I’m in a slightly unusual situation. You know how people say, “I married my best friend?” Well, I actually married my best friend. As in, we were platonic best friends for a long while before we started dating. But because of that, when people comment that I married my best friend, my gag reflex totally comes into play. Because the thing is, I didn’t marry my best friend. When David and I started dating he stopped being my best friend and moved into a totally different role. Now he’s my husband. There are plenty of responsibilities that come with the role of husband, and for me, best friend isn’t one of them. On Monday, we talked about how having a community around you statistically helps a marriage to thrive, and I think that totally separate friendships is a key part of that. And it turns out, sharing values with your partner is vastly more important than sharing hobbies with them when it comes to long-term health of a marriage. So today we have Rowenna talking about how she wouldn’t be friends with her partner if they weren’t married, and she’s fine with that (as well she should be).
When my husband and I first got together, I worried that we had nothing in common. As we got to know each other, I realized that not only did he listen to completely different music than I did, he despised my favorite songs and artists. I gave him my all time favorite book to read, and it sat on his shelf for months, untouched. I took him to see my favorite movie, and he made fun of it. I thought, “How can I possibly last with him if he hates everything I love?”
He had his own group of friends, as well as regular hobbies and activities, few of which overlapped with my own. Even though we went to the same small college, our lives were quite separate. We struggled to find joint activities that we both enjoyed.
This made the beginnings of our relationship difficult, and I often questioned whether it would last. I was clouded as well by several of my prior serious relationships, in which I’d fallen fast and hard for a kindred spirit. I would find someone who loved the same things as me, and at the time, it felt like we were made for each other. We’d spend all of our time together and forget the rest of the world. Despite the fact that these relationships never went anywhere, this was my precedent for how things should be.
I was confused and troubled about the lack of common ground with Nate, yet we stayed together, and eventually got married. We’re thrilled to be married and have no doubts that we’re perfect for each other, but it still irks us every time we hear someone proclaim, “I married my best friend!”
We wondered about this recently after both having negative reactions toward the statement. We both confirmed that we certainly are not, nor have we ever been (nor do we ever plan to be) best friends. I asked myself what it means to be a best friend. Various sources say it’s the person who is closest to you, someone you know well and regard with affection and trust. Certainly, my husband fits that bill, but that does not make me comfortable calling him my best friend. That we were never friends before we began our relationship is one reason for this hesitancy. We maintain that if we weren’t married, we wouldn’t even be friends with each other, much less best friends. So what is it about our relationship that makes the term best friend seem like such an inappropriate description?
Even though we had very little “in common” when we met, that’s only partially true now. Sure, Nate still goes out with gaming friends every week, and though I’ve made attempts, I have no interest in that hobby. I have a season pass to Six Flags, and I go with my sisters and friends, but Nate does not share my enthusiasm for roller coasters. Even when we’re at home, we’re often doing our own things.
We also have found common ground. There are things we generally love—hockey, for example—which I’ve grown to love as much as he does, and crossword puzzles, which he’s become addicted to by exposure to my habit. He still hates my indie and alternative music and show tunes, and I haven’t exactly come around to his hip-hop tastes, but we’ve found new songs and movies that we both enjoy.
Even more than these superficial activities, we have all the important things in common. The truth is that you don’t need to like the same things in order to be married (or even to be friends!). What you need in order to have a strong relationship is shared values. He may hate the Barenaked Ladies, but he wants to live a frugal, debt-free life full of strong experiences instead of material items. He supports me in my career, but also in my desire to eventually quit to homeschool our children. Our long-term goals align with each other’s. In those things that are truly important, we don’t clash.
A best friend can be described as someone you can come to with any problem, issue, or request; someone you share everything with. Though there are many situations where my husband is the one I turn to, I don’t look to my husband to solve every problem, or fill every role. I still Skype my brother when I have a problem with my computer; I call my sister to talk about books and movies and songs; I gripe to my best friend about my job because she’s in the same field. No one person can fill every need, and if you expect your partner to be the right person to come to about every issue, that’s unrealistic. This is why there are so many people in our lives! Everyone needs friends, family, acquaintances, people to vent to. Some of these might overlap, but one person can’t satisfy them all.
My husband is there to support me, to comfort me. He is there to share my life—not to be my life. It took me a while to realize that my initial fears that this relationship was inferior to my previous ones due to lack of “chemistry” were actually signs that this relationship would be strong. While my head was thinking, “How can I love someone who doesn’t love my music??” some rational part of me was attracted to Nate because I knew what I really wanted. Because of this, our marriage is built not on what our tastes were in that first year we met (which describes the inevitable demises of my prior relationships—as soon as those commonalities changed, things dissolved) but on deeper ties that don’t change with our whims.
Five years later, I don’t worry about us not being good friends. At a friend’s party, while discussing my love for dancing, it came up that my husband and I did not dance together at our wedding. I assured them that dancing is something I love, and I had a great time dancing with other friends, while he had a great time watching and socializing. People seemed affronted that he wouldn’t have danced with me to make me happy, and I had a difficult time explaining that it didn’t bother me at all. Dancing is my thing, and I don’t need it to be his thing for me to enjoy it; he doesn’t need to participate in order to support me and encourage me in my interests.
After discussing this subject with Nate, we began wondering if we were in the minority. It became the new topic we brought up with friends and acquaintances, and it seemed a natural question to bring up with Meg at her DC book talk. I know that Team Practical has more to add to the discussion, and I can’t wait to hear all about it!
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I think it might depend on how you define “best friend,” like you touched on in the article. I am most likely to come to my husband first to talk or complain about life, but it depends on the issue. I still talk to, hang out with, and value my family and friends – but I see my husband every day. We also share a lot of hobbies, but still have our separate spheres.
So I guess my husband could be defined as my best friend, and I think it really depends on the people involved if that’s a good thing or not for the relationship.
March 15, 2012 5:08 am
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As I read this I kept thinking, like you, it depends how you define best friend. And I wonder if introverts and extroverts would have a totally different view on this because of the different ways they look at friendship.
March 15, 2012 2:29 pm
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I get kinda freaked out seeing my name completely disagreeing with me. It made me wonder if I’ve actually commented…
But I think it depends a lot on how many people you want in my life. My fiance is my best friend, but I don’t necessarily want anyone else in my life. I’d be happy to stay home with him all day. I want to complain about school? I tell him (and everyone else). I want to complain about how stupid dudes and ladies on dating sites are? I tell him. I want to complain about him? I also tell him — he just gets frustrated and wants to solve it then. :-P
So yeah. If you’re looking for ONE person, you marry your best friend. If you want a large group, don’t marry your lifeblood — marry someone else who’s hopefully sexy.
March 15, 2012 8:07 pm
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Some aspects of this post really resonate with me – I remember dating (which I hated, HATED), and beginning to think that having common interests was really no indicator of success. While my fiance and I share some interests, we do not share them all. However, we agree on our outlook on children, child-rearing, money, and lifestyle. So I agree on an emotional and practical level with this post!
I’ve read that, historically, marriages in Western European and British societies were essentially business partnerships, formed to run a household successfully, and that the partners were expected and encouraged not to rely on the other party emotionally. A recent OpEd from an American man who ended up seeking a wife in India through the (somewhat updated) process of arranged marriage described the process of writing to each other extensively to see how compatible the two were on the metrics of child rearing, household maintenance, moral structure, and finances – metrics he claimed were more important than “chemistry.”
Now, I don’t agree that housework outweighs love, but I do think that the point about lifestyle and household is a good one. While I think that marriage continues to evolve, and I am incredibly glad that love is an expected piece of a marriage now, I think that sometimes we forget that there are more everyday metrics like housework, finances, etc., that have huge effects on a marriage – even though those metrics are not the things to which we refer when we talk about “chemistry” or “compatibility.”
Of course, it is ALSO no good to expect any one person to be all things to you. I really, REALLY agree with Rowenna that, “This is why there are so many people in our lives! Everyone needs friends, family, acquaintances, people to vent to. Some of these might overlap, but one person can’t satisfy them all.” And further, it’s healthy to have interests that are just yours; it’s healthy for the two of you to expect that you will spend time apart, doing your own thing.
Thank you for sharing! I am really looking forward to seeing the discussion around this post!
March 15, 2012 5:08 am
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I’m reminded of Elizabeth Gilbert in “Committed” when she was speaking to a group of women somewhere in Asia, I think (it’s killing me that I can’t remember where), living in a small community that was deeply committed to preserving its cultural heritage. She was speaking to the women about their relationships with their husbands and what made a good husband – and being their friend really didn’t play into it at all.
March 15, 2012 11:11 am
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Someone recently told me that *everyone* should marry their best friend, because otherwise your marriage won’t last. I balked. Really? My wife & I met, didn’t talk for several months, and then fell head over heels for each other. I would say that at no point in our relationship were we friends, let alone best friends. She is still my person: the person I turn to with exciting news, when things are hard, when things are murky. She’s my wife and my partner in many things (but not all things).
To be fair, I’m not sure I have a best friend. But – ah, only I would say this – my friends are, ahem, like my dogs? Whenever anyone asks me which of my two dogs are my favorite, it totally depends on where we’re going/what we’re doing. I have a favorite dog for staying home and snuggling with and a favorite dog for going out in public with. For me, many of my friends are the same way: a favorite friend for calling when marriage things are hard or when work things are hard or when life things are hard or when super exciting things happen. And I love the community that this has build. For me, my partner can’t be my everything and I can’t be hers, and that’s okay – even good!
Thanks for sharing this!
March 15, 2012 5:13 am
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You are so not the only one. I’ve never said it in front of other people, but I tell my dogs all the time that they’re my best friends. They understand, I know it.
I think the “best friend” status does depend an awful lot on how you define it and also what your life looks like. We don’t have a lot in common outside of video games and our life together and I’m perfectly okay with that. We sometimes tag along to the other person’s interest just to be supportive but we still do a lot of things separately. We both have friends outside our marriage but there’s no question that we’re closest to each other.
The big thing that sometimes forces us to be best friends is that we’re military and we live in a military-heavy community where we have mostly military friends. That means that things change for us all the time. Often, I make a friend and get close to her and she moves shortly afterward. Same with his friends. If you’re not an extrovert, it’s exhausting and sometimes discouraging. We’re also in our mid-twenties which means even more changing as people find that place to settle or career or partner. We just have to lean on each other probably more than most couples. It’s frustrating at times but we have to make the best of it.
March 15, 2012 6:25 am
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Love it. My dog is my best friend and I have no shame admitting it to the world (and my husband!)
March 15, 2012 12:25 pm
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My husband and I fight (not really) over who gets to call the dog “Best Friend.” :)
March 16, 2012 3:22 am
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I’ve never had a “best” friend. Ever.
Sometimes that makes me sad.
But because of that, my DH is the closest thing I have to a best friend.
And I do have a circle of friends who I can do a wide variety of things with, and am constantly working on expanding that circle.
March 15, 2012 12:22 pm
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I totally agree with you that shared values matter a lot more than shared interests and hobbies. My partner and I have the occasional shared hobby, but most of our interests are different. Like you and your husband, we do share the same values of simple living, frugality, down-to-earth living, we want the same things out of life, and have compatible goals for the future, which is what really matters.
That said, I still think of my partner as my ‘best friend’. For me, I think I just think of the phrase differently. While I know that if we’re going to be pedantic, ‘best’ sort of implies ‘one’ – but I’m a rebel and a rule breaker so I don’t define ‘best friend’ as a title only one person can have. I’ve never had an upper cap on the number of best friends I can have. Prior to meeting my partner I had 6 best friends, now that he’s an important part of my life, I consider myself to have 7 best friends. Like you were saying in your piece, we need various people in our life to fill different needs and share different things, and those 7 people, my partner included, fill those various roles in my life, and by my simple definition of best friend (someone who you trust, love, and enjoy spending time with) they all fit the bill.
All that said, everyone’s going to have a different definition of what a best friend is, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with not considering your spouse to be your best friend. It sounds like you have a healthy, happy, wonderful relationship with your spouse, and I don’t see any reason why you need to add the label of best friend onto that if it’s not what works for you.
March 15, 2012 5:14 am
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Yes! I am with you Rachel. My first thought on this post was that this is really semantics. Your personal perspective on the nature of ‘best friends’ is going to shape how you view your relationship with your spouse. My husband and I do refer to each other, in private, as best friend and we’ve defined it to mean the person you turn to first with both good news and bad news. That said, I think of myself as having 3 best friends (my 3 bridesmaids) who each fill a slightly different need in my life, plus a husband-best friend
March 15, 2012 5:53 am
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I agree with this, Rachel and Rose. I have a few very close friends, all of whom I enjoy/turn to for different reasons. I consider my husband to be one of those people as well. I would say some of my other close friends I have fewer common hobbies/interests with than I do my husband, but we do have shared values and that’s why those friendships still work, too.
