Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Weigh in: Romantic partners vs. best friends

It's 3:42 a.m. and I am sitting here mulling over something. (I am no longer on day shifts, to clarify why I am up this late; I don't want people thinking I am aiming for death by insomnia.) I read an article last month in a parenting magazine about 10 myths in marriage, and one of them was that your spouse should be your best friend. The article basically said like the separation of church and state, there should be one between your mate (the person you are intimate with) and your best friend (the person you complain to about your botched bikini wax).

I know of people who have a same-sex best friend, but they also consider their spouse their best friend. And then there are people who look to their mate as their confidante, their lover, their sounding board, etc. And then there are those that completely separate the two.

I honestly think, at least of my circle of friends, the second choice I gave is the most common. I think that as we get older and start our careers and families and, in essence, our lives, we often drift away from the social circles we have established in high school or college and find that the one person we usually have time to talk to is our partner -- whether that be a long conversation over dinner or a screaming rant about the traffic on a voicemail. (Uh, not that I'd ever do that ... I'm a very calm driver ... or something.)

Look at Lois and Clark. They were already best friends when they fell in love, and I think that made it easier for them -- Lois, because there was already a degree of trust built up, and Clark, because he felt comfortable enough with her that he'd eventually want to share his secret. And I think that as they became a couple, and got married, Lois and Clark stayed each other's best friend. They were the only people who truly understood each other, and no matter how much they may have argued about it or disagreed with each other's viewpoint, at the end of the battle, they would still be standing together, come hell or high water.

My relationship with my husband is similiar to Lois and Clark's, actually. We were friends (when we weren't dating and breaking up multiple times) before we fell in love, and by the time we got together, he had basically become my best friend. (I mean seriously, Mr. ESPN himself gave up watching the Mariners in the 2001 ALCS to drive me to buy cold medicine. THAT is a best friend.) And to this day, he is still my best friend. I tell him (almost) everything and he's the one person I know will be by my side, even if he secretly wants to kill me at that moment.

I have several good girlfriends, but geographic distance makes it difficult to talk as much as we'd like, so unfortunately (for him), my husband gets to hear about how the size medium in the pink sweater didn't fit right so I had to buy a large, and how the WSU basketball coach is hot. (Actually, in my defense, after he led them to the Sweet 16, I think every man in Cougar Nation had a total man crush on Tony Bennett.)

So I guess I am curious what other people think: Do you feel that your spouse/significant other SHOULD be your best friend, or do you feel that it's better to have a separation between best friend and romantic partner?

I think it can be different for different people, but in my case, my husband is my best friend. I have a few good girlfriends, but Daniel is the only one that knows everything about me, the only person with whom I'm absolutely without barriers and defenseless, the only person who I trust all the way down to my toes to stand with me no matter what. I can't think of a single thing I wouldn't tell him.

I agree with you two. Although I'm not married yet, I will be next year. Back in high school my now fiance had a crush on me, but I didn't allow myself to be interested. He still wormed his way in and we became best friends. It wasn't until then that I agreed to be his girlfriend. It's been over five years and I can't imagine being more comfortable with someone (of either sex) and sharing every single thought that pops into my head. We have our other friends, really good friends, but at the end of the day we're happy to be with each other.

Although I think it would be sad to not have a "best friends" kind of relationship with your spouse, I can sort of understand if people do have that kind of separation. Everyone is different and to say that your spouse must be your best friend if you want a happy marriage is pretty crazy. But maybe the divorce rate wouldn't be so high if people adopted this kind of thinking.

~Kristen

I kind of agree with everyone. I think that you should definitely consider your spouse your best friend but it doesn't mean you can't have same sex best friends also.

I mean, you're going to have certain intimate things that you can only share with your spouse. (Family problems, health problems, etc.)

But then there's your girl friends who you can talk about your PMS with, or maybe if you're a guy and your spouse doesn't like sports, you can only really connect with sports with your guy pals.

I, myself, have a lot of close girl friends that I see quite frequently and consider my best friends. But Malky (hubby) is also my best friend.

I agree with Jenn in that, as we get older, its sometimes hard to keep in touch with college friends and old social circles so its definitely important to have a close, bestfriend type relationship with your spouse.

