Bare minimum: Carries your bags when you’re tired. Buys you food when you’re sick. Opens doors for you.
Princess treatment: Covers your rent. Writes love letters. Pays for beauty treatments.
In the age of hot social media takes, the expectations for what I need and what I deserve have never been blurrier or more aspirational. “These trends are funny on the surface, but underneath they reflect deeply ingrained beliefs about what we’re allowed to ask for. And that’s where the real work begins,” says licensed clinical psychologist Nusha Nouhi, PhD.
So, what is the bare minimum in a relationship today? What does it actually mean to receive the so-called “princess treatment,” and when are those needs being confused for entitlement?
What Is The Bare Minimum?
“The bare minimum is the least amount of effort a person is willing to put in when it comes to a relationship,” says Marisa T. Cohen, PhD, LMFT, a relationship expert at the dating app Hily. It’s the baseline expectations for how you want to be treated in your day-to-day.
As with most things in a relationship, these ever-shifting standards exist on a spectrum. The bare minimum actions that feel acceptable for your unique relationship can vary widely depending on your individual needs, attachment style, and what you’ve been conditioned to settle for.
These trends are funny on the surface, but underneath they reflect deeply ingrained beliefs about what we’re allowed to ask for. And that’s where the real work begins.
But generally, the bare minimum consists of the everyday fundamental ingredients (mutual care, decency, and respect) needed to build a relationship.
What Can the Bare Minimum Look Like in a Healthy Relationship?
Here’s what the bare minimum might look like:
- Healthy and clear communication
- Bringing curiosity and understanding into the relationship, especially into their different perspectives
- Integrating them into your life (e.g., telling them about what’s going on for you and valuing their input)
- Showing care with consistent actions, not just words
- Respecting their time, space, and energy
- Accepting them for their authentic self, not as a project to fix
- Being their pillar (e.g., remembering their birthday, asking how work projects went)
- Checking in with your partner often to stay emotionally aligned
If it’s too bare minimum—meaning there’s incoherence with avoidance, poor conflict resolution, low emotional availability, and little to no intentionality—Cohen notes the behavior may result in long-term dissatisfaction and create emotional distance between partners. The unspoken message being sent is that you’re not worth my time, effort, or care.
“If you’re receiving the bare minimum, you may adjust your needs downward to avoid the dissonance experienced between what you want and what you’re getting,” Cohen says.
Rebecca, 44, struggled with this in her marriage. “I was starved for love and affection as a child, and I spent years in a relationship living off the bare minimum. I didn’t think I deserved to be fully seen and got used to taking care of everything myself.” Eventually, she got pushed to her limits and gave beyond her capacity, noting the imbalance led to resentment, disconnection, and eventually divorce.
What Is the Princess Treatment?
“The princess treatment involves going above and beyond to express affection and care,” Cohen defines. Often, the term gets reduced to the version where you’re spoiling your partner with fancy dinners, expensive gifts, and lavish vacations. If those expectations become the priority, that might be more about promoting materialism than about increasing genuine intimacy.
To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with being treated well and knowing what you uniquely deserve. You can still want little surprises once in a while and to feel taken care of. The problem is, Nuohi notes, when princess treatment behaviors are associated primarily with unrealistic perfectionism and surface-level checklists like looks, status, and minor habits, rather than how aligned you feel in your connection with each other.
If someone is overly focused on the princess treatment for the sake of being treated well, Cohen points out that the person may be more focused on their wants than the good of the partnership. “For successful partnerships, both people must put time, effort, and care into the relationship as well as meet the needs of the other.”
What Can the Princess Treatment Look Like in a Healthy Relationship?
When you strip the big gestures away, the heart of princess treatment is about feeling cherished. It’s taking the time to maintain reciprocal attunement. Examples include anticipating needs, following through on what makes them feel valued, turning routine moments into something meaningful, and occasionally exceeding their day-to-day expectations. There’s no sense of obligation or force. It’s taking the extra time, whenever you have the time, to show them they’re worth the effort.