BUT, everyone looks at the term “best friends” differently, and we gotta call it whatever works best for us individually.
Any way you look at it, I think the important message we’re all agreeing on here is that we need communities around us, and can’t expect one person to be all things for you, and that it’s more than OK to have different interests than your spouse, as long as there are shared values and life priorities (and hopefully at least SOME fun shared hobbies/activities/interests!).
March 15, 2012 6:18 am
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I wholeheartedly agree with Rachel/Rose/Charise. My FH and I share both values (definite must) and some (but not all) interests. In most things, he is “my person” – I go to him first with news or issues I need to talk about, good and bad. On rare occasions, I go first to my sister or one of 5 women whom I trust implicitly. To me, the trust that I have in these 7 people is what makes them my “best friends.” I can go to them at any time for any reason and I know they’ll be there for me. They are also the ones that I can not see or talk to for awhile but when we do it is like no time has past. There are hobbies and interests I have in common with some but not with others – just because they are a “best friend” doesn’t mean we like all the same things or do everything together.
Perhaps instead of “best friends,” maybe the better term is lifetime friends. There’s a saying/meme that categorizes those in our lives into “reason, season, or lifetime friends,” and these 7 people are definitely lifetime friends for me. I’m very grateful that the man I am marrying is one of those people for me; I’d be worried if he wasn’t. I don’t have a problem or find it sappy to say he’s one of my best/lifetime friends because I think it is important to not only love, but like, the person I am marrying since I am promising to be with him day in and out for the rest of my life. Besides, we each have different definitions of what constitutes “best friend.”
March 15, 2012 9:14 am
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I have multiple “best friends”, too. To me, they’re the people who know absolutely all of me (as opposed to just the “fun” me or the “work” me) and still, for some reason, seem to love me. They’re the people who have picked me up at a train station during rush hour on short notice, who have called to tell me they’re pregnant even before they get home to tell their husband, and who have driven for hours just to cheer me up on a particularly bad day.
My husband is absolutely one of these people, whatever you decide to call them. Sure, he’s not everything, just like my closest girl friend wasn’t everything before he came into my life. It’s dangerous to lean on any one person completely, whether you’re married to them or not. I call all those people my “best friends”. Rowenna might call them “my husband, my best friend, and my brother”. It’s just important you know who they are.
In addition, my parents have spent my whole life telling me that “it’s more important to marry someone you like than someone you love.” I’ve always understood that as having a friendship with them in addition to having a marriage with them, but maybe it also means simply respecting who they are and where they came from. Either way, having a spouse you think is a cool person goes a long way in the happy-marriage department, shared hobbies or not.
March 15, 2012 12:46 pm
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Truth bomb! Well said.
March 15, 2012 5:17 am
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“He may hate the Barenaked Ladies, but he wants to live a frugal, debt-free life full of strong experiences instead of material items. He supports me in my career, but also in my desire to eventually quit…”
Yes to this. We, also, were never friends. We met through a common interest but we’ve both since moved on from that phase of our lives and now do different things. I think we’ve lasted because we have the same ideas about how to live life not because we are besties who do everything together.
March 15, 2012 5:28 am
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The timing of this post could not be more perfect. After a debate about politics last night, W asked if it worried me that we only ever seem to talk about politics, and then he told me that he had been noticing that we had no interests in common, that he would get ridiculously excited about so many things that I just didn’t care about. I had been lying awake thinking about it last night, and then worrying about it all morning until I sign onto APW and am reminded that our relationship isn’t about me being as excited about The Avengers movie as he is, or as excited about the emo music he loves. It’s okay that dancing is my thing, and that he doesn’t want to talk about my work all the time. What matters is that we love each other, we support each other, we’re working toward a future be both want together and we enjoy being around one another.
March 15, 2012 5:43 am
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Yep, if you looked at the Venn diagram of our interests, the bit that overlaps would be a teeny, tiny sliver (um, Jamie Oliver and “Parks and Rec” and hiking?). I have other people to call and hang out with to talk about Victorian novels, and he has other people to obsess about sports with. If I looked, I could probably find someone who likes the Brontes more, or who likes lying on the beach more, or who likes yoga more, but I could never find anyone who loves me more. I could never find anyone who I’m happier to come home to at the end of the day, who makes me laugh more, who gets me more (even if he’ll never get what’s awesome about Downtown Abbey).
March 15, 2012 6:03 am
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Because it’s soapy without making you feel guilty! That’s what!
…Sorry. Just had to.
March 15, 2012 6:31 am
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“I could never find anyone who loves me more. I could never find anyone who I’m happier to come home to at the end of the day, who makes me laugh more, who gets me more…”
This.
There was a very pivotal moment when (before?) my husband and I first started dating when I realized I was enjoying a sunset with him standing next to me in a way that I had only been able to enjoy things all by myself before. That was an early hint that this was it. Not because he felt the same way about the sunset, but because with him, I could be completely myself. I could feel at ease.
We returned to that very spot when we got engaged. And there is no doubt that he gets me and loves me the most of anyone. Which is why it works. Not because we like to do all the same things (which we certainly don’t!). Not because he gets excited in the same way about things. Except for our relationship. :)
March 15, 2012 8:15 am
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YES. The ‘being myself’ around him was my biggest clue with my husband too. We both can be totally relaxed around each other- he is the only person who has the insight and the patience to figure out when I’m upset and why- and I’ve been described as having a ‘poker face of doom’ and clam up under the stress of any emotions whatsoever.
March 15, 2012 2:12 pm
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I still don’t understand why my partner doesn’t love Downton Abbey as much as I do. But I guess I’ll never understand why everyone doesn’t love it. It really is the best thing on tv no matter what anyone says.
March 15, 2012 10:08 am
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Completely agree. BUT he let’s me get nerdily excited about (spoiler alert!) Branson and Sybil in revolutionary Dublin, obsess over Mary’s dresses, and the ins and outs of Banna before quietly handing me the remote and walking into the other room.
March 15, 2012 11:11 am
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Thank you Rowenna, thank you so much! (and thank you Meg for publishing those wise thoughts!)
I’ve been worrying for a long time about having very few common hobbies with my partner and painfully searching what was wrong with us and wondering why our relationship hadn’t collapsed yet.
But you nailed it. It makes perfect sense. Even if we don’t do the same thing (he climbs, I swim, he plays on his computer, I play on my piano, he loves metal, I’m more into brit-pop…), we do have the same values and we want the same things out of life, we’re making plans together…
Actually, it all boils down to a quote from St Exupery my father used to say often when I was little “l’amour, ce n’est pas se regarder l’un l’autre, c’est regarder ensemble dans la même direction” (love is not gazing at each other but looking together in the same direction)…
I can’t believed I had never truly understood that until now!
March 15, 2012 6:04 am
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Exactly…. Whenever I fill a guestbook I write that phrase to the newlyweds. It really is about walking together. Growing up I never understood how my parents got together since they are so so so different, now I understand that perhaps that is what makes it strong.
And the fact that each partner has different hobbies / friends / viewpoints enriches the relationship.
Like this post says so well, it is about sharing the same values in life, and I think it is what the phrase by St Exupery is saying.
March 15, 2012 6:17 am
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My partner and I met through an online dating site. When you meet that way the motives are clear, it’s not really and truly about finding a friend. So anyway, she was concerned about this lack of things in common issue and I said that what matters is how we interact and how we care for each other. I believe that the little things are the most important. The fact that we both like to sleep with the fan going (a source of arguments in previous relationships), we like to get chores over and done with so we can do other things, she is a great listener who really cares and she’s very considerate and thoughtful. Those are the things that matter, not if we work in the same field. We know that we don’t have to share the exact same ideas but we are open to learning from each other. Respect and caring is where it’s at!
March 15, 2012 6:07 am
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I swear, the hardest argument in my marriage is sleeping with the windows open during nice weather. She loves it, traffic noise wakes me up and I get sore throat/congestion from the pollen. It is a difficult negotiation at the best of times.
March 15, 2012 8:03 am
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Well, at least THAT’S the hardest argument. ;)
March 15, 2012 9:09 am
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My SO is my best friend, and I think this comes into play because I am such a strongly expressed introvert. I really don’t want to cheapen the analogy, but similar to ‘spoons’ I feel that I only have so many spoons to spend on personal relationships. Because this relationship is so close and important and quite a bit of work, I just don’t have many spoons left!
That being said, I haven’t really had a standard best friend since something like 2nd grade. I also consider my mother to be one, but that also is not quite standard as there are just certain dynamics between mom and daughter that can’t really be changed.
Basically, in order to have close friends besides my family (my brothers are also close friends) and SO, I would be so drained all of the time that I wouldn’t be able to do much. Therefore if I want a best friend, it’s of course going to be my SO.
I think what most people talk about when saying that your SO has to be your best friend is that you have to realize that throughout your relationship, sexual attraction will likely wax and wane. During those low times, would you still want to be together? Would you still have things to talk about? I think that’s really why people say you “have” to be friends to get married.
March 15, 2012 6:14 am
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Wow – this really closely describes how things work for me too, but does so much better than I normally can.
March 15, 2012 6:26 am
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As Emma said, you just described my situation much better than I could too! My husband is my best friend. Hands down. It obviously depends on your definition of what a best friend is but I never really had close girl-friends growing up (although I had many regular friends). We too are both introverts with extremely packed schedules (working full time + school four nights a week + volunteering at a clinic on the weekend) and so at the end of the day I barely have time to call my mom let alone meet a friend for drinks. I have friends that I truly love but I don’t have the time or energy to develop those friendships into “best” friendships at this point in my life.
Because I realize that having one person to fill every need can strain a relationship I rely on my mom, school/work friends, a few other friends, etc. for small bits but I also see a therapist once a week too. I’m a talker by nature and so it’s really nice to be able to talk to someone about what’s been going on (and work through issues) over my lunch break once a week. And not have to feel guilty about constantly canceling dinner plans with them.
March 15, 2012 6:45 am
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That’s kinda funny because I’d describe myself as an introvert as well, but the was I see it, my spoons had already been filled before himself and I got together (there aren’t a lot, mind you). As a result, I had to make a special exception to fit him in!
Maybe because of that, I don’t see him as my best friend . . . yes, he’s my partner, but I’ve realized that just because we don’t have a whole lot in common doesn’t mean that we don’t have things to discuss. In fact, I’d wager that we bring our own interesting things to each other to share.
He’s just in a category all his own.
March 15, 2012 7:56 am
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“My SO is my best friend, and I think this comes into play because I am such a strongly expressed introvert. I really don’t want to cheapen the analogy, but similar to ‘spoons’ I feel that I only have so many spoons to spend on personal relationships.”
Kess,
I’m reading “Quiet – The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” by Susan Cain. I highly recommend it. There is a big difference in the way extroverts and introverts experience the world. Their brains are even wired differently. Their needs are different.
I totally understand what you mean by only having so many spoons for relationships!
March 15, 2012 9:22 am
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I’ve heard about that book a few times lately. I think this is the reminder that it’s time to check it out. :)
March 15, 2012 11:18 am
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It’s super interesting. I also think extroverted parents who end up with an introverted child desperately need to read it.
March 15, 2012 1:23 pm
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I tried and tried and tried to formulate a response… to this post and another one similar to it on another blog… and I couldn’t do it. But you’ve done it for me. I feel like introverts
(and introverted relationships) are sort of under attack right now. The assumption is seemingly that we’re obviously unhappy and overly reliant on our spouses… and someday we’ll wake up and be terribly unhappy for not having spent our lives as extroverts? But, in reality, we have our families and each other and we don’t have the time or the need or the desire for more.
March 15, 2012 12:33 pm
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I have thought this same thing so many times. From what I’ve read, extroverts tend to feel bad when they don’t have enough socialization with others. I have the opposite experience. I try to force myself out into the world to make more friends, but end up feeling drained instead of energized. After reading the book mentioned above (Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking), I’ve started to feel at peace with the idea that maybe people writing articles about the necessity of many friends outside the relationship are extroverts who need different things than I do in order to be happy.
