Let me be clear, if you are a person who feels that they will be marrying/have married their best friend, that's great! You do you, whatever makes you happy. But I'm a little weirded out how this seems to be the assumption now. Even when you look at all merchandise — all the cards and t-shirts and tote bags and aisle runners — the wedding industry seems to think that if you're marrying someone they must be your best friend, and that's just… odd to me. Obviously some people are marrying their best friend, but surely not everyone?
People never assumed this stuff when my fiancé was just a boyfriend. We were living together, running a house together, and everyone assumed that at some point we'd get married, but no one said anything about “living with your best friend.” Admittedly the people saying this aren't people who know me super-well, but I just don't understand that leap.
My fiancé isn't my best friend. He's pretty great, but we weren't really friends before we dated, and my actual best friend has known me for almost twice as long as he has. She's the one who will tell me that sweater makes me look like a crazy cat lady, whereas my fiancé thinks I'm gorgeous in whatever I wear. (Not that that is a bad thing.) It's just sort of, two sides to the same coin. And, for our situation, I feel like for him to try and be both my partner and my best friend would be counterproductive. There's nothing major that my fiancé knows about me that my bestie doesn't, and vice versa. It's not the information that's different, it's the way it's processed…
My bestie can give me insight into problems that my fiancé can't, necessarily, because he's too close to the situation, and she can give me perspective. If he leaves his socks on the living room floor and my knee-jerk reaction is to freak out, I know that twenty years from now we're not going to point to the great sock-on-the-floor incident of 2013 as the low point in our relationship. But does it still tweak my nerves? Sure. In situations like that I can go to my best friend and say “Ugh, he left his socks on the floor again,” and she'll just shake her head and say “Oh I know, my husband does that and it irritates me too.” And then everyone wins. I feel vindicated because I'm not crazy, my fiancé isn't left going “WTF” because I went all She-Hulk over a pair of socks, and maybe later I go to him and mention it in a calm and rational way — or maybe not.
The point is my best friend is an outlet for this little stuff, sort of a staging area, if you will, for some of my feelings. It's not that my fiancé and I don't talk about our problems — he's a marriage therapist, do you really think he'd let me get away with that?! — it's just that sometimes I need to get my thoughts in order before I bring them up to him. And sometimes once I say something out loud it sounds so stupid that I'm able to just let it go, or realize that I may have been misunderstanding something.
What's the Wedding Industrial Complex?
Have you heard of this term, the Wedding Industrial Complex? I certainly didn't make it up, but I used it in my book… it's a... Read more
The other thing is that he and I are very much our own people. We're not “two peas in a pod” or “two halves of a whole.” We are frequently found no where near each other geographically, we have hobbies that the other is completely not into, and it's not unusual for me to say “no idea” if someone asks me where he is. I know he's alive and will be home tonight, that's all I feel like I need to know.
In general I reject the idea (we both do) that to be in a relationship or to be married means we have to be joined at the hip 110% of the time. Not that I'm like that with my best friend either, but it goes along with the theme that people seem to think that once you get married, suddenly this one person should be absolutely everything to you. I have lots of important people in my life — I consider it a blessing that I have so very many people I love who are important to me, and I, personally, have no interest in having all of those roles condensed into one person.
So yeah, my fiancé and I are a team — we make our house run as a team, we sometimes plan parties as a team, we make sure we have enough cash to pay bills as a team, and eventually, we'll parent as a team. He's my “significant other,” he's “the dude I'm in love with,” and he's a pretty boss roommate and life-mate, but he's not my “best friend” and I doubt he ever will be.
I just want to HIGH FIVE you and this post!
Love this! I do consider my husband my best friend, but that always makes me feel like I’m betraying my actual best friend. The idea that we can have multiple best friends (sort of like multiple spouses, I guess…) is a weird concept for us as a society, I think. But I know if I had to pick one best friend forever and ever, it wouldn’t be my husband. That’s just not his title.
Thank you so much for this! I feel exactly the same, but it definitely feels like we’re in the minority sometimes.
This is a really interesting post. I do feel like my boyfriend (of only about two years) definitely is my best friend. After moving every several years and never staying in good contact with childhood and college friends (because, let’s be honest, facebook isn’t good contact unless everyone is working to make that happen), I honestly don’t feel like there is anyone who knows me as well as he does. Or gets my idiosyncrasies and inconsistencies as well. It helps that, aside from each of us having moved several times in the last several years, we’re both introverted enough to mostly be focused on each other, assisting in our friendship being well developed.
