriend with love according to his needs
  • She respects her partner’s boundaries
  • She supports her partner’s dreams
  • She’s appreciative
  • She only seeks to build up her partner with constructive criticism
  • She’s honest and shows her true self to her partner
  • She maintains her independence
  • She treasures her partner’s loved ones

How Do I Stop Being A Horrible Girlfriend?

You can stop being a terrible girlfriend by first identifying the things that make you a bad girlfriend and then fixing your weak areas with the specific tips we outlined above. Being a better girlfriend is about spotting areas you need improvement and working on them.

For instance:

  • If you’re clingy, you can begin giving your boyfriend more space while you learn how to have fun in your personal life without your partner.
  • If your drama is stirring jealousy and misunderstanding, you’d be a better girlfriend by working on your insecurities and practicing the above healthy strategies for keeping your man loyal to you.
  • If your desire to change your boyfriend is bringing up problems, you can become a good girlfriend by learning how to assertively express your needs, critiquing constructively, and letting some differences go for the sake of your happiness – nothing is perfect.

You get the point.

What Are The 5 Most Important Things In A Relationship?

Here are the top essentials for a healthy relationship:

  1. Open and honest communication to create a safe space for mutual vulnerability.
  2. Listening and understanding so that each partner’s needs are known by the other.
  3. Kindness so that each can accept and treat the flaws of the other gently.
  4. Constructive conflict resolution so that issues are solved timely.
  5. Trust for each partner to feel secure with the other.

How To Be A Better Girlfriend Emotionally

  • Appreciate him for who he is
  • Appreciate him for what he does for you
  • Be ready to step into your boyfriend’s shoes
  • Listen attentively to your boyfriend
  • Be supportive of his dreams
  • Be there for him when he’s going through tough times
  • Trust him
  • Be responsible for your own happiness
  • Firstly be his friend before being his girlfriend

How To Be A Good Girlfriend Psychology

  1. Work On Being The Best Version Of Yourself
  2. Be His Friend First
  3. Work In More Quality Time Together
  4. Let Him Have His Personal Space
  5. Do Daily Check-Ins
  6. Embrace His Loved Ones
  7. Appreciate Him For Simply Being In Your Life
  8. Appreciate Him For His Contributions In Your Life
  9. Listen To Him
  10. Step In His Shoes For A Deeper Understanding Of Him
  11. Respect Your Differences

How To Be A Better Girlfriend Long Distance

Here’s how to be a better girlfriend in a long-distance relationship:

  • Communicate as much as you need to feel connected
  • Create a fulfilling individual life
  • Constructively deal with any small problem
  • Support the growth of your partner
  • Keep the updates interesting
  • Skip the fantastical relationship you have in mind and appreciate the little things
  • Have a clear timeframe you’re willing to stay apart
  • Appreciate together what you love about your relationship
  • Arrange digital dates
  • Make physical visits as much as you can
  • Learn about your expectations instead of forcing them on your partner (you might be expecting too much)

How To Be A Better Girlfriend When You Have Depression

  • Open up about your depression to your partner
  • Focus on self-care first
  • Be honest about the expectations your partner should have of you
  • Break the cycle of depression by doing the things you don’t want to do 
  • Don’t beat up your boyfriend for not being able to fulfill some of your needs
  • Be responsible for your own happiness
  • Get help
  • Take a break from the relationship if you have to 

Summing It Up

Fundamentally, if you want to master how to be a better girlfriend, you need to see what makes you a not-so-good girlfriend in the first place. Then you can find helpful tips in the above list to help you work on the specific problem you’re having.

Remember to take it a tip at a time and you’d realize more success than ever.

Now that you’ve realized what you can do to become a better girlfriend, how about you share this piece with others? It’d help us reach more lives.

Thanks a ton!

About The Author

Bijan Kholghi is a certified life coach with the Milton Erickson Institute Heidelberg (Germany). He helps clients and couples reach breakthroughs in their lives by changing subconscious patterns. His solution-oriented approach is based on Systemic- and Hypnotherapy.

Bijan