March 15, 2012 7:51 pm
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Huh, I wonder if that’s how my partner feels! My comment on the post was going to be, my partner isn’t my best friend, but I think I may be his. I wonder if the introvert/extrovert distinction is the reason for that — I’m definitely an extrovert and like having all my different people (which includes two best friends, neither of whom is my partner!), and having a serious relationship hasn’t really changed that. Whereas Cephas is an introvert and the energy he’s put into our relationship has meant that he has less energy to build up other relationships.
March 15, 2012 1:10 pm
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I’m definitely going to take a look at that book. I’m fascinated by the difference between extroverts and introverts.
And wow – I usually don’t get many props for explaining things clearly! I feel very honored!
March 18, 2012 7:47 pm
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Yes yes yes! Oh thank you for posting this and writing this. My husband and I started out with almost nothing in common & to this day we can’t stand each other’s music, I don’t understand the thing that he spends 80% of his time doing (Philosophy) nor do I particularly care too, he doesn’t enjoy most of the things that I love: swimming, biking, being outside. He is a highly reluctant model when I want to take pictures of him – & yeah – if we weren’t in a relationship we wouldn’t be friends.
In the past I have fallen hard for 2 of my best male friends and it was always a disaster (I blame them). So I also roll my eyes a little when people say they married their best friend. Part of it is jealousy – I wish that Aidan and I had more in common sometimes – but it’s also because I feel like there is this narrative our there that that’s the ideal.
The thing is – my husband is a wonderful partner, and we are good for each other, and our relationship is much better than the romantic relationships that I had with my best friends. My husband and I also share the same values and ideas about what we want from life, and we have grown together. We have worked to find common ground and to discover things that we enjoy doing together. 5 years in and we’re stronger than ever.
March 15, 2012 6:16 am
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part of the issue is that we don’t actually have excellent terminology to describe the romantic relationships–girlfriend/boyfriend, partner, husband/wife–that don’t have a lot of other kinds of social significance attached to them. all of which is important, but doesn’t necessarily get at the emotional part of the relationship. i think “best friend” gets added on to signal a companionate marriage, not just an economic/status/all-the-other-reasons-people-get-married marriage.
i have to say, i fall into that narrative: not that i proclaim myself to be married to my best friend, but 1) if i’m not careful, the ease of our living together will de facto make my husband my best friend because i’ll have let my other friendships fade. and 2) if i don’t think about it, i’ll expect us to do everything together (do the shopping, take the dog for a walk, go to events), things i am perfectly capable to do alone or with others. it’s as if i fall into thinking of him as my +1 for every single thing in life–not good.
March 15, 2012 6:30 am
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YES! I feel exactly the same way about my relationship with my husband. While he does share some of the general qualities of the best friend definition, like you mentioned, I have never felt that that label fit him. We also have very little in common in terms of interests, but that doesn’t make us any less compatible. He’s got his friends who will come over and game with him, and I’ve got my book club and knitting group. But we’re each other’s supports for the big things in life – careers, education, hopefully child-raising in the not-too-distant future, etc. And that is definitely way more important than having a husband who would gush over the latest Snow Patrol album with me.
March 15, 2012 6:37 am
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Amazing timing, as per usual.
My partner and I couldn’t be more different, and it took me a long time to be okay with that. It took it as a sign that we were doomed, as I usually do when I’m getting worked up about things. However, I like that our differences foster our independence and self-confidence, and if nothing else, mean that we always have something to talk about… even if that something is deadly boring to the other one. I think it makes me a happier me to be challenged to travel, explore, and learn on my own, but knowing that I have the support of a loving partner at the same time. Also, for all our differences, we feel generally the same about money, are open to negotiating the future, and have the same polticial and social values. That helps a surprising amount.
March 15, 2012 6:43 am
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I met my guy on eharmony, and our second date we discussed what each of us were looking for. I very firmly said ‘I’m not looking for more friends’- and it’s become a line we return to again and again. I’m lucky enough to have a very very strong, big friendship net- I have a number of best friends, many of whom live far away but that I talk to everyday. Still, I get something out of my relationship that none of them can give me- a partner who is interested and invested in the structure and scaffolding of our future and who respects me more than anyone I’ve ever met. My friends fill very different (very necessary) other roles.
Basically, Rowenna- I totally agree. I feel lucky my partner isn’t my best friend— it feels like I’m able to have more roles filled this way.
March 15, 2012 6:47 am
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I absolutely LOVE this whole “scaffolding” idea. That’s exactly it!
My fiancee is my best friend, I believe, but in our wedding planning/ceremony writing process, it’s also been very important to me to emphasize the importance of us as individuals as well. I can be better committed to/happy with our relationship when I am able to go out, experience things and grow–then come back home and processing those things with him. He is and will always be the shelter under which I can weather the changes, but he is not–and should not be, in my opinion–the whole world.
I also think it’s wildly unfair and unrealistic to assume that one person can be your everything, and I wouldn’t want for a second for any of my friends to feel like I am leaving them behind to be with my husband. I am doing no such thing–each of my friends has come from a different part of my life and fulfills for me different interests, discussions, viewpoints, shared histories, and more, and I will continue to need all those people once I become a wife. I worry all the time about friends “leaving me,” and it is especially for that reason that I can value my future husband–he will always be there, every day, for every up and down.
March 15, 2012 12:38 pm
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Hannah, I totally agree about the importance of the individual and alone within the marriage, and it’s been a HUGE part of my relationship. My parents (who are marriage counselors and generally super wise types) once told me that some marriages are two people going out into the world together, and that others are two people who go out into the world as individuals and return to the home (and marriage) for rest, and to tell stories of their time “out there.” I’m definitely of the second type, and the refuge (and as you said, the constant-ness) of the marriage and relationship fills such a void for me.
March 15, 2012 12:50 pm
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Until 5 minutes ago I had been working through a week of freak outs over how I don’t think of my fiance as my best friend and what does that MEAN for our marriage. I can’t believe how many times we fall into these social traps without even thinking about it. The idea that our signifigant others should be our “everything” is both pervasive and batshit crazy. I rejected out of hand the idea that I needed matching bridesmaids and that I needed to be the one to manage the household chores but I still fell for thinking he needs to be my best friend. Thanks Rowenna!
March 15, 2012 7:24 am
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It means nothing. It means you’re awesome.
March 15, 2012 8:02 am
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Yes. “Social Traps.” Totally.
March 15, 2012 8:35 am
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This article is amazing, and spot on. Me and my fiance actually had mutual friends in college that dated, and we had met, and didn’t even remember each other, and then 3 years later, we met and fell in love! I often feel our relationship is “inferior” to others, because we aren’t best friends, but I now know that it’s our personalities, and our independent nature, and we are perfect for each other because of these things. Most people don’t even realize I’m in a relationship until after talking to me for over an hour. I go on vacation with my girlfriends, and he has his own hobbies and likes. It’s what makes us “us”. I think the most important thing for any couple is to find what works for them, and if you truly right for each other, it’ll work out!
March 15, 2012 7:27 am
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This is actually a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, because I’ve been seeing it pop up in books and blogs for awhile now. It seems to be a common idea that, if your spouse is your best friend, you must 1. not have anyone else important in your life, ie, they are your go-to for ALL THE THINGS, 2. you must have everything in common with your spouse and spend all your time together, and 3. you must kind of look down your nose at all couples who do things differently than you do.
Color me a bit confused.
I consider my fiance my best friend. We were friends for years before we got together. He’s seen me at my best and at my worst, and loves me anyway. You know, just like all my other good friends. We’ve got some stuff in common, but plenty of different interests. We’ve got a lot of the same friends, but we don’t invite each other to every outing. We’ve never been attached at the hip, even when we’re hanging out at home. I guess I just have to agree with everyone who has said that this is partly an issue of semantics.
Rowenna, I completely agree that sharing values is super important. And you’ve clearly got an awesome marriage. As you say and most everyone agrees, it’s vital to have a community support you. I just don’t think having a community and being best friends with your spouse have to be mutually exclusive.
March 15, 2012 7:33 am
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I agree with this wholeheartedly, Laura. My wife and I were best friends before we got together, and have been together for years and still consider each other our best friend. I certainly don’t think this is the ONLY way, or the ‘right’ way to have a healthy and fulfilling relationship, but it works for us. I also don’t understand why anyone would look down on another couple for not being ‘best friends’ (different strokes for different folks, right?) but I agree with Laura that I don’t think that having a a community and considering your partner your best friend is an either-or situation. My wife and I do have to be conscientious in sustaining our other close friendships (both with mutual friends and friends we have on our own) and our individual interests (because although we share MANY interests and hobbies, we do have some that are separate: we love most of the same books and movies and music and outdoor activities, but I take bellydancing classes- which she would never ever do- and she plays videogames, which I hate) but as long as we’re mindful, that’s completely manageable.
Also, I DO think that having the same goals in life and similar ideas about children, money, etc. is the MOST important thing in making a relationship work long-term (vs. having all the same interests) but luckily for me, my wife and I have that as well.
Good post, Rowenna. :) I’m so happy you’ve found a balance with your partner that works for the two of you.
March 15, 2012 8:46 am
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I definitely agree, they’re not mutually exclusive. I knew the topic of how people define best friend would be a big one in the comments, because everyone sees it so differently, but I think whether you consider yourself best friends or not, what I said applies – you still need outside support and community.
March 15, 2012 2:51 pm
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My husband and I are in the same situation: except with a few things we don’t like the same things, but we agree on everything that really matters. We believe we are soul mates because every single potentially difficult issue is easily resolved for us…yet he doesn’t like the same music, or most of the movies I like and doesn’t like that books I read. That’s ok, I have my old friends to talk about all that. What I have in common with him is so much more important than him liking Harry Potter!
March 15, 2012 7:38 am
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I consider my partner my best friend, simply because he is the first person I turn to celebrate or cry, he’s the person I share the juciest gossip with and trust the most with my secrets, he’s the one that I want to spend my weekends with, he gets it when I need to talk through frustrations or work issues, and he makes me laugh like no one else. A lot of this may have to do with the fact that we do share a lot of common interests and a very similar sense of humor. We don’t overlap completely – there are definitely things we each love that the other one can’t stand, and we have strong and vibrant friendships outside our relationship, too. And of course, I can’t turn to him when what I really want to do is talk about him. I think he and I would both say, without hesitation, that we ARE each other’s best friends, and we really like it that way. Actually, the more I think about it, I think the reason we would so easily call each other “best friend” is because we each have a very strong group of friends, but neither of us has a single individual that stands out as “best.” I have a group of five girlfriends that are so amazing and add so much to my life. We love each other completely and would do anything for each other. But there isn’t a single girl in that group that I would think of as my best friend.
I love this post and the topic in general. I feel pretty lucky that my partner and I really are best friends. I’ve never been self conscious of that before. Now, I feel a little bit of hesitation saying it, knowing that Meg is probably cringing a bit. But whatever – in my relationship, this is how it works. He’s my best friend (and a whole lot more), and I am his. And I really really love it that way.
March 15, 2012 7:41 am
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Oh, I share all that stuff with my partner too (remember, we actually were best friends before, hence we share a shit ton of hobbies and humor and gossip). BUT. He’s not my best friend anymore. Trust me, it’s different now. Now he’s a person I like a lot and love, but also someone with a shit ton of responsibilities in my life. While we still share that other stuff, it’s not the same as a best friend (who you don’t SLEEP with, EW.)
March 15, 2012 8:05 am
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Oh I assumed you (and everyone on here) probably share that stuff with your husbands too – I’m not saying we’re special. I’m just saying that to me those things are what makes a best friend. And for me, having a best friend that you sleep with just makes it even better. :)
I don’t run around proclaiming to the world that he’s my best friend, but if I had to pick one, it would be him.
March 15, 2012 8:20 am
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Yeah, I really think it comes down to how you define “best friend.” To me, the fact that my partner and I share so many values IS what would cause me to use that term with him – it doesn’t matter if we don’t have the same hobbies, I know that he’s going to be in my corner and want the same things in life as me.
Maybe it’s because I actually don’t share a lot of hobbies or interests with most of my close friends, but to me shared values are what make long-lasting friendships (and relationships, period). I have some casual friends that are a blast to grab drinks or share a hobby with, but if I need to pour out my soul to somebody who’s not my partner, it’s going to be one of my best girlfriends with whom I have nothing in common on the surface.
But again, it’s semantics of what the words “best friend” mean. Romcoms make us think that we should love drinking cosmos and shopping with our friends, but that we should fight a lot about each other’s life choices – I’m not convinced.