More than anything, I love that this post acknowledges the reality that your significant other can be you best friend, but that they don’t necessarily have to be your best friend. I read a post recently that basically said that they thought the idea of your significant other being your best friend was practically an oxymoron, which seemed completely off base. This seems much much more well thought out.
Totally agree with you. I actually did marry my best friend too. Which is pretty cool, as he’s the only one to really know the real me (with all of my quirky mannerisms, likes, dislikes, etc). Just like, I know everything about him and spend more time with him than any of our online friends. It’s pretty nifty and works great for us.
But at the same time, it’s completely cool if you didn’t marry your best friend, as I know that what works for me, doesn’t work for everyone. It’s usually encouraged to have friends outside of marriage anyways.
Oddly enough, I wasn’t ever asked about the hubster being my best friend. It was usually stuff like “How is marriage?” or “How is it like living with him?” Maybe the best friend comments aren’t that typical where I live? :shrugs:
I may have read that same article. Certainly it irritates me when people go black and white with it (either it has to be that way or being that way was stupid.) Rereading this I don’t think I put enough emphasis on the fact that I think it’s ok if your SO is also your BFF, but I’m glad the point got across, and glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
Dude, I love this post. I didn’t marry my best friend either — he’s currently getting married to an awesome chick in a couple months. And I once dated another best friend of mind — that did NOT go well. We’re back to just being friends and I married an awesome guy who I haven’t known as long as all my closest friends.
I think of that guy I married as my partner and my closest ally. But my best friends are a totally different beast — they’re the dudes I need to have around when things get wonky with my partner.
My last ex-boyfriend was a mutual friend within our circle of friends in high school. I finally had to end the relationship because he became emotionally/sexually/physically abusive. Sometimes, so-called “friends” wind up being the worst people you’ve ever dated.
My husband and I discussed this topic shortly after getting engaged and both agreed we weren’t best friends, and marrying our ‘best friend’ wouldn’t and didn’t apply to us either. We met online and definitely weren’t looking to find a best friend… thanks so much for the article, it definitely articulates how I feel 🙂
Yes!
I’ve gotten over my knee-jerk eye-roll response to the “marrying my best friend” line that I hear/read on so many wedding blogs, but I still agree that’s not a given. While the fiance and I do seem to overlap that Venn diagram between BFF and life partner, I don’t think it’s fair to expect him to fill the BFF role because, as you so eloquently stated, it’s not the same thing. I know that he considers ME his best friend, and I’m happy to fill that role for him, but he knows that I consider my female friends to be very important and that I don’t expect him to fill their role.
These best friend/not best friend discussions are always fascinating to me. I don’t necessarily consider any one person to be my “best” friend. All of my close friends have a place in my life, and some of them take on larger or smaller roles during different time periods or situations, but I don’t really consider any of them to be my BEST friend. I tend to do and discuss different things with different friends, depending on what they tend to enjoy/be best at. It’s nice. My husband is just one of those friends. So, I guess I would consider him to be ONE of my best friends… but not my ONLY best friend. If that makes sense. I always think it’s funny that our culture fixates on the idea that THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE. Makes me envision a Highlander-esque fight to determine which friend lives forever and which friend winds up a head shorter.
haha, i totally agree. i have so many best friends, and some people think thats so weird. but basically i just like them all so much, i cant “rank” them like that. they are all the best! and, i mean in that vein i would probably call my boyfriend (or fiance one day or husband one day or whatever we end up being) my best friend too.
maybe my overuse of best friend is diluting what a best friend is. oops. haha
I agree with this comment 10000%…this is what irritated me about this article….I have several “best friends!!” they are part of my elite close-to-me group. and I actually think it’s quite awful to say “but he’s not my “best friend” and I doubt he ever will be.”…..anyway, I guess we all just have our own different definition of things…..for example, in this article her husband is someone she manages the home and children with while being a roommate…and to me a husband is a my ultimate lifetime companion, period–we could live in different homes, I could adopt a kid and he wouldn’t even have to be the father figure….to me, the details don’t really matter…..a husband is an exclusive lifetime partner…and to me, why would I want someone to be my exclusive lifetime partner if he weren’t my (or ‘one of my’) “best friend(s)??” sooooo…..I think we all just define things differently and that’s why this article was a little frustrating to read. The author assumes that everyone shares the same definition of terms, which is funny, because that’s exactly why she’s upset…because everyone makes assumptions about what “husband” means to her! lol
Thanks Cali!
I have four best friends, and they will all be with me at my wedding, but only one will be holding my hand that day.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
This is a pretty interesting read. Honestly, this has never crossed my mind before. I am marrying my best friend. 🙂 He’s been my best friend since we were twelve. He’s the friend I play games with, paint nails with and go to the mall with. I have other friends, but he’s always had the BFF title. We even have friendship bracelets.