Here’s what the princess treatment might look like in practice:
- Asking your partner about their passions and joining them, even if it’s not your thing
- Involving them in your life with your community, and asking for their input on what’s going on
- Showing love through small acts (e.g., making their favorite snack when they’re busy, taking on a chore they don’t have time for)
- Being thoughtful about their needs for space (e.g., helping them draw a bubble bath after a long week, not pressuring them to attend social events when they need rest)
- Thoughtful gestures that show you pay attention (e.g., grabbing their favorite snack when you’re at the store, planning their birthday, small just-because gifts, buying flowers)
- Being curious about their interior world and ensuring you’re contributing to their satisfaction, fulfillment, and happiness whenever you’re able
- Proactively taking the time for thoughtful conflict resolution and treating your partner with care, even in disagreements, tough moments, and difficult conversations
“When care comes from genuine respect and intention, it doesn’t feel transactional—it feels connective,” Nuohi says. “Things can start to feel transactional if one person is overgiving or if there’s an unspoken (or sometimes spoken) expectation of return.”
Redefining What Works For Our Relationship
The latest internet trend has girlfriends pointing a hose at their boyfriends as they run through a checklist of bare minimum vs. princess treatment questions. Get it wrong, and you get blasted with water. Get it right, you stay dry. The comment sections of the videos are lit up with passionate discussions about what these categories really mean, and what’s right and wrong for them.
For some people, it might feel easier to send our partner the video than to explain why it resonates. I get it! Naming our needs can feel vulnerable. What the videos don’t show is nuance, and the truth is that there is no universal right or wrong answer to functioning in a relationship. That’s where communication comes in.
As Nuohi explains, a lot of us were raised–explicitly or not–to believe that having needs makes us unlovable, demanding, or a burden. This conditioning leaves people unsure how to even name their needs without apologizing or minimizing them. But as Nuohi says, “Having needs doesn’t make you high maintenance, it makes you human. The goal isn’t to eliminate needs; it’s to build relationships where they can be expressed safely and met willingly.”
Figuring Out Your Own Relationship Standards
As a love and relationship coach, I’ve noticed my clients aren’t settling. They’re not simply looking for someone to split the rent or raise a family with. They’re seeking thoughtful relationships that help them grow, self-actualize, and improve their overall life happiness. And they’re doing the work to be the type of healthy person who can attract a healthy partner.
Kadir, 29, told me it took years to understand why he kept attracting ‘princess treatment’ girlfriends. He would find it impossible to meet their unrealistic standards and eventually burn out. “It dawned on me that I didn’t know how to set healthy expectations. The goalposts for what they wanted kept moving. I had to understand who I was and then overcome the fear of asking for what I needed. It required talking to my partner, being honest, realistic, and working together to set the right expectations.”
To do this work, it starts with the nervous system. “Your nervous system remembers what you’ve experienced, even when you’re convinced yourself you’ve moved on,” Nuohi says. “When you regulate your nervous system and do the repair work, we begin to expect and accept relationships that are genuinely nourishing.”
As the internal recalibration unfolds, Nuohi encourages tuning into your gut, especially when you’ve been taught to override it to seem low-maintenance or expect big gestures as a way to avoid vulnerability. Learning to trust your inner signals will guide you to ask for what you truly need without shrinking or overcompensating, and to recognize when care is building intimacy versus performing intimacy.
“Reassess them at each stage: from swiping during online dating, early conversations, after a few dates, when determining exclusivity, and beyond. That kind of conscious awareness helps you stay grounded in what matters most,” she says. “The communication does not stop when you get exclusive or serious- it deepens.” Nuohi encourages couples to check in often about lifestyles, values, needs, and standards.
Keep in Mind
There’s always going to be some internet trend trying to define our relationships. However, engaging in debates like bare minimum vs. princess treatment behavior serves as a fun opportunity to explore what actually works for us.
When we define what these concepts mean personally, we can name our needs and feel safe sharing them with our partner. That’s the kind of conversation worth having. No hose needed.