March 15, 2012 8:49 am
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Yeah, I agree with you on all this. I just think it’s important to separate things out. The role of husband and partner is HUGE, and it’s more than enough for one person. Reminding myself that my husband is not ALSO my best friend (and that it felt very different when he was, we shared different things) is a reminder that he’s not my world. I think there is a huge amount of pressure for your partner to be your everything, and I think it’s not healthy. Why should he be my best friend? Husband is enough.
March 15, 2012 8:56 am
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I hadn’t realized what was bothering me about using the term “best friend” to describe my SO until reading your comment — he’s not my friend, he’s my partner. It’s those responsibilities to each other that make it different. I still (probably) share more with him than I do with my best friends, but it’s a different kind of relationship, and there’s something about it that makes labeling it as a friendship feel weird, at least for me.
March 15, 2012 8:43 am
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Yes, yes, yes. Also, he has to call you back even when he’s PISSED at you. Because he’s signed up for a bunch of very specific responsibilities. Heck, he has to hang out with you even when he doesn’t like you very much ;)
Also, my husband has a best friend (I don’t, just lots of friends). BUT. His best friend shares things with him that I never could, and is things for him that I never could be, and that’s such a BRILLANT thing. It makes him so much better a person (and hence partner). We’ve mostly been talking about our OWN best friends, but at the end of the day, I don’t want to be my partner’s best friend. It’s too much responsibility (I’ve got enough on my plate being a wife) and it removes the opportunity for him to have someone in his life totally different than me, who makes him better.
March 15, 2012 9:00 am
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For sure, it’s a really loaded role. I don’t honestly think I do have a best friend (more of a top-5 speed-dial list) but if I was pressed, I would probably name my partner based on what we do share. I don’t necessarily think it’s good to dump all that responsibility on the relationship, either, although I do know people for whom it’s genuine.
March 15, 2012 9:13 am
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Pretty much in the same boat as you Meg. Went from being “best friends” for over 15 years to something different when we started dating about 3.5 years ago. The shared interests are many (we had to go through possessions and weed out duplicates when we moved in together), but still we do some things solo. One of the major differences is that he’s no longer the person I go to for relationship advice, that’s for sure. ;)
March 15, 2012 9:59 am
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I so agree! This has come up with us and my partner is the first to say we aren’t best friends and I’m okay with that. At first it feels like you should be, but we understand we have other people in our lives who fill that role for us. We have something else, something special that goes beyond friendship. We have very different interests but also more in common than an outsider would ever guess. Great post and great to know we aren’t alone in this!
March 15, 2012 7:53 am
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Love it! I agree, my partner and I would probably not be friends (at least not super close) if we weren’t together romantically. We just really don’t have that much in common in everyday interests. When we were younger it used to really bother me. How could I love this person so much when some of the TV shows he watches made me want to throw the set out the window? But Meg and Rowenna have really nailed it: it is the the big stuff that you and your partner need to have going on. My partner and I are so much alike when it comes to how we manage money, our feelings on religion, level of involvement with families of origin, how to be awesome kitty companions, etc. Sure it would be great if I could talk about zombies for hours with him and his friends, or if he wanted to come sew with me and my best friend and listen to NPR. But alas, we are simply nerds of a different breed.
I have teased him in the past but maybe it isn’t so silly after all: I would laugh and say, “Oh honey, I’m not your friend. We’ve never been friends.” Really, we met, started dating right away, and fell in love and those are just the roles we (gladly) fill for each other.
March 15, 2012 7:53 am
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Your comment about the TV shows reminded me of when I first met my husband. The first time we hung out with a group of people and watched the Simpsons. I had been saying for years that I would never like/date/hang out with anyone who likes “stupid funny” cartoons… I still have to leave the room or put in some earplugs when he wants to watch Family Guy or Futurama, but I realize now that that was no basis for judging partners!
March 15, 2012 3:01 pm
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i love this. i think it’s so important to uphold that different things work for different people.
i’ve always been uncomfortable with the idea that my wife would be my best friend. but i think for me it’s just because she’s already my wife, which fully describes her position in my life, so the “best friend” description is kind of moot, whether it is accurate or inaccurate.
i do worry sometimes about relying too much on each other – that i am supposed to have this mythical network of friends to turn to. but i am not a very emotionally open person, and i have never had more than one or occasionally two – and sometimes zero – people to turn to, and i don’t see that changing.
i also think that, because we do (strongly!) share values, our interests are slowly becoming more similar as we do the slow work of making our life more closely reflect our values.
at the same time, as we become more comfortable in our relationship, i think we are also becoming more comfortable doing “our own things” when the other is uninterested. though, to be honest, i like spending time with her so much, i would often (not always!) rather do something that doesn’t interest me much together than something i like more alone or with other folks…
March 15, 2012 8:02 am
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The thing about all those notions of what makes a relationship “healthy” is that they may make sense specifically, but as generic advice, they kind of suck. People function in a lot of different ways — and so do relationships. If you’ve never had more than one or two other friends to turn to, maybe you don’t need more than one or two.
I think the important thing is to not ask more of your partner than they are able to give — even if they’re willing to give it. When everything is going wrong and your partner is just as overwhelmed as you are, you will figure it out. Maybe you do have that mythical group of friends to confide in. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have a really great therapist. Maybe you find ways to carve out some space for a run or a session with your journal.
March 15, 2012 8:31 am
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‘I think the important thing is to not ask more of your partner than they are able to give — even if they’re willing to give it.”
I love this statement. It really resonates with me – especially since I have the tendency to keep giving, right over that line between helpful to someone else and detrimental to me. Likewise, my wife sometimes gets herself so stressed trying to be helpful to me, especially now that we have a baby, which isn’t good either. Happy, relatively unstressed spouses are more important than any specific assistance, I find.
March 15, 2012 8:44 am
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“i’ve always been uncomfortable with the idea that my wife would be my best friend. but i think for me it’s just because she’s already my wife, which fully describes her position in my life, so the “best friend” description is kind of moot, whether it is accurate or inaccurate.” <— THIS.
March 15, 2012 8:41 am
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My husband and I joke that our individual interests form a venn diagram with the slimmest overlap ever, but it works. He struggles with the fact that I don’t like sports (and don’t ever plan to), and I wish he got as excited as I do over theme parks, but as long as we feel like we’re working together towards a lifestyle we can both be excited about, it works. And luckily we each have friends with whom to share all the other interests that our spouse isn’t enthused about. Win-win-win.
March 15, 2012 8:04 am
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So much of what you all have said resonates with me — but the “not my best friend” realization actually functioned a bit differently in my relationship.
I’ve always dated men who had slightly different interests, because it gave me a chance to explore new things — and it was no different when I met J (also online, btw). The biggest difference was that he’s even more of an introvert than I am (definitely a first). He has small number of very close friends with whom he has a great deal in common, while I have a larger, more eclectic mix of close and not-so-close “friends for all occasions.”
We fell hard and fast, and he was eager to meet the people in my life, which is not an easy thing for such an introvert. But some of those friends, including ones I’ve known my entire life, just didn’t seem to “get” him, and didn’t seem eager to try. This was very painful. At first, I got all wrapped up in my head (“Am I changing myself for this relationship in bad ways? Is this a sign of something not-good?), and then I got angry (after all that time I’ve put in getting to know your nutty exes, you’re really not going to bother to get to know this wonderful man?).
Eventually, talking with my sister, I had the realization: if J and I weren’t involved romantically, I don’t think we’d be very good friends either. I can not describe the relief I felt when I realized this — though it would obviously be a terrible shame to not have him in my life, even as a platonic best friend. The thing is, he’s a very private person. He opened up to me in ways he rarely opens up to anyone else, but if we hadn’t been dating, he wouldn’t have. In fact, if our relationship hadn’t moved so quickly, he also probably wouldn’t have opened up in those ways.
In time, all my friends have gotten more comfortable with J. At first some of them might have been making an effort for my sake — but I’d like to think that they eventually got to know him, too. I honestly don’t know if we are “best friends” — but with all the other ways we support and care for one another, I’m not really sure it matters.
March 15, 2012 8:08 am
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Hear, hear! At our wedding, I introduced my aunt to my best friend and she said to me, “Oh no, your wife is your best friend now.” And I was very adamant that my wife was my wife and not my best friend, because for me it is so important to know that there are great people who are important to you and support you outside of your primary relationship. I feel like otherwise there is too much pressure on the marriage to be all things – and no relationship can be all things. I love my wife and she is definitely the most important person in my life (my daughter is a close second – but while she brings me joy, at 9 weeks old, she isn’t a huge emotional or practical support!), but she’s not my best friend and that is what works best for me.
March 15, 2012 8:11 am
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I was just about to say this! I adore my husband, but I already have a best friend, thank you very much. A best friend who’s held that title for 25 years and would be very PO’ed if he were to be usurped. As he says, he’s put a lot of time and effort into me and I don’t get to throw that away because I fell in love with some boy. :-)
It’s romances like Rowenna’s that keep me sighing in happiness even now that I’m no longer looking for love myself. There are so many different types of marriages and relationships and happiness comes in so many shapes and sizes, and it’s not always perfectly happy and covered in puppies and kittens and rainbows. Pigeon-holing the way a marriage should be can be comforting cause we humans do love our categories, but only if you FIT that particular hole. So yay for stories like this, yay for Rowenna who also has an AWESOME name and yay for different types or marriages!
(This is where I’d put “vive la différence,” with lots of exclamation points, but I don’t want to be that guy. You’re welcome.)
March 15, 2012 8:24 am
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yes, yes, yes. the role of ‘best friend’ in my life has been filled since kindergarten.
my husband is my partner. it’s totally different. our tastes in entertainment are generally very different, our tastes in food over lap a fair amount, but not completely, he likes metal (like, real metal) and i like post-grunge-alt-pop-whatever. but our values are very similar. shortly after we started dating, i told him that i want marriage and babies and he was on-board. i recently asked him if i had told him that i did not want any babies, ever, would he still have considered me for a serious relationship and he said no. we both wanted to be carfree so we got rid of them an now we are. we both wanted to get out of debt, so we did. we both want to be as “green” as possible and we try! we both wanted babies, so we had ‘em! our parenting philosophy is ever-changing, but it’s because we want our kids to be well adjusted and smart and happy. when something isn’t working, we are usually on the same page when it comes to trying something else.
March 15, 2012 1:09 pm
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THIS. And also what Alyssa said. I think we’ve moved to a place, culturally, where there is way more pressure for our partner to be our EVERYTHING. And that puts a ton of pressure on our relationships, and can actually damage them (or so the studies say). Our partners have SO MUCH responsibility already… they don’t need one more layer. (and I mean, I don’t even have a best friend, I just have lots o’ friends).
I recently read about a woman who thought she needed to divorce her husband (I shit you not) because she couldn’t talk to him like she talked to her girlfriends. Now, what the HELL is that??? Who told her that you should be able to talk to your husband like a girlfriend? I’m not even sure that makes sense. When I read that out-loud to David he made a little 0 with his mouth, and looked panicked.
March 15, 2012 8:46 am
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I think the difference here is that I definitely consider my wife to by my best friend, but she’s not my ONLY best friend. I have three other extremely close friends who I consider to be my ‘best friends’ as well.
I agree with a lot of the above commenters– part of this is just semantics. I DO very strongly feel, though, that while I think it is totally amazing for every single individual couple to find their own balance, whatever way that is, it shouldn’t be considered BAD that some of us consider our partner to be our best friend as well as partner.
Cultural pressure to all fit into one box (no matter what box that might be)=bad. Everyone finding their own path=great. Mine just happens to be that my wife is my best friend as well. This wasn’t the case with anyone I dated in the past, but it is with her, and that works wonderfully for us.
March 15, 2012 9:18 am
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I actually think the fact that I can’t talk to my fiancé like I talk to my girlfriends is awesome, and pretty important to the health of our relationship. In fact, recently I invited a mutual (female) friend of ours over to the apartment, but I asked my fiancé to get out of the house and do something else while she was over. “I need some girl-talk,” I said.
It’s not that I said anything to my friend that I wouldn’t (or hadn’t already) said to him. It’s just that I needed to say it in a different WAY. Or say it to someone who would give me the reaction that I wanted. Or just that, damn, whatever.
But divorce him because I couldn’t talk to him like a girlfriend? What?
March 15, 2012 9:24 am
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I can definitely see an issue with feeling like you cant relax or talk to your husband the way you can with female friends. I pretty much talk with everyone I like in the same way, so if there was a point where I wasn’t able to be myself with my husband that would be a HUGE red flag for me.
March 15, 2012 9:41 am
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For me it’s different than being myself, though. Of course I can be myself with my partner, arguably in ways I can’t be with anyone else.