That being said, I can understand why “I’m marrying my best friend” would feel off to some people. Your future spouse should be someone you can confide in like a best friend, but it’s understandable if he/she doesn’t hold the “ultimate BFF” title, and that’s perfectly okay.
D’aww I love the friendship bracelets 🙂 I’m glad you thought it was interesting!
I love the friendship bracelet too! I made my fiancé one when we were just bf/gf and it turns out 2 or 3 colors in it were supposedly his “lucky colors” (black, white, red), from what someone at a Chinese fair told us. He did think it brought him luck and he wore that thing every day! It stretched out a lot and I think at some point it broke but he still carried it around with him. He is my best friend too, but I can appreciate differences – that not everyone marries their best friend.
aaaaaaah I love you for saying this!!! I’ve always felt like telling your husband “I’m marrying my best friend” on the altar is like friendzoning him in front of his friends and family lol.
This made me laugh kind of a lot. I’m glad you enjoyed it 🙂
I am someone who married her best friend. I am also someone who is now divorced from her best friend. But you know what? We are still best friends. I would give him both of my kidneys, take several bullets, or simply be there with a 30-pack of cold beers if he needs it. I love having dinner with him, taking walks to the beach with our dogs (that we share joint custody of), and visiting with his family.
Best friends are there by your side through the best and absolute worst– however, best friends do not always want to share their bodies or be intimate with one another. I married him because he was my best friend and I couldn’t imagine life without him. It seemed like the correct next step, but it was the worst thing that we could have done. We still love each other and talk on a daily basis– the love hasn’t changed, it just never matured to the way that a wife should love her husband. I should have waited for the man who I don’t want to be away from… who I ache for, who I crave, who I simply can not live without. While we loved, respected, and had mostly very happy times together, denying myself those primal lusting feelings was absolute torture. If you marry your best friend, make sure that they are also your best lover, your best partner, and your better half.
I agree with you so much that past-me wrote a whole blog post about it: https://nicoleandmaggie.wordpress.com/2011/03/15/i-will-not-marry-my-best-friend/
Thank you for sharing your experience. I thought I was the only one on the internet rebelling against this meme!
OH MY. I feel like I am the only one in my world who did this. I married my best friend, divorced my best friend, and he remains my best friend. Which freaks EVERYONE out but us. He hangs out with me and my new husband and the two of them have become very good friends. People can NOT get the concept that you can love multiple people at the same time in different ways. They assume there is jealousy and hard feelings. There truly is not. I would do anything for my ex. But I dont love him like I love my husband. WHEW. Its so nice to know I am not alone!!!!
I agree so, so, SO much with this. I felt a little bit like the original post was taking an overly mutually-exclusive stance, in spite of mention that “hey, if you ARE marrying your best friend, go you.” It just felt a bit to me like an insistence that you can only have one best friend, and it probably shouldn’t be your spouse.
I love the sentiment you close with, “If you marry your best friend, make sure that they are also your best lover, your best partner, and your better half.” My bridesmaids are all best friends, my FH is a best friend, but the difference, as you so excellently articulate, is that FH is also my best lover, best partner, and better half (by far! haha).
Oh dear :-/ I certainly didn’t mean for it to sound mutually exclusive- I hate that, actually. It was just…I never expected this writing to get this much attention, and I was really writing about the “other side” of this trope, so I didn’t really spend much time on the “pro-bff/spouse” side of things.
I think it’s great if you have a best friend who is also your spouse- and also if you have lots and lots of friends (best or otherwise)! More love is always good. 🙂 I was mostly just writing about my personal frustration with this, since Fiance and I weren’t ever “just” friends, really. Sorry if I came off as a reductive ass- thanks for the comment! 🙂
OMG – this! YES! I swear, my husband and I have made the same mistake and I think our marriage is probably not going to survive it either. SO good to know I am not alone. 🙂
Hear, hear! I feel like the “I’m marrying my best friend” sentiment is part of this whole larger picture that your partner is supposed to be able to be able to be everything to you and provide everything you need… something that I just don’t feel is a) accurate and b) fair. I like to think that we’re all complex individuals that can have a multitude of needs and wants that can be filled by all sorts of people. And when I made the decision to be with my partner, I made that decision knowing that I could definitely live without her, and would probably be happy and have a great life – but that I know my life is infinitely more beautiful with her in it. Even though she does tell me to pick up my socks. 🙂
I love this. All of it is true, and I wish our society understood it. I love my man, but while he will always be there for me, I wouldn’t want him to be so joined to the hup there was no breathing room. He feels the same. I think it’s important not to smother each other.
