--- title: "What Women Look For: Kindness Beats Looks and Money" description: Nearly nine in ten women rate kindness as very important in a long-term partner. See why it comes first and how to spot it in your own relationships. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-10T18:00:00.035Z updated: 2026-11-10T18:00:00.043Z canonical: https://richwoman.co/article/what-women-look-for-kindness-comes-first image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/pexels-6249020.webp categories: Relationships content_type: Guide region: Global publication: Rich Woman Magazine schema_type: Article --- It is half past nine on a wet Tuesday evening, and you have just come home from a day that went wrong from the first meeting. Your coat is soaked, your phone is on four per cent and you have not eaten since noon. On the kitchen counter you find a plate under a saucepan lid and a note beside it: 'Yours is in the oven. I moved your car so you can get out in the morning.' You read it twice, and your shoulders drop for the first time since breakfast. Nobody photographs a note like that, and it will never appear in an anniversary speech. When you think about the people you have loved longest, these are still the moments you remember: the friend who drove two hours with soup when you were ill, the father who warmed the car before school and the partner who learned how you take your tea. Kindness is the quality you look for first in the people you love, in the people around you and in yourself. Women all over the world put it at the top of the list. ## What Women Value Most in a Partner In one of the largest surveys ever run on the subject, about 64,000 women in 180 countries rated what mattered to them in a long-term partner. Nearly nine in ten, 88.9 per cent, rated kindness as very important, which put it above every other quality. Supportiveness followed at 86.5 per cent, [intelligence](https://richwoman.co/article/reading-makes-you-better-company-6-books) at 72.3 per cent, education at 64.5 per cent and confidence at 60.2 per cent. An attractive body was very important to 22.3 per cent of women, and financial security was rated only moderately important. A separate experiment gave more than 2,700 students in Eastern and Western countries a fixed budget to 'buy' the qualities of a lifelong partner. Women and men both spent the largest share of it, about a quarter, on kindness. ## Why Kindness Matters More Than Looks or Money A long relationship is made of thousands of ordinary days, and kindness shapes how those days feel. Looks and money are pleasant on the good days. Kindness is what you need on the day you are ill, frightened, grieving or plainly wrong. Kindness also shows you how you will be treated when you have nothing to offer. A person who is attentive only when you are at your best is enjoying your company. A person who is kind when you are at your worst is showing you their character. You notice kindness most when it is missing. A home without it can have a good income, a beautiful kitchen and a full diary, and it will still feel cold. ## Kindness in a Long-Term Relationship Kindness in a couple rarely looks dramatic. It lives in the small moments when one of you reaches for the other: a comment about the rain, a sigh over an email or 'come and look at this'. Each of those is a request for attention, and the answer can be warm, absent or irritated. A study that followed newlyweds for six years found a striking difference. The couples who were still together had responded warmly to these small requests about 86 per cent of the time. The couples who had divorced had responded about 33 per cent of the time. You can use that finding tonight. When someone you love says 'listen to this', put your phone down and turn towards them. It takes five seconds, and those five seconds are what the lasting couples had in common. ## Kindness From Friends, Family and Colleagues The quality you look for in a partner is the same one you look for in a friend, a sister or a manager. You trust the colleague who covers for you when your child is ill and the friend who remembers the date of your hospital appointment. You relax around people who are pleased by your good news. Watch how someone treats people who can do nothing for them, such as a waiter, a cleaner or a new junior at work. Kindness that appears only in front of an audience, or only towards useful people, is a performance. Kindness that stays the same in every room is a trait, and you can rely on it. ## Kindness Towards Yourself You may be generous with everyone except yourself. You forgive a friend's mistake in a minute and replay your own for a week. [The way you treat yourself](https://richwoman.co/article/is-self-love-the-missing-peace-in-your-relationships) shapes the way you love. In a study of 104 couples, people who were kind to themselves when they failed were described by their partners as more affectionate, more accepting and more willing to give the other person freedom. People who were hard on themselves were described as more controlling and more detached. Being kind to yourself is not selfish. It makes you easier to love and better at loving. ## Write Your Own List Tonight Take ten minutes this evening with a pen and a sheet of paper. - Write down the five qualities you value most in the people closest to you. - Mark where kindness comes on your list. - Note one moment from the past week when someone was kind to you, and thank them tomorrow. - Note one moment when you were kind to someone else. - Note one moment when you were kind to yourself. If you cannot find one, that is your starting point. Fold the list and keep it in your diary or your bedside drawer until New Year's Eve. ## The Kindness You Remember The note on the kitchen counter took a minute to write. It held no poetry and cost nothing, and it showed you that someone had thought about your morning before you did. When nearly nine in ten women put kindness first, this is the feeling they are describing: being looked after by someone who pays attention. You can look for that quality in the people you choose, and you can offer it to the people who chose you. Tonight, do one small thing for someone who has not asked for it. On New Year's Eve, you unfold tonight's list and read it again. Kindness will still be the first quality you look for. After seven weeks of noticing it, kindness will also be the first thing you give.