But I think that’s something entirely different from being able to chat with him the way I do with my girlfriends. Or, forget being “able” and let’s just say wanting to. I don’t want to talk to my partner the same way I talk to my girlfriends. I want to talk to him the way I talk to HIM. In all the silly, intimate, wonderful, mundane, angry, exhilerating ways that we talk. But the way we talk is not the same way I talk to other people, and I don’t think it needs to be.
March 15, 2012 9:52 am
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“I recently read about a woman who thought she needed to divorce her husband (I shit you not) because she couldn’t talk to him like she talked to her girlfriends. Now, what the HELL is that??? Who told her that you should be able to talk to your husband like a girlfriend? I’m not even sure that makes sense. When I read that out-loud to David he made a little 0 with his mouth, and looked panicked.”
You only need to worry when you can’t talk at ALL. ;)
Or when you can’t be yourself.
March 15, 2012 9:48 am
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I have a question about straight relationships! I know a lot of straight women who just don’t talk much at all with their husbands or boyfriends, *especially* about things I would need to talk to my partner about. Like, they won’t share traumatic or significant details of their pasts, even though they share those things with women friends. One woman I met had a 10 year relationship with another woman but wouldn’t ever tell her current husband that because, well, I don’t know why. I realize this whole not talking about significant things could just be a marker of unhealthy relationships but I find this coming up a lot with all kinds of straight women acquaintances.
So, are we (me and my queer friends) the odds ones in that we tend to tell our partners our detailed back stories, and pretty much everything else*, and then process them for the rest of our lives together?
Also, I’m really curious about people who wouldn’t be friends with their SO if they weren’t married or partnered. In another world where we’d never gone down the dating road, I’d still enjoy my partner’s company. I mean, my friends aren’t my friends because we share hobbies. They’re my friends because they’re funny and kind and super liberal. (Shared values?)
*Except right after we have babies and our relationships almost explode. :)
March 15, 2012 9:56 am
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Now that you mention it, it might be why I have had full disclosure with my now husband about all the details of my previous meaningful relationships, hangups and known issues. I never considered it had to do with being queer, I just thought it better to be up front about my history before things got serious in case he objected to any of it, I could then just skedaddle out of there before becoming emotionally involved. I’ve seen horrible breakups in the past when someone discovers that their straight partner had a colorful and diverse history and they can’t deal, so I proactively protected myself against that!
March 15, 2012 10:25 am
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I for one don’t share every detail of my past and past relationships with my husband partially because in my 20s I had relationships in which we *did* do that, and it turned out to be spectacularly unhelpful for the relationship. I need to know how you treat me; I do not need to know how you ended up first sleeping with every girlfriend you’ve ever had, thanks. My husband and I met when we were ~40 so we both had plenty of living behind us. I think we both know the really important stuff, but there is plenty of stuff that is just not that important, including some stuff that was oh so important when it happened, but it happened 20+ years ago, and I just don’t think about it all that much anymore, much less want to spend time rehashing it after all these years. Does that make sense?
btw loved your post the other day!
March 15, 2012 10:48 am
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Right, I agree. Lots of details are unnecessary, especially the longer you are from those details. I’m mostly talking about major life experience stuff that I hear women not sharing with their male partners. Like I said, I could just know a lot of women in very dysfunctional situations.
And, thank you!! :)
March 15, 2012 11:26 am
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Aly,
I do know that countless advice columns have counseled against telling your boyfriend/fiance/husband too much about your past romantic relationships. And vice versa.
I heard an old song by Carly Simon the other day called “No Secrets”. The lyrics expressed this very issue …
We have no secrets
We tell each other everything
About the lovers in the past
And why they didn’t last
We share a cast of characters from A to Z
We know each others fantasies
And though we know each other better when we explore
Sometimes I wish
Often I wish
That I never knew some of those secrets of yours
the lyrics go on …
In the name of honesty, in the name of what is fair
You always answer my questions
But they don’t always answer my prayers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C3g31hZeiU&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL18B0887F6BE72746
I don’t know what other straight couples do about this. I only know there is strong advice not to tell too much. I’m not even sure what I think about it. Probably depends on the guy I’m with.
March 15, 2012 11:02 am
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Oh I don’t mean we tell everything about our pasts, more that we share the big stuff and tend to talk about the present everything. I agree that sharing some kinds of details (especially around sex) can be damaging but I’m talking about major stuff like being assaulted or having had a drug problem, that sort of thing.
March 15, 2012 11:14 am
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Oh my goodness! You know straight couples who don’t talk about that stuff?! Now that is weird.
The the major events of our lives have everything to do with who we are today and how we feel about all kinds of things. How can couples not talk about that?
Now that I understand what you meant, I can definitely say that most straight couples DO talk about that stuff.
March 15, 2012 11:23 am
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Well, I’m straight, and I’ve told my fiance pretty much everything about my history. I can’t imagine making a commitment to someone, and not telling him about big chunks of my life – especially the traumatic stuff and parts of my life that I’m not especially proud of. If he couldn’t handle all of that, then that would tell me we shouldn’t be together. All of that is part of who I am, and I just can’t imagine having to hide that from the person I live with and see every single day. He’s the same way.
I can’t speak for all straight people, but to me – hiding something as significant as a ten year relationship would be a HUGE red flag that there’s a problem with trust or communication or something. You don’t have to lay out your whole life story on the first date, but eventually -yeah.
March 15, 2012 11:04 am
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Incidentally, that woman who wouldn’t mention her past relationship with another woman to her husband? He’s very anti-gay. And she’s not. (She’s even still friends with her ex!) It’s so confusing.
March 15, 2012 11:29 am
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Enjoying someone’s company and being best friends are really different things — I don’t think I’d be best friends because we don’t communicate in a “best-friends” kind of way.
For example: when I’m going through something difficult at work, my default response has always been to process things out loud with a friend — although sometimes this just works me up even more instead of calming me down. With my SO, who’s not much of a talker, it’s enough to just say “I had a shitty day.” A few moments of peace snuggled up on the couch is often enough to make me feel better — and usually, to figure out how to handle things the next day.
The “cuddle and the world looks better” option would kind of be off the table if we had a platonic friendship — but it’s essential to the ways we relate to one another.
**From the other side, when a hug and a glass of wine isn’t enough to deal with his crappy day, he’ll talk to me about what happened and we’ll strategize a solution. While that’s something I used to a *lot,* it’s an incredibly intimate thing, for him — something he rarely does even with his closest friends. I doubt he’d feel comfortable being vulnerable in those ways if we were “only” best friends.
March 15, 2012 11:05 am
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Right. I didn’t mean that we would be best friends if we weren’t married. But we could/would be friends. Maybe there’s a divide here too between straight and lgbt folks. Maybe straight men/women are less likely to cultivate friendships with people they’d otherwise date? Does that make sense? Of course I could be totally off the mark here and making crazy generalizations. I’m really just thinking out loud.
March 15, 2012 11:22 am
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I have never thought of it this way before, Aly, but I see what you are saying. I talk to my (male) partner about stuff, but I’ll admit that I talk to him differently than I talk to my girlfriends. In my mind, neither one is getting “more” – it is just different. My conversations with my guy tend to be more back and forth, informative, and factual. My conversations with my girlfriends tend to be more comparative and relational. Very interesting observation! I hadn’t (until now) factored that difference into my analysis of partner-as-best-friend.
March 15, 2012 12:41 pm
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Aly, I was thinking this too! Because in girl-girl relationships, it’s so easy to be friends and just wanna hang out all the time, the lines between friend and girlfriend/partner can be blurred (in my experience). Whereas in my relationships with guys it’s easier to have some emotional separation, and rely on them differently than I do with my friend-friends.
And you know, all those jokes about lesbian couples merging together and just hanging out with each other all the time… you don’t hear those jokes about straight relationships. You just don’t.
March 15, 2012 7:48 pm
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I totally agree that getting married doesn’t supplant any relationship with someone else. At my wedding I told my husband that my best friends were now his best friends-in-law, they are not going anywhere just because I’m married, just like my family isn’t going away even though I’m building my own family now.
Also, about a year after I got married I was sitting on a couch with my husband and one of my best friends, and I told my best friend I loved her (we do that a lot). My husband replied (mostly jokingly) “I hope you love me more.” My response: “I love you different!”
March 15, 2012 9:09 am
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Um, YES. I really can’t imagine being friends with my husband (our feelings towards each other are not exactly platonically appropriate). And I have best friends, about whom my feelings are completely appropriate, so there you go. The expectations and responsibilities and commitment of a spouse feel wildly different to me than those of a friend, even a best friend.
My husband often says to me, “You’re my favorite.” Which I think is kind of what people are getting at when they give the “marry your best friend” advice. I don’t think that most people are actually BFFs with their partner before they wed; I think it’s more about thinking they’re the best person ever and liking them a whole lot. Granted, there are plenty of times when we are decidedly NOT each other’s favorite person; but when that feels true, I assume that’s the sentiment that folks are pointing to when they use the misnomer of “best friend.”
March 15, 2012 8:12 am
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Smart stuff here.
March 15, 2012 8:47 am
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Amen to the “you’re my favorite” thing. My fiance and I say that to each other, too, and we mean it, but we’ve never thought of ourselves as friends, let alone best friends. It’s a completely different category of relationship, with, as Meg points out, a completely different set of responsibilities (and benefits!).
March 15, 2012 9:33 am
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We say “you’re my favorite,” too! Love it! :)
March 15, 2012 1:16 pm
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my husband is unashamedly my best friend. we were good friends for a year and a bit before we started a relationship. we don’t have that much in common hobbies and interests wise, but then neither do i and my other best friends (i have a small collection…)
i think it goes back to definitions, like other people have said before. we have our own stuff, and our own friends and our own things we like to do, but i define my best friend as the person i want to talk to, hang out with, argue with, eat with and generally be with the most. that’s him. closely followed by my group of friends and my brother. maybe its different for us because we were part of one social circle before we got together. we always hung out together as a big group of friends. we still do, i just go home with him now.
just felt i should stick up for the people who feel this is the right way for them to describe their relationship. i don’t really care if it makes other people baulk, it’s right for us!
March 15, 2012 8:15 am
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This is, of course, the popular cultural opinion, so you’re vastly in the majority, at least in the US. I’m arguing for role separation, but you don’t have to agree.
March 15, 2012 8:48 am
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People should define relationships the way that feels best for them. If role separation makes it work in your world, do that.
If saying my significant other is a husband, partner, best friend, lover, etc. works for me, that’s what I’m going to do. He can play all these roles, but maybe not all at once.
AND I can have multiple best friends and have different relationship styles with each. I really hope no one on APW is advocating that their partner is their world — I certainly haven’t seen anyone say so.
The big take away I’m getting from this post is that we shouldn’t judge others’ relationships based on how they define themselves.
And down with the dominate narratives! We are human beings and human beings are varied and complex. Dominate narratives negate that complexity.
March 15, 2012 10:31 am
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I think the takeaway is actually not to judge *our own* relationships for being different. There have been a lot of times I’ve sat silently and worried about us not being best friends, and what that means for our relationship long term. It’s a lonely place. after this lovely post Im not going to worry any more. The assumption I’ve bumped into floating out there that not besties=doomed is clearly just wrong.
March 16, 2012 3:43 am
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I’ve often thought vaguely along these same lines, but I’ve never been able to articulate my worries about the fact that my partner and I share values but not as many “interests”. You wrote so beautifully about this situation which falls outside our normal spouse-narratives, but I’m guessing isn’t uncommon at all.
What finally set me at ease in my own relationship was that I realized that my partner and I both care deeply about being kind — to ourselves and others. When I discovered that this was one of our main shared values, I figured the rest would work itself out.
March 15, 2012 8:22 am
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What a lovely way of describing your shared values!
March 15, 2012 8:28 am
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It’s really interesting that in everyone’s comments, the people who define their partner as their best friend aren’t necessarily the same set of people who report that they share a lot of interests with their partner. The two things may or may not go together. That’s definitely the case in my marriage – we have excellent alignment in our fundamental values, which I think has spilled over into sharing many of the same day-to-day interests (politics, fitness, healthy cooking and experiencing nature) but I would never call my wife my best friend. We were friends before we dated, but for me the “best friend” relationship is necessarily platonic. My best friend(s) are the people I feel close to, but without all the complexities, vulnerabilities and fulfillments of a romantic relationship. (But that’s just me – it’s clearly different for everyone.)
March 15, 2012 8:24 am
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Yup. This. I do actually share many interestes with my husband, but it’s different.