P. S. I’m an MD rennfester too.
What up MDRF! Yeah, I mean I think it’s great if that’s actually the kind of relationship you have, and I certainly think you can be BFFs with your spouse without getting smothery (though unfortunately I’m not sure that came across well in this writing-eek.) It’s all good as long as everyone’s happy, I just reject the notion that it HAS to be that way. Glad you enjoyed it!
I’ve feel the same way! Everyone on facebook posts about their wedding/anniversary about how they’re marrying their best friend. I love my fiance, and I can’t wait to marry him, but I think my best friends are my sisters and a few other people that I talk to all the time.
While no one yet has said I’ll be marrying my best friend, I have no intention to pretend my fiance is my best friend. So there 😛
Isn’t it strange how according to stereotypes we are not only expected to marry our best friend but THEN be absolutely miserable once we’ve married them?
Because leading up to the wedding and the actual wedding is supposed to be the absolute most romantic time of our lives. And then HURR HURR it’s all down hill from there!!
This is such a good article. Obviously some of us have married our best friends (including me) but the reality IS that not everyone does. The reality is that no marriage is the same, because since when are all people exactly alike?
But that’s why OBB exists right? Because the wedding industry tries to shove all of us into tiny little boxes and most people just honestly don’t fit into them (even if they try to).
Exactly! I don’t like boxes…unless they’re large, like from a refrigerator, and I can build a fort out of them. 🙂
Glad you enjoyed!
You wrote this for me!
It’s funny, as soon as I got engaged last month, I started seeing the “marrying my best friend” stuff too. I thought, I love my fiance and he’s my PARTNER and yes we were friends before we dated, but he’s not my best friend. He’s up there, but not #1 and I don’t think he has to be. My best friend Rachel is my maid of honor and she’s the one I go to when I need “Best friend” things. My fiance is definitely someone I go to for stuff when I need a logical, non-emotional, male opinion on things. 🙂 Not the “best friend” stuff…. 🙂
And I’m ok with that!
I’m definitely marrying my best friend, but I think this brings up a good point. A spouse cannot be all – that is simply too much pressure. I’m a big proponent of having trusted friends outside of marriage – whether that is your best friends, family, or someone else. No one person can be everything to someone.
For me, my ‘other friends’ are my mom and siblings. (I am VERY introverted) So while I am undoubtedly marrying my best friend, I am not marrying my only friend.
Thank you for this post and this comment.
My dad, who was in a wonderful, healthy open life partnership with my mom, explained to me (when I was old enough to get it) why they didn’t hold themselves to monogamy. They both felt that the best way to destroy a marriage/life partnership was to expect your partner to serve ALL THE ROLES: best friend, lover, co-parent, co-responsible-adult, sharer of finances, etc.
It seems to me that we all need to choose for ourselves which of those roles our spouse will serve (and confirm that he/she/ze has the same expectations!).When I read this post and these comments, it occurs to me that some people value the “lover” aspect the most, some the “best friend,” some the co-responsible-adult/co-habitant. What seems imposing about the assumption that you are marrying your best friend is that they are imposing their values/expectations on you rather than asking you what marriage is to you.
That’s where my mind went, anyway.
“… it occurs to me that some people value the “lover” aspect the most, some the “best friend,” some the co-responsible-adult/co-habitant. What seems imposing about the assumption that you are marrying your best friend is that they are imposing their values/expectations on you rather than asking you what marriage is to you.”
This is really well said, and I think that’s a great point. Because it’s not just the “best friend” thing (though obviously that’s a big pet peeve for me, haha.) It’s just silly for anyone except you to decide what your spouse/partner means to you. Thanks for the comment! 🙂
That really is such a great point. I never thought about what was most important to me in a partner before I got married but it’s very clear to me after reading your comment that co-responsible-adult/co-habitant really is the most important thing to me while I don’t think it is for my husband. The things we fight about all the time show that so clearly. I copied your comment and am going to email it to him to see what he thinks so we can have a discussion about it. 🙂
I think the “I’m marrying my best friend” trope originally arose in contrast to the attitude that “love” was completely separate from “like.” So many romance stories have the characters initially despising each other then somehow falling in love, without ever falling in like along the way. This is made more explicable in that there used to be (and perhaps still is?) the assumption that people couldn’t have friends that weren’t the same gender.
If the phrase now sounds weird, perhaps it means that some crusty notions are on their way out.