March 15, 2012 8:49 am
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I didn’t really realize it until today, or maybe I was just afraid to realize it, but I’m not sure my fiance and I would be friends if we weren’t getting married. This piece really resonated with me, and made me cognizant of what was going on in my own head. Is my fiance a wonderful man who I love more than anything in this world? Absolutely. Is he one of the most important people in my life? Definitely. But I have a small group of best friends who, along with my fiance, make my life more rich, more complete, more fun… than if I just had any one of them by themselves, fiance included.
Thank you, Rowenna, for writing such a smart piece. And thank you Meg, as always, for talking about the stuff that matters.
March 15, 2012 8:24 am
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I dunno; I feel like this is definitely all semantics. I have good friends with whom I share lots of values but few hobbies. I don’t get the hobbies= friends, values=spouse dichotomy. I won’t deny that sharing values with your spouse is of paramount importance, but I don’t think that sharing or not sharing of hobbies is any kind of predictor for the quality of a marriage.
In Middle and Early Modern English, the word “friend” was often used to refer to one’s romantic partner or spouse.
Point is, even if I wouldn’t say “I married my best friend” or refer to my husband as my best friend, I certainly wouldn’t gag or judge when other people do so. Different strokes for different folks, and all that. I enjoyed Rowenna’s writing about her own thinking about friendship vs marriage, but feel like the “F*ck marrying your best friend” framing is a little judgmental and off-putting.
March 15, 2012 8:29 am
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That’s what we do here sometimes: take the dominant cultural narrative and say we totally don’t agree with it, and see where the discussion goes. That’s APW. It’s always been a collection of my (and now others) very strong opinions. We’re not trying to be everything for everyone (man, would we fail at that), we’re trying to make you think, and make ourselves think.
March 15, 2012 8:51 am
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That’s interesting! I’m not sure I’ve heard about the marrying your best friend thing as the dominant cultural narrative. I guess it must be, because I keep seeing arguments against it! I just figured, some do, some don’t, neither way is wrong. I don’t think I’m wrong for marrying my best friend–I don’t think I blindly fell into some trap of societal expectations, you know?–because he just IS. And that’s fine. And anyone who isn’t marrying or married to or dating their best friend is totally fine, too.
I respect debate; I really do (even if I’m a bit sensitive sometimes). But a few parts of this discussion sound a little like “my relationship is right and yours is GROSS,” and that isn’t an attitude I’ve encountered on this website before.
March 15, 2012 9:05 am
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If you feel like you married your best friend that’s valid (and lovely) and not neccesarily falling into a trap of thinking. BUT if you don’t feel that way and are worried that your relationship is essentially flawed because you don’t, that could create problems where there are none, no?
March 15, 2012 9:41 am
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Of course! I think that’s what Rowenna’s piece really addresses–that at first, she did worry about it, but then she came to realize that she and her husband didn’t need to be best friends to have a strong, wonderful marriage. I think it’s important to have a story like hers out there, as it’s obviously resonating with a lot of people. There’s no “right” way for every relationship; each one will necessarily be different.
It’s true of weddings, too–I don’t think anyone visiting this site would ever bash someone for choosing to go traditional, traditional-ish or completely non-traditional with their ceremony, because of course different things work for different people. The important thing is being genuine and honest. Talking about it reminds us all that we shouldn’t feel bad about doing what’s right for us, whether it fits in with whatever cultural norm we’re used to or not. I just think the conversation loses something when, rather than celebrate that there ISN’T one right way to do things, we put down anyone not doing things OUR way. Thankfully, I’m not seeing too much of that here. :)
(sorry for rambling!)
March 15, 2012 10:13 am
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But can’t we do that without tearing each other down? This is what puts me off about this conversation every time it comes up here, the idea that one narrative is superior to another. We all define ourselves in the way that is best for ourselves and our own relationships.
March 15, 2012 11:04 am
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I completely agree. It’s so interesting to me to hear about other relationships, and I’d never put someone down for thinking about it differently than me. If it works for each partner, it’s awesome.
March 15, 2012 8:53 am
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Sure. But you’ve all heard the dominant cultural narrative upheld everywhere, your whole life. Part of what we do here is flip the tables, sometimes a little hard, and see what shakes up. It’s my FAVORITE PART of what we do, actually.
March 15, 2012 9:02 am
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I totally agree with the importance (and fun) of flipping the tables and talking about relationships that don’t fit the dominant cultural narrative.
I think the point here is that, for several of us, “marrying your best friend”is neither a common cultural narrative nor held up in our lives as an ideal. Within my group of girlfriends, I am alone in feeling like my partner can also be my best friend (most of my girlfriends come from backgrounds that included much stronger female friendships than what I grew up with – they have life-long best friends that could never be edged out by their husbands.) My parents have always seemed to be best friends, and do not have very many close friendships outside their marraige, other than their siblings. However, in college I remember studying a sociological phenomenon that lower-income marriages and familes are more insular with fewer outside friends, hobbies, and interests as compared with weathier families. It clicked with me then – it isn’t that my parents are very best friends who love all the same things, it’s that they basically had no free time (both my parents worked multiple full-time jobs, and what little time was left over was filled with child care, chores, etc.) – they were struggling tooth and nail to get by, which left basically no time for outside friends, but which also bonded them together in a way I can’t describe very well. Now that they have more free time, they have made a few new friends (notably, they befriended another couple, so they still spend a lot of their “friend time” together), and they have kind of developed mutual hobbies together – gardening and traveling. So, maybe for me it was a common narrative, but not necessarily a positive one – I remember thinking that, if my parents just had a more comfortable life, they would branch out from each other and enjoy outside friendships more, take up separate hobbies, etc.
My partner’s parents, on the other hand, come from a higher income bracket, had more free time, and most definitely aren’t each other’s best friends – they clearly have best friends outside of the marriage. My partner grew up with this family model – his parents spend a LOT of time apart, enjoying activities with their friends. He was always taught that your spouse can’t fill all those roles, and he would never have expected his mom to go kayaking with his dad or his dad to take up painting with his mom.
So we were both sort of pleasantly surprised when our own relationship organically evolved into one where we (luckily) are able to spend free time doing things we love (outdoor sports, gardening, travel, live music and sporting events, etc.), and we ended up prefering to do them with each other (and additional friends too, but it isn’t the separate spheres that he grew up with).
I have no idea whether this income/class element is a real factor or not, but I think we should at least acknowledge that “marrying your best friend” may be a dominant cultural narrative for some people, while “don’t expect your spouse to be your everything” is just as strong a narrative for others.
Whatever it is, it is damn interesting!
March 15, 2012 9:42 am
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“I remember studying a sociological phenomenon that lower-income marriages and familes are more insular with fewer outside friends, hobbies, and interests as compared with wealthier families.”
That is so interesting and it’s kinda something I’ve thought about before. I know that entertaining on a regular basis is correlated with having more funds. Hobbies tend to require money also.
Clearly, having the free time and funds makes a difference in one’s choices. Even simple things like the ability to hire help makes a difference in the amount of free time available to devote to other things.
March 15, 2012 10:18 am
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I actually think this is an important element. As I commented later, when I think about what we’ve got going on each day, trying to balance work and family, for me, finishing a dissertation, for him, going back to school, it’s a tremendous amount. We’re freakin’ TIRED a lot, and sometimes I just want to have a couple of hours to myself, rather than try to have more social interaction (and I’m a total extrovert, which my fiancé is not, meaning that he’s even less likely to run out and want to have more social time). I know that for me, the end is near for the dissertation (well, then I’ll have a baby, and we all know how much free time is left after that!), and I’ll have at least SOME extra time to spend with more friends. However, it’s way different than it was when I was not part of a family. While I don’t think that we’re trying to run everything around the kids, hey– they’re pretty important, and between meeting the financial needs of a family and really being clear that we want to have a family that communicates well with each other and is close (which takes a large investment of time and energy), there’s just not a ton of time for nurturing lots of other relationships. Do I think they’re important? YES! And I’m still working on keeping them in my life, and following other, non-fiancé and family related interests. I just think that when you are working to meet the needs of little people (ESPECIALLY on a tight budget), it shifts where your relationships and connections go, and I think that’s an important piece of this discussion.
March 15, 2012 10:50 am
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It has been (many) years, but I just remember sitting in sociology class dumbstruck because the phenomenon they were describing fit my family perfectly. It basically said that lower income families are much more likely to socialize, have friendships, and spend free time within the family, and have fewer outside friends and activities. Growing up, I’d say 90% or more of our activities were either immediate-family-only, or if they were more “social” (dinner out, Fourth of July picnic, birthday celebration), they included grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I knew adults that my parents worked with and were friendly with. I knew a few people that my parents went to high school with. But my parents didn’t see those people on anything like a regular basis (more like we would accidentally run into them while out around town and catch up for a few minutes).
As an angsty college student, this whole idea that their relative lack of friends was a sad result of their financial situation drove me crazy. I really lamented the fact that my mom didn’t get the same kind of female bonding, girlfriends having drinks together and talking, deeply comforting friendship that I had with my best girlfriends, and that my dad didn’t regularly get to kick back with his guy friends and watch a game and drink a beer. But now that I am older, I realize that my parents are genuinely happy with their lives. Whatever the cause and effect, they are who they are now. I have changed my thinking from “if only they had more money and could live differently, have more friends, enjoy the happiness that comes with developing as a person apart from your spouse . . . ” to “who is to say one approach is better than the other – they’re happy.”
I guess this is just ot add that (at least for me), I tend to have a deeply ingrained bias to anything that can be culturally identified as pertaining to higher income people rather than lower income – as in, of course, the way wealther people live is how we would all live if we only could. But maybe not, with this one. My partner and I have the time and money to develop friendships and activities and hobbies outside our relationship, and we have, but we still choose to essentially have each other as our best friend and the center of our social lives. It is what I grew up with, but it is also what he prefers even given his upbringing.
March 15, 2012 11:52 am
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Sometimes sass can be misinterpreted. I certainly did when I first read it.
After reading these comments, I think you were saying f*ck to the cultural narrative, not to relationships that actually do consider each other to be best friends.
And I know that spelling that out sometimes makes the joke less funny, but waking up first thing to a tweet that says f*ck to the kind of relationship I have can be jarring, especially before I’ve had my caffeine.
March 15, 2012 10:44 am
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I’m confused as to how “spouse is best friend” is the dominant cultural narrative. We grew up in a generation of divorce and broken families and sitcoms and commercials continually perpetuate the concept of husband as sports-obsessed dofus and wife as someone desperately seeking time to shop, spa, and complain to her girlfriends. I know a lot of people use the term “best friend” in their vows, but that’s not the evidence that’s thrust in my face everyday.
March 15, 2012 5:41 pm
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Totally agree. My parents weren’t best friends, nor were any of my aunts and uncles, or any friends’ parents that I knew of. Thinking of a spouse as friend seems pretty fresh and new to me…and I like the idea.
March 15, 2012 8:06 pm
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Yes you put my thoughts into words perfectly. I also read this post with some confusion and frustration at the implications.
“A best friend can be described as someone you can come to with any problem, issue, or request; someone you share everything with. Though there are many situations where my husband is the one I turn to, I don’t look to my husband to solve every problem, or fill every role.”
“it’s the person who is closest to you, someone you know well and regard with affection and trust.”
Yep, my husband is those things to me and therefore I have no problem calling him my best friend. That doesn’t mean we do everything together or have all the same hobbies or are each other’s everything. A non-spouse best friend wouldn’t be ALL those things either! If that’s how we want to define a best friend then I guess none of us have one because such a person doesn’t exist.
Like many other commenters have said above, clearly it comes down to semantics. And since it does, I don’t understand the need for implying that people who consider themselves married to their “best friend” have less of a community and therefore less healthy of a marriage.
March 15, 2012 9:24 am
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Middle English! I love etymology! Nerd alert!
March 15, 2012 10:16 am
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In german ‘my boyfriend’ is ‘mein freund’… my friend
March 15, 2012 10:45 am
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Thank you for this post. The timing on these are impeccable. Today I needed reminding that I can’t expect my fiance to be my everything. I have friends and family so they can be there for me in their own ways. My fiance is the person closest to me emotionally and physically so I often find myself turning to him for everything out of habit and convenience. And that’s something to work on, so thank you for that.
March 15, 2012 8:40 am
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I don’t say it to everyone else (to prevent major eye rolls), but I always tell my partner he’s my best friend. To be fair, I have maybe 5 best friends. So I’m really generous with the title. However, straight up – he is.