I agree. I think the idea was sort of a rebellion against the 1950s stereotype where men and women just didn’t talk to each other about certain things, especially not emotional things. I think the cultural theme is a good one. A way of saying “Hey caretakers/breadwinners, when you’re stressed about the kids/finances/general ennui its okay to talk to your SPOUSE rather than your bros/girls.”
This is a really interesting point, I don’t think I ever thought about it like that. Probably because Fiance and I really didn’t spend a lot of time being “in like.” We pretty much met, didn’t know a lot about each other, then started dating, then were like “yep, this is it.” I like the idea that if it’s weird it means that times are a-changin. Thanks for the comment!
I am so glad someone came right out and said this. I’ve always thought this was such a silly notion!
This is so true for me. I feel like if I referred to my fiance as my BFF, it would actually really insult my true bestie. Also, my fiance would probably say “uh yeah but actually Aaron is my BFF, sozlol”. So at least we’re on the same page 🙂
I really loved the “two halves of a whole” part of your post. I consider my husband to be my husband, and that looks a lot like best friend, but also it looks a lot different. But what I have taken issue with is that people thought I was 1/2 a person before I got married. Half of a whole? No way Jose! We are two, very whole, people who make up a partnership. But I would not crumble and die and turn into some crazy recluse if he were to die or leave.
This post is spot on. I also feel the same way about ‘soul mates’. I love my husband to bits in a way that no other love could match but I feel that my best girlfriends are actually my soul mates…for want of a better term. All I know is without each of my loved ones in my life I’d be lost.
Really interesting read. I’m not sure I agree with all of it, but I understand the sentiment. For me the idea of one’s SO also being one’s best friend is somewhat a matter of nomenclature where the term may not mean exactly the same thing to every person. There’s also the question of whether or not one can have more than one “best” friend. Well, if you’re being literal then yes, but I personally believe you can have more than one, and I’m sure that is part of why I consider my boyfriend my best friend.
For me, I have three or four best friends: my boyfriend, my mother, and two girls I’m really close with. My boyfriend and I do share a lot of general interests, but not always specifically the same (example: he sings opera, I do stage theater–both live performing, but not exactly the same thing) and he is the person I most often want to spend my time with. My mother is probably the person who knows me best, even when I don’t tell her everything going on in my head she still reads me better than anyone else can (after three years the boyfriend is getting close though!). Finally my two best girlfriends are people I can not talk to for months at a time, and the second we get back in touch its like we never missed a moment. Also, there’s some things that due to multifaceted aspects of other relationships I can’t go to my boyfriend or mom to talk about as easily. At the end of the day all these people get me on a level nobody else does, they make me a better person by being in my life, and I just generally enjoy their company. Hence, best friend(s).
That’s not to say one has to marry one’s best friend. But I think there are some relationships where people call themselves best friends that are very similar to people who decidedly don’t, and it’s just a matter of the label being used or not to define this general type of person/relationship.
I think that’s definitely true- oh labels, how you be so weird? Honestly (and this is so strange) when I picture the different people in my life and how they fit in, it’s very much like role-based security to a database or computer system (work…seeping in… such a nerd.) They may all have similar “access,” or the same “privileges” but the naming convention is just different…
…I should probably not try to describe how things in my head work outside of it anymore. It makes me sound a little crazy. Anyway, thanks for the comment! 🙂
Yay! I am so glad that someone put this out there. I was starting to feel like- if he wasn’t my best friend–then Maybe… YIKES, I don’t even want to finish that sentence.
I love OBB for all the perspectives the tribe brings to the table to share.
I have lots of best friends! My best friend from primary school, my best friends from high school, my best friends from Uni… I don’t like the concept of JUST ONE best friend! My man is one of my closest friends, he was in my sister’s class at school and I’ve known him for years, in the time we’ve been together he’s been my main go-to-guy, but that wouldn’t exclude any of my other Best Friends from being my Best Friends…
In my opinion, friendship is the absolute best foundation for a good marriage. You don’t have to consider your husband/wife your best friend, but if you don’t at least have a friendship with him/her, you’re in for trouble down the road.
I happen to be of the mindset that a person can have more than one best friend. I’m lucky enough to have two. I’m marrying one, and the other is going to be my maid of honour. My fiancé and I weren’t really friends before we started dating, but we became friends over the course of our relationship. To me, there’s something so beautiful and special about that.
Long story short, I can see where this article is coming from, but I don’t really agree with it.