Our values all line up, but we also enjoy the same music, a lot of the same activities… Of course, when he plays video games, I’m probably sewing or baking. And I wouldn’t be able to drag him on a shopping expedition. But I’m completely comfortable with identifying him as a best friend, in addition to being my partner. Our world is not just romance mixed with financial and household responsibilities, we enjoy sharing our lives in the way that best friends would. I think that’s okay.
March 15, 2012 8:41 am
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You took the words right out of my mouth. Thank you for posting this; I was starting to feel like some weirdo for considering my husband my best friend. We weren’t friends before we began dating, but through our relationship (we’ve been together for 9 years, married for almost 2), he’s absolutely become my best friend. I LIKE hanging out with him, playing board games, listening to similar music, etc.
We absolutely have different interests in other respects, similar to yours, but in the end, he’s my best friend. I love spending time with him, experiencing new things with him, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, my sister and my best friend from growing up I’ll go to with problems that maybe Matt won’t understand/can’t help with (usually issues with my in-laws or his family or my family), but overall most things I know I can go to Matt with, and he can come to me.
Again, thank you for posting this.
March 15, 2012 9:44 am
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There was a point in my relationship with my fiance that we started referring to each other as best friends, but after reading this, I was reminded that he and I have many differences. However, what it seems that we do share is our dating style and values or goals, but not so much all of our hobbies. Reading this article just reminded me of how different our interests are and how we’ve picked some new interests from each other. I think he and his mother are the reason I started cooking (well, mostly baking).
March 15, 2012 8:42 am
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My husband and I were best friends for years before we started dating. And, while our relationship has certainly changed since then, I don’t think that the things that made us such close friends before have changed, so I see our relationship/marriage as supplementing the fact that he’s my best friend, not replacing it. And right now that’s been really important. Due to outside circumstances romance hasn’t been very easy to find at times, so knowing that even before we were romantic we enjoyed spending all of our time together has made me feel much more secure. I don’t think it’s necessary, but it helps a lot.
The other part for me is that I think (like others have said), the idea of a “best friend” isn’t necessarily either a clearly defined concept or exclusive to one person. I have three best friends who I’ve known for forever, and I also have my husband who is my best friend. None of those friendships interfere with the others, and all of them are unique in some ways, although they have common elements.
Having my husband as a best friend doesn’t mean that I don’t NEED the other friendships. But I don’t think I could be happy if my relationship with my husband didn’t share some of the qualities that have sustained my other friendships for 10-20 years through periods when we’ve had nothing in common, when we’ve fought, etc.
Being best friends doesn’t necessarily mean we have lots of common interests, or always want to spend time together. For me it’s a description of the strength of the foundation of a relationship.
March 15, 2012 8:48 am
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Someone above mentioned a ven diagram and I think that if you look look at the characteristics of a best friend, those of a spouse, and those of a mother, many of them are overlapping. I am not best friends with my FH, he knows more and less about me than those friends do. We got engaged after 6 month, there is no way he could be my best friend, there wasn’t enough time at that point. He is about to become my husband, that means he loves me, has the same values we plan to raise our children with, supports my ambitions, the one I confide in absolutely. Many of those things are also shared with my best friend and with my mother but that doesn’t make any of them the same role. I cringe when people say there mom is their best friend, she is your mother and you may have an awesome mother/daughter relationship but not best friend. The attributes of best friend can belong to other people in your life.
Aside from that, I think especially in relationships* the differences make it interesting, push me to continue expanding and changing and being challenged. I learn new things on a regular basis, and now sadly, have a much larger range of trivia knowledge regarding Star Wars, which I did not need :)
*Healthy relationships, sometimes differences are just to big to make something work, compromising on who you are or what you believe are not differences that should be overcome.
March 15, 2012 8:48 am
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THIS. Very well said, smart, yesness.
March 15, 2012 8:53 am
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I would also say that this topic is a trigger for me, because like you Meg, I fell for my best friend. legit 10 years platonic best friend. It didn’t work out and I was pretty devastated at the time. When it does work it is great, because of the shared history etc. but when it doesn’t it is brutal. There is no going back because the relationship is different. And when someone knows you that well, and rejects you, it is bruising in a way I have never experienced before or since.
It worked out in the end, because he isn’t the man I am marrying and I am thankful for the man that I do have, he is more than I ever wanted in ways that I didn’t know were good for me.
March 15, 2012 1:56 pm
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Oh, I don’t know.
My sister and her daughter are really each others best friend in every sense of the word. This probably makes them very unusual, but it’s the truth. They can just look at each other and know what the other is thinking. Last year, they even bought a house together!
What is interesting about it is that my sister never tried to be her daughter’s best friend. She believed a child needs a parent; not a friend. My sister was very good at providing boundaries.
But once her daughter got into her twenties and became self-sufficient, their relationship changed into best friends. I think they are as surprised by this as everyone else is! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.
March 15, 2012 10:32 am
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I think the analogy of mother and daughters being best friends is really helpful here. Yes, a mother can encompass everything that a best friend is, just like a partner can encompass everything a best friend is. The reverse however is not true: your mother is not ONLY your best friend, and a partner is certainly not only a best friend here. So best friend can definitely be a describer of a relationship, but it does not define ALL of the aspects of that relationship. I think this is why I hesitate to use the term best friend about my husband (or even my sister, who probably is my closest friend) because the term husband seems much more encompassing to me – it means that he’s the one I turn to in good and bad times, the one I talk to, the one who comforts me, and the one I like to spend time with, which I could say about a best friend, but he’s also the one I want to have children with and share my money with and plan my life with, and yes, the one I want to sleep with!
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with calling your partner your best friend – it’s not what I choose to do, and I don’t think anyone who doesn’t should feel badly about it, but it’s a perfectly fine choice if it feels right to you. As long as you recognize that your partner is not merely your best friend, but something more, then I think we’re all on the same page. Semantics it may be, but I’ve always been one who likes to use the most precise language possible, so husband feels best for me.
March 15, 2012 3:43 pm
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Now THIS I can agree with. I certainly would never think my husband’s role of ‘best friend’ was more important than his role as ‘husband’ – I did marry him after all – it’s just an additional term that helps to describe the type of relationship we have. He is my husband AND the person in my life who most closely fits the bill of best friend. I’m sure the roles overlap for many of us, some more than others. In my case the overlap is big, that’s all.
March 15, 2012 5:23 pm
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YES. I see it this way too. I guess I see the term “best friend” as having a bit of stretch to it. I have my husband (who I also definitely consider my best friend though that is certainly not the primary descriptor I use for the relationship because I think the spousal relationship is much bigger than that.) Then there is my best friend who has been my best friend for 15 years or so. She is still my female best friend and he is still my husband (with the additional category of best friend included in that) Then there are those friends I consider in the next circle of closeness…the next-best-friends or whatever you want to call it. I guess I just use the term with some looseness. But, I don’t really think how people label things is what is important, since we are all operating with different definitions anyways, and on top of that, with different desires and goals for a relationship too. Long as the approach works for the couple… :)
(And I do think the conversation insular relationships as related to introvert-extravert tendencies and social class to be particularly interesting. And I would guess stage of life is also a huge factor too.)
March 20, 2012 2:54 pm
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I definitely felt like I was marrying my best friend and I think that was perhaps not the best way to think about him. It definitely put him in this platonic category, whereas I really should have been thinking about him as my partner, my lover, the father of my future children. But a friend? Maybe. I think there are QUALITIES of both a friend and a husband that should be shared (that whole venn diagram thingy) but I don’t necessarily think a husband needs to be a best friend, nor do I think that every friend could be your husband. I also don’t think that hobbies = friends, either. I have plenty of very good friends with whom I do not share every single interest/hobby with. That’s what makes them fun too! Because I learn stuff and we have stuff to talk about.
But there are clearly unique qualities to being a husband that a best friend or friend wouldn’t necessarily possess.
Common interests and compatible personalities are two of those qualities, but there is more to it and so that’s why I think people who have a history of platonic best friends are much more aware of those differences. Personally, I have not had many best friends in my life, boy or girl. When I met my husband, I had almost no friends and so he really very quickly became my social circle. He was my best friend by the sheer fact that I spent all my time with him. That was NOT healthy and it has led to some not-so-good things in the last few months.
My point is, I think there are kernels of truth to what everyone is saying. I think if you marry someone you wouldn’t be friends with is kind of strange, but I also think that a husband clearly has many more qualities and traits that your average friend or BFF wouldn’t have. Because THAT’S why you’re marrying them.
March 15, 2012 8:50 am
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I’m pretty sure that if I called my husband my best friend, my best friend would lose her shit! My husband is wonderful support in so many ways, and a truly amazing partner. But my best friend, my best friend is the girl who drew picture notes back and forth in algebra in middle school, who did stupid things in college and who I can talk about anything with (including my marriage) without judgement, and as a sounding board- and who won’t automatically go into how can i fix this mode. My best friend was my best friend for long before my husband ever came around and will continue to be there- through weddings, marriage, eventual babies, etc.. There are places for many people in our lives- aren’t we all lucky that way?
March 15, 2012 8:50 am
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See, I DO consider my husband my best friend because he’s the person who best fits that description. I don’t have any other been-there-for-years, talk-about-anything, call-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night friends. I have pleny of casual girlfriends who are great for getting drinks with or pursuing mutual hobbies, but none of those friendships are super deep.
Rather than smug, this makes me feel sort of embarrassed or socially deficient. I worry sometimes that we will fall into the trap of needing to be each other’s everything. We do have a lot of common interests, so it’s easy to just always hang out together. We are both interverts and not great at meeting new people, but we try to cultivate separate friendships and interests because we understand how important it is.
As many people have said, I think it’s about your definition of “best friend.” Sure we have the same taste in music and movies, but more importanly, my husband is my favorite person, the first person I want to share good or bad news with, who shares my most important values, and married or not, that what “best friend” means to me.
March 15, 2012 9:57 am
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If it makes you feel any better, my fiance and I are one of each. I’m blessed to have a Best Friend who I made bff bracelets with when we were 13, who always introduces me to people as “my best friend, Cathi.” I also have a sister whom I’m ridiculously close to. So my guy is…my partner. My favorite. The love of my life. But not my best friend.
For him though, I am his best friend. He’s never been one to maintain extremely close friendships, and has always been very busy and therefore whatever free time and emotional reserves he has are dedicated to me. He doesn’t mind that, sometimes, I have to take distress calls at 3am or that sometimes I just need to “woo!” He knows the place of honor he holds in my life is second to none, even if its different than other high ranking positions. And I don’t mind being 90% of his social and emotional system, he’s pretty self sufficient in those departments anyway.
March 15, 2012 10:56 am
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I agree that this is somewhat semantics. There’s also a bunch of research on marriages being stronger when couples exercise together. Is this values? (I.e., being healthy, having a healthy lifestyle) or hobbies (both people like to hike)? I met my fiancé through ultrarunning, and part of it is about something we both love to do, and part of it is about being healthy. However, that’s also connected to something we both value and want to have in our family– time spent together outside, and fostering an appreciation for the natural world. We go hiking and backpacking with his kids, and we plan on doing that with the baby-to-appear-in July as well. So is this a value we are building our family on, or a hobby? When I look at my parents’ marriage, happy together after 40+ years, they’ve got both things going on– they love spending time together and have various activities they have in common (hiking, backpacking, skiing, wine tasting, etc), and they have things they do separately (my mom LOVES tennis, my dad loves road biking). However, they would also both say that the other person is the one they come to first with most important news, concerns, etc. Does this make them each other’s best friend? They would say so. The other thing is that really, when you add kids into the equation, it becomes just hard to maintain a bunch of relationships, and so by proxy, they became the main relationship in each other’s lives. Plus, my dad just isn’t someone (like my fiancé) who HAS a ton of outside friends. I am definitely the person he talks the most to, and he would call me his best friend. I personally think what makes our relationship work is a combo of hobbies and values, but I think part of it is, as people have pointed out, semantics.
March 15, 2012 9:07 am
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I will say from experience: Shared values trump shared interests ANY day.
March 15, 2012 9:14 am
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Reading all of this with so much interest, as this is something I think about a lot.
Question: when people here (or reading) have said “sharing values”, which values are most important to you? This is a conversation I want to have with my partner, and I want to have a list to go in with. (Compulsive much? Yes.)
March 15, 2012 9:27 am
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Money (how you will handle it, what are your financial values), children (if you want to have any, how many, when, and what are your predominant ideas about child rearing), religion (not that you have to have the same spiritual/relgious beliefs but you should at least know where the other stands and how you each feel about that) and what each of you want out of life in general. Also: where you want to live (mostly this comes down to large urban area/smaller city/country, but can also matter if you want to live in New York City specifically starting next year and your partner hates NYC), free time (how much you should have and what you should do with it), family (how you each feel about your family of origin, how often it is important to each of you to see them), sex (the expectations each of you have and how you will deal with differences), and fighting/conflict (what is the right way to deal with things when they go wrong, what are your fighting styles, etc.)
March 15, 2012 9:34 am
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Personally? How you treat people. What family means to you. If you want a family. How you deal with money. How you handle the hard things. How hard you’re willing to work. What your priorities are. What you care about when the chips are down. How you deal with a bad day, yours, mine, or ours.
March 15, 2012 9:47 am
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“No one person can fill every need, and if you expect your partner to be the right person to come to about every issue, that’s unrealistic.”
YES. Thank you for this bit, in particular. I loathe the expectation in our current society that your partner is your “everything”…and I love my beau/domestic partner, absolutely, and we are sharing and building a life together…but that doesn’t mean that he alone is my world. My world is full of amazing, wonderful, kick-ass people.
Thank you, Rowenna, for your perspective, and APW, for sharing it with all.
March 15, 2012 9:33 am
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It probably is semantics, but I think the overall attitude of the post is that no matter what, the relationship is valid and right because it’s what works for them. People who think of their partner as their best friend are awesome and lucky; and Rowenna is just going, “I have the direct opposite and I’m awesome and lucky too!” It’s just an indicator to those who might feel left out that they’re fine too, not a condemnation of either side.
Featuring a type of relationship and then having lots of people go, “ME TOO! AREN’T WE AWESOME?!” doesn’t mean the other side is less awesome. OR that the other side tried to demean that type of relationship. OR that the other side is even all that different…whatever, my point is rapidly running away from me.
I guess what I’m saying is:
YAY FOR EVERYBODY!
HUGS AND PONIES ALL AROUND!
March 15, 2012 9:38 am
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Thanks, Alyssa. This is sort of what I was trying to get at above, but instead I got a wee bit defensive.
Everyone is awesome and lucky!
March 15, 2012 10:12 am
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Nah, not defensive! It’s just hard because I feel this is an off-shoot of the calling your partner your husband, wife, fiance, girlfriend, partner, etc. conversation. It’s highly important to some, semantics and a non-issue to others.
But all are valid!
I AFFIRM YOU! :-)
March 15, 2012 10:26 am
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Love you Alyssa. Hugs and ponies right back at ya!
March 15, 2012 10:49 am
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I would really like a pony. When can I expect him or her? ;)
March 15, 2012 11:26 am
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Bringing together the closest friends from different parts of our lives for the wedding really drove home that my husband and I are only “best friends” by default – because we can’t talk to these amazing but busy and far-flung people every time we have a joy or sorrow. If only daily life could be like the time around our wedding, when my husband played golf and pool every day with his best guy friends from childhood through college, while my lady friends and I drank fancy cocktails and gossiped on the beach. Even when we only see each other for a short trip or talk on Skype, the 10- to 20-year best friend bond is still obvious and special, and I want to honor that. Maybe someday we’ll all retire to the same beach community.
March 15, 2012 9:48 am
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For the most part, I greatly agree with what this article describes. I’m single, but I strongly support the idea of having a best friend or two outside of your marriage (or my marriage, when the day comes). I also fully support having completely different interests than your spouse.
However, there are two things that surprised me from the article and the comments:
–The idea that friends are people with whom you share interests, hobbies, and taste in movies, TV, and music. To me, shared values is a much more important component to friendships (and spouses, like the article says) than shared interests. For example, the friends with whom I choose to spend my time are those who treat people inherently well, not those who happen to like the same type of music I do.
–That best friends are people who fulfill your needs. Many people in the comments mention how they have different best friends to whom they go when they need something. To me, that’s a sad shell of a friendship. In my opinion, your cadre of friends isn’t your own personal team of therapists that you use whenever you need something. Best friends are the people whose happiness you care about the most.
Under that definition, I’d put your spouse at the top of your list of friends. Maybe top 2.
March 15, 2012 9:57 am
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“In my opinion, your cadre of friends isn’t your own personal team of therapists that you use whenever you need something.”
I think that’s a bit harsh . People have different talents, interests, and stengths, and different roles in each other’s lives. Reaching out to different friends in different situations isn’t “using” them; it’s just recognizing who is best suited for that situation, or who would most enjoy experiencing it with you.
March 15, 2012 10:37 am
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Kristin–I would definitely agree that reaching out to different friends based on who would most enjoy experiencing various activities with you is a very healthy form of friendship. The focus is on them, not you.
But I think it’s very different when you’re focusing on your needs when you reach out to friends. Perhaps you have a friend that you call whenever you have a bad day. Are you really treating them like a friend in that situation, or are you putting your happiness before theirs? Unless that friend truly enjoys listening to you, I would think that’s a role better covered by a therapist. What do you think?
March 15, 2012 10:54 am
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Jamey, you’re right to point out that a friendship consists of a lot more than crisis management — however, the handful of close friends that I have stayed in touch with over the years and across the distances have remained my closest friends not only because I enjoy spending time with them, but, yes, because we have been there for one another in hard times.
When one of them had a horrible break-up with her live-in boyfriend, I helped her find a new apartment, long-distance. She didn’t introduce herself to me our first day of high school so that she’d have emotional support eight years later. Similarly, I didn’t maintain a relationship with my closest friend from middle school on the off-chance that one day, should I ever be diagnosed with a chronic illness, she’d offer me a kidney — but that was literally her first response when she found out that I had been.
Neither of those friendships would have withstood the test of time if they were unidirectional.
March 15, 2012 11:31 am
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Em–Definitely, I completely agree. Friends are definitely there for the rough patches as well as the highlights of our lives, and we’re there for them as well. I think it’s the whole concept of “using” friends that gets to me. Many of the comments here say that people have some things that they go to their spouse about, and there are other things that they use specific friends for. Maybe it’s just semantics, but I think we’ve all used our friends before, and we’ve all been used before.
Here’s a situation based on the example you gave–your friend had a horrible breakup, and you helped her find a new apartment. That’s awesome–that’s the kind of things friends do. Now, what if from then on, that friend designated the friend she goes to whenever she breaks up or needs a new apartment? Maybe it’s a conscious choice, or maybe she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. But over time, you realize that pretty much the only time you hear from that friend is when she goes through a break up or moves. (That’s an extreme example, but I guarantee that we’ve all been used in that way, and we’ve all probably used someone else in that way.) How do you feel about the friendship then? Is it still a friendship, or are you simply providing a service for her?
Like I said, I think we do this sometimes without realizing it. Just as I wouldn’t want to designate my spouse as the person I go to for X, Y, and Z, I don’t want to do that to my friends. And if I realize I’m doing it–if I realize that I’ve stopped thinking about a friend’s happiness and started making the relationship all about me–that’s when I need to take a step back and re-evaluate my life and my relationship with that person. They deserve better than to be used.
What do you think?
March 15, 2012 12:15 pm
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Jamie-healthy friendship is reciprocal. When I call a friend after a bad day, I am focusing on my needs at that moment because I’m the one who needs the support. She probably doesn’t truly enjoy the actual act of listening to me, but she does listen because she cares about me and wants to support me. In this case, she is putting my happiness before her own. However, when she calls me after her own bad day, I do the same for her, and this time we focus on her needs, and her happiness comes before mine.
If I expect her to be at my beck and call whenever I need her, but I’m not there for her in tough times, that would indeed be selfish. It’s a lovely thought that we should always put others’ happiness before our own, but most of need emtional support from time to time, and I think seeking out support from a friend can stengthen the friendship, as long as that support isn’t abused.
Of course, therapists are a great option, too, but for run of the mill bad days, I think calling up a friend to vent IS treating them like a friend, when that friendship is based on mutual support.
March 15, 2012 12:25 pm
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Kristin–That’s a good point; reciprocity is a key element for a successful friendship. When things become one sided or if you use a friend for only that purpose, I think that’s when things get icky. Have you ever had a friend who called you for support every time something bad happened, and yet you realized at a certain point that (a) you were no longer reaching out to her in the same way or (b) that was literally the only time you heard from her, when something bad happened? Did that feel like a friendship? How did you deal with it?
March 15, 2012 12:48 pm
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Jamey, it won’t let me reply to your comment further down…I can’t think of any specific examples of that scenario in my own life, but I one hundred percent agree that that’s when things get icky.
When many of the commenters said they have different friends they could call on for different things, I don’t think they meant that was their only purpose in maintaining each of those friendship. But I’m totally with you: when 1) the only contact is when something bad happens, and 2) it becomes one-sided, that is a role better suited for a therapist.
I believe we are on the same page now :)
March 15, 2012 3:51 pm
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Nicely said. I may amend what I said previously to agree wholeheartedly with this.
March 15, 2012 10:37 am
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I want to address your first bullet here because I’ve been seeing a lot of comments regarding this. People I consider closest and “best friends” to me are the people who do share my values, just like my partner does. They don’t mind staying in and playing Scrabble rather than going out to a bar, they enjoy talking about the same deep topics that I do, etc.
But I also have lots and lots of friends who have completely different values to me. I have friends who think a lot of the things I do are crazy, but we like the same activity or the same movies, music and books. I have many friends who I only share a pretty narrow interest with, but they’re my one go-to person for that. Just like my partner doesn’t need to be everything to me, neither do any of my friends. I think it’s totally acceptable to have friends with different values. I don’t think friends are ONLY people you have interests in common with, but I also don’t think all friendships are extremely deep and values-oriented, and that’s okay with me.
When I say in the title that my husband and I would not be friends if we weren’t married, it’s true for ME. Although in the past five years we’ve grown very close, developed similar hobbies and gotten to know each others’ values strongly, when we first met none of that was there. It takes a long time to learn what your own values are, much less what someone else’s are, and I don’t think we’d ever have gotten to that point without entering into a romantic relationship.
March 15, 2012 4:00 pm
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Loved this post. I had a couple of tear filled discussions with my husband when we were first dating that boiled down to “we don’t have anything in common, our relationship is doomed”. 5 years later, we are happily married and discovering that we are finding new things that we can share. We’ve changed and grown and have discovered we have new common interests. I understand that he may never come to love the thrill of rollercoasters or that he’ll rather have fun exploring virtual dungeons with his friends from the comfort of home while I go underground and crawl around in actual caves. At the end of the day we’ll be able to get together at dinner and tell each other about our days and share our experiences: we may not get why something is exciting for the other person, but we’ll appreciate and respect the fact that whatever happened was relevant and meaningful for each one. And that rocks.
March 15, 2012 10:06 am
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This is not a pleasant thought but it’s real and I’ve been there before; when your husband is your “Best Friend and Everything” and you divorce there is a real chance you will have no “life without him” and will have to go back and figure out who you are.
I’m not saying your spouse can’t be your best friend but investing too much in one person can be tricky.
March 15, 2012 10:12 am
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HA! I kept my ex-husband as a friend! ;) He always will be.
March 15, 2012 10:37 am
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In the end, I did too which is nice but in the short term there was a feeling of, “I used to have friends…I used to DO things….”
March 15, 2012 10:54 am
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When I got divorced, I realized I’d been giving my own family the short end of the stick. Really unfair, since they would naturally be there for me more than him after the divorce!
March 15, 2012 11:16 am
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So . . . I have definitely thought about this, both for my own relationship, and more so for my parents (who are absolutely each others “everything”) – I think there are risks and benefits both ways, and different things work for different people. If my parents had divorced (or if/when one of them dies) would/will it be even harder, even more terrible because they didn’t really develop a life outside of the marriage and don’t have close friends to lean on? Yeah. I think so. And that sucks. But at the same time, I can point out times where the fact that they were best friends, each others everything, has helped them, made them stronger, and even kept them together. I think most choices in life have both positive and negative consequences and each person decides what works for them. The fact that divorce/death will be even worse if your partner is also your social life/support system is a valid concern. But for some people, it is outweighed by the (I believe unique) joy of having that kind of marraige.
March 15, 2012 12:19 pm
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Ambi … YES. Life is full of trade-offs and risks. You can’t always live in such a way as to make minimizing risk the main thing.
March 15, 2012 1:33 pm
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“He is there to share my life—not to be my life.”
This is the BEST line! Very, very important. I consider my husband one of my best friends. However, we have our own friends & our own interests. We’re often in different directions enjoying our passions. But he is the only person I want to come home to & tell all about my adventures.
March 15, 2012 10:14 am
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