I’m so glad you vocalised these thoughts! My fiancé recently said I’m his best friend and I felt guilty because I don’t think he’s mine. I love him and we have a natural click I’ve never had with anyone else, but he’s not the person I see next to me when I want to dance by the seafront oggling naked men while drinking a cocktail. He is the man I want to build a home and family with. My best friends couldn’t do that either. There’s too many sides that will never be satisfied by one single person. And I’m grateful I have wonderful people to fulfill each side. Ah, feels good getting that out 🙂
My best friend and I have it all planned: We are going to live on two deserted islands next to each other (because the perfect witch coven size is one), and my guy gets to cook for both of us and row his boat from one island to the next to feed the crazies.
And THAT is the difference between your guy and your best friend. ^^
I’ve known my best friend since I was 10 years old. However, I am marrying someone else who has also become my best friend. Each person plays a different role in my life but my best friend of 20 years is no less important because I’m marrying someone else, and vice versa. My marryin’ best friend – he also has another best friend. So there ya go, two people, getting married, best friends, who also happen to have another person they consider a best friend.
I know “best” sort of indicates that “there can be only one” but I think that’s sort of a grade-school mindset, like “Suzy’s my best friend!” “Nu-uh, I thought I was your best friend!” There’s room for more than one best friend if you make room for it. However, I do think the expectation that your partner will fill/is the only person who can fill that role is a little ridiculous. Great if that’s how it is, and friendship is important in a relationship, but if you have other people who fill that role, that’s awesome too.
My man and I are on the other side of the spectrum. Every once in a while, I’ll hear the old saying: “Boys may come and go, but friends are forever” or something similar to those words. The thing of it is, though, my man IS my best friend, and he has been there for me more often than most of the girlfriends I’ve ever had in my entire lifetime. In fact, I have very few girlfriends I would consider my “best friend,” and I actually try to avoid using those exact words to describe any of them. When I come to girlfriends, I either say “one of my closest friends” or “my good friend” to describe a girl I’m close to and “acquaintance” to describe anyone I’m not as close to but still civil with.
Anyways, if I were to lose my future hubby, then I would also be losing a really good friend. But I can see why some people would not describe the people they’re marrying as their “best friends.”
Oh my gosh you guys, thank you so much for all your comments and support! (I honestly was really scared I was the only one- or one of few- who felt this way. Glad to know I’m not alone!)
For clarity’s sake, I do think the idea that everyone has to have one “best friend” is reductive at best, and that’s definitely not the norm- I just never expected this post to go so public so I was writing about me. I’m glad we all have so many friends and loved ones (of all levels of “best” ness.) 😀
I do have to say that I am in TOTAL agreement with this. 🙂
I don’t even have a “best friend” really. I would have to say that my fiance is my “favorite human” to be around. If I did have a best friend, he would my BF by default; however, as a grown woman, the concept of having a best friend, especially a best girlfriend, is a little childish and silly. At this point, any friends I have are my “best friends”. I don’t have one I love more or less than the others. I love my friends for different reasons and I have a different relationship with each. But yes, I can say that my parents, who have been married for 38 years, are best friends…and I think that is the loveliest thing about their relationship.
My husband considers me his best friend, but I don’t consider him mine. People are always weirded out when I don’t know where he is at every second of the day. I had one friend say that I needed to “lock that down” because I went somewhere without him and I didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t want to come, it’s not like he wanted to stay behind so he could cheat on me. We’re together often, because we live together, but we don’t have to do everything together all the time. I think he did miss me though when I had a slumber party with my best friend while we were working on invitations for the wedding.
LOVE this post, and feel exactly the same way. I had even been sort of wondering “is it BAD that I don’t consider my fiance my “best friend”?”
Love this sentiment! I remember watching Boy Meets World long ago, and at one point when Corey and Topanga are getting married, Sean tells Corey “I’m not your best friend anymore, and that’s okay.”
I hated that line! I understand the sentiment–“now you will go to your wife with your problems and secrets first, now your wife is the most important figure in your life, instead of me”–but to me, the phrase “best friend” is a different type of relationship than what is denoted by the term “spouse”.
This is of course only one person’s opinion, but for me, my view is this: when I get married, Mari (my bride) and I are going to have one way of life that we share; Twitchy (my best friend) and I are going to have two different ways of life that frequently meet up. That’s the difference between a spousal relationship and a friend relationship, imo.
I love this. During law school I was living with my best friend in DC. I told a family friend this and she looked at me and asked, “Isn’t Neal (my now-intended) your best friend?” I didn’t even pause before saying “NO!” He doesn’t eat nearly enough ice cream or watch enough bad tv to truly hang with me and the crew.
Thank you for this! I have a few people I consider my “best friends,” and none of them are my husband. This recently came up in conversation, and even though he knows this about me (and I don’t know that he’d consider me his best friend either) he seemed to be more than a little hurt, and I wasn’t sure how to take that.
My husband IS one of my closest friends, of course, and beyond that, he’s my lover and my partner and my home. My husband and I are very different people, however, and it took a while for me to warm up to the idea of marriage precisely because I wasn’t willing to deal with the assumption that all of my time and affection and interests would be subsumed into this one relationship– or the guilt I felt for always wanting a far wider variety of experiences than he was willing to share with me.
Thankfully, through hard work and negotiation, and with time, we figured things out. We can each do our own thing separately, and we appreciate each other that much more when we come back. We work brilliantly together, we teach each other so much, and we are just stupid in love with each other– but we work far better in counterbalance than as besties.
I wholeheartedly agree with this!! This expresses my feelings exactly in so many ways. I don’t even feel like I need to add anything because between the posts & the comments on the post, my thoughts are well voiced!
I love this thought-provoking post. Because the truth is, not every couple met the same way, fell in love the same way, or have the same circumstances. Some were friends first before falling in love, and some of us felt that romance before falling into a deeper friendship. I’m in the latter camp with my sweetie. At this stage in our lives, and due to what we’ve been through and how we’ve both moved around a bit, there’s no one we’re closer to than each other. So I guess I am marrying my best friend, but we didn’t start that way. At the beginning of us was attraction, and me asking him out on a date. 🙂 Now it’s much more than that!
I liked what Rev. Caitlyn said about how problematic the idea is that one childhood best friend has to step down for a new spouse to step up. The fact that I married a man who I love doesn’t make the other important relationships in my life lesser!
The problem is the concept of best friends in the first place. It makes sense for children who don’t have many long histories of friendships, but by the time we’re adults most people have a number of really close friends, and using such a preferential phrase sounds silly at best, or hurtful at worst. I use the phrase for several of the people who are most important to me because it feels true, but it also puts a lot of pressure on any relationship.
I ended up dating my best friend while we were in high school after dancing around the subject for years. We were to be married. He dumped me on the steps of the museum after seeing the Terracotta Warriors, held me on the train home while I whimpered, then took me out with all our friends that night because he didn’t want me to suffer alone- he let me flail, wail, gnash and question why, why, why, all in public in a tequila-fuelled rage of desperate suspended heartbreak.
To what end? Well, we had too much much in common, I suppose. And the old adage “I think I want to see other people” was actually a good thing for him (in hindsight of course). And it was good for us. I would have liked to marry him, but we remained best friends for 10+ years after. I am now married to someone who doesn’t share my interests, but our differences make us constantly surprised and refreshed at the new layers that go into the constantly evolving microcosm of “teh marriage”.
For the record, don’t dump people at museums and then feed them tequila.
Thank you for your time.
N
My husband and I have been together for 7 years and he is my best friend. My soul mate, my everything. We don’t keep secrets, we don’t lie to each other. Even if we have issues with each other. I don’t go running off to a girlfriend , telling her what he’s doing wrong and why he’s bugging me. We go to each other. We communicate with each other. Hell, the person I used to call my bf, ignores me most of the time. I like that I married my best friend. I like that instead of just my husband who I built a life with is the one I go to, to vent, tell my secrets and share everything with. I kinda feel like this knocks us that do feel this way down. I know that wasn’t the intention, but that’s me.
When you said, “..it’s just that sometimes I need to get my thoughts in order before I bring them up to him. And sometimes once I say something out loud it sounds so stupid that I’m able to just let it go, or realize that I may have been misunderstanding something,” I identified completely. I think this practice is very central to good communication. Bringing up crucial points or the way that you feel about something important to you (even if it is not in direct conflict with your partner’s perspective) can really help organize the conversation you want to have to be productive, and will help your partner better respond to what you bring up, whether it is to counter point and compromise, or to be supportive and affectionate when needed.
I believe that communicating in such a way is a cornerstone to a relationship that enables the partnership to thrive, regardless of whether you are talking to your partner, your best friend, or both.
Im not sure if I fully “buy” this article. I definitely believe you can be engaged to someone who isn’t your best friend, but do you really want to? I’ve never had that opportunity to have a “best friend”. My best friend is honestly my fiance. If half of marriages end in divorce, I know we’ll make it, because how we started out. I’m sick of the most common relationship, which usually ends in disaster. (Exp.. Boy meets Girl, boy and girl are attracted to each other. Boy and girl like each other and eventually sleep together. Shortly after, boy and girl starts dating. And after the romance begins, is when they actually start learning about each other). I’m sick of that, but its so common. My fiance and I shared a different life together. We’ve been dating 7+ years before getting engaged. But before that, he was my absolute best friend in the world. =) I could tell him everything and vice versa. Our relationship is so healthy and happy, we still today can tell each other everything, sometimes giving away too much info..hehe. He was my best friend before we started dating. But maybe I don’t see it your way because I never had many friends. I grew up in an upscale, stuck-up town I recently moved away from. There, women hate other women, no matter what! I can’t stand that way of thinking, and have tried so hard to make female friends, but at 30 yrs old, I still don’t have one female friend. I never have! We moved away from that place a few weeks ago, into a larger metro city where people are a lot nicer. I’m hoping to make some actual female friends here. But my best friend is my fiance and we’ll always be best friends in our everlasting marriage. 😉 Hehe.
I think the point of this was to state that it’s unreasonable to expect a single person to be your whole world. It puts a lot of pressure on the relationship if there’s nothing outside of it, and the slightest issue can become scarier because there is nothing else. Everyone is different and thrive on outside sources of company. I personally have best friends outside of my relationship. I have a few because each person enriches my life in a different way and they are no less important thaneach other. There is of course my husband who i brings the love dimension. He does things to my heart I’ve never experienced before. We are so in sync and freakishly compatible it’s like finding the part of me that was always missing. But he’s also not the person i go to for the mini aadventures. And that’s because we still have our own preferences and our mutual respect allows us to indulges ourselves knowing our love is so special tthere’s nothing that could possibly pull us apart. My best friends are like family to me which is just as iimportant but would still leave me missing the love aspect my life craves. To me, expecting one person to cover everything is setting myselfup for disaster.
This paragraph, so much:
“We are frequently found no where near each other geographically, we have hobbies that the other is completely not into, and it’s not unusual for me to say “no idea” if someone asks me where he is. I know he’s alive and will be home tonight, that’s all I feel like I need to know.”
It’s so nice to see someone else say that. People tend to look at me like I’m crazy when I say things like “I’m going to Salt Lake City next week for a conference!” and when asked if my husband is coming I’m all “No, why would Jonny want to go to Salt Lake City?” He and I have a tonne in common, mostly centred around books and TV shows of the fantasy/sci-fi variety, but I’m also into genealogy, blogging, activism, and dancing, whereas he’s into studying history, going out for dinner/drinks with friends, and going for very long walks. We don’t have to do everything together!
Can I just say… I absolutely love that you said this. I have always thought the “marrying my best friend” phrase was cheesy and ridiculous. I LOVE my fiance, in a very different way than I love any of my friends. It’s a different relationship, and calling him my best friend would be like calling an apple an orange. In one sense, I am closer to him than to any of my friends – but that doesn’t make him my “best friend.” That title still belongs to my bestie, who I’ve known three times longer and who I can talk about girly stuff with 🙂
Anyway, this is awesome because now I know I’m not the only one who feels that way!
I actually AM marrying my best friend- we met as children/classmates, became best friends, went to the same junior high, high school & college, THEN started dating as we went to separate universities for graduate studies. Because we were best friends for over a decade before dating, I totally get why someone would say their partner isn’t their best friend.
I am so with this post and many of the comments. I felt a little embarrassed that my fiancee isn’t by best friend. He’s an amazing partner, has so many qualities I love and admire. He’s so attractive, I can’t get enough of him, and I am excited to build my life with him! He doesn’t, however, love restaurants and wine, and doesn’t want to binge watch Grey’s Anatomy with me. But that’s ok. I have best friends who DO want to do those things with me.
He’s different than a best friend, and I like it that way. I already have a couple besties, I don’t need more. But I do need someone who will build a life with me, hold me up when I need it, love me no matter what, etc.
Yes!! So many of my friends have the “I’m marrying my best friend” mentality that I have to reassure my actual bestie that I’m not going to suddenly disappear into some new best friendship with my soon-to-be-husband the minute we tie the knot. My guy is amazing, but he’s not my bestie and she’s not going anywhere. Thank you for this!
This was great to read! My fiancé and I have been telling each other that “we are not best friends” for a while now.
We were boyfriend/girlfriend in high school – then we were good friends for years – then in our late 20’s we fell in love hard and after 4 years we blew up – 12 years later fate stepped in and threw us back together. Our relationship spans 34 years. He is NOT my best friend. He is far more than that. Yes, he is the person I love hanging out with, living with, sharing my life with. If something great happens, he is the first person I want to tell. He is my mornings and my nights. He is my joy and my pain. He is NOT my best friend. He is my lover extraordinaire. He knows me inside and out. He knows all my secrets. He is embedded in my soul. He is NOT my best friend. He is so much more.