I also think it can go the other way though. My sister will be married 1 year in May and (even though she's a little better now) she really didn't want to hang out with anyone but her hubby for a long time. I mean, he would have to work until 10PM or so, and I would ask her if she wanted to come over to my house (at around 6 or so) and she'd say she couldn't cause she wanted to be home in case he came home early. Or I'd ask her to a movie and she'd say she couldn't go cause Jason was working. What?!! Where's the logic in that? That just seemed unhealthy to me or maybe I'm just a little bitter cause I felt rejected.

Anyways, nice topic of discussion Jenn.

Hubby is definitely my best friend, almost from the beginning, we were both stationed at the same AFB together and both away from our families and have been that way through most of our marriage. We both know the only one we have to rely on is each other and it works for us. All the chick friends I have usually work best at long distance or mere aquaintances as every other one I've had just drifted, so I'm glad forever to have my Jeff to fall back on.

TEEEEEEJ

I know that over time and the course of three major moves, my husband and I have become best friends. It's hard keeping a 'best friend' as close when you have been away from each other so long (the last time I saw my longest/best female friend was almost five years ago and she's in Missisipi now, so we email a lot but it's not the same) but my husband is there for me.

Do I think that your spouse SHOULD be your best friend? Not really, it's just the way it worked out for us. I think it's good to have a sounding board outside of your relationship sometimes (my co-workers,lol) but I do think it's good to have your husband as friend, something my parents never did and wow, did it ever show. I think that is one of the reasons why my mom loves my husband so much, she sees in him everything she never had in my dad.

No, I agree that's a little much. But it could just be temporary - lots of women go through that in the first few years of their relationship.

Reading all your comments has made me come to a very sad realization. I think I've been fooling myself into thinking my relationship is functional and/or could ever work.

My significant other isn't my best friend at all. I wouldn't go to him with my problems and I rarely ever go to him for any form of comfort at all. You know what's worse? Considering the fact that after close to 12 years he still barely knows or understands me at all, I don't think I'd even qualify us as really being friends. If someone introduced us today, I'm rather convinced he'd find me uninteresting and I'm damn sure I'd find we don't even have enough in common to even be friends. And don't get me wrong, I have plenty of guy friends. I usually get along with guys a whole lot better than I do with girls. (discussions about hair and clothes and makeup are completely lost on me)

I'm really doing something wrong here, aren't I?

When I was in college, one of my music teachers (call her "Sally") once told me that her mother felt "abandoned" by "Sally" because "Sally" had put her husband's needs before those of her mother. Different family dynamics for each family, I guess. "Sally" took that experience and did her best to let her daughters go when it came time for them to leave the nest.

When you add a person to any group, no matter whether it's a professional or recreational or family group, you change the dynamic. (I'm sure Tank will agree with me that when you change out a player in your band, the band sounds different. Not always better, not always worse, sometimes about the same, just different.) The people in the group now react to the newcomer, some more positively than others. And there's always the chance that the group will divide by fission and, in the case of a family member who marries, will squeeze out the newlyweds.

And sometimes the newlyweds just want to be alone, and it has nothing to do with rejecting other family members. I know that when my wife and I were first married, we enjoyed having people come over or invite us out, but not on the spur of the moment (especially not if they just dropped in on us), because we might be - uh - reading or watching a very important TV program. Yeah, that's it. We both like to read. We read a lot of books and stuff back then.

But my wife and I are close friends, even after almost thirty-two years of marriage. We don't always agree, and neither of us is always right, but we're determined to stay together. We're even taking vacation together this week just so we can hang out together.

And do housework and yard work, of course. You kinda have to be friends to do yard work together or you tend to have lots of unresolved arguments.

My boyfriend of almost 6 years (5 of which we have lived together and shared finances) and I would go crazy if he was the only person I called bestfriend.

He is one of my bestfriends but he is by no means my only one. I have always felt that if you rely to much on one person you start to lose yourself and you are setting yourself up for a lot of dissapointment. I know a lot of people don't see that but it is exactly what I did.

When I first moved to California to be with Ryan he was basically my only friend. I love him to death but he just doesn't share all my interests nor do I share his. But in an attempt to do something other than sit in the house I tried out his hobbies and ended up miserable because I was forcing myself to participate in things that really just weren't my cup of tea. To be honest I will listen to him ramble about car engines but I can't contribute much. I tried very hard but in the end I realize I hate cars.

I have three bestfriends now. I could go to any of them and chat about anything but I don't because we all have different hobbies and enjoy different things. After I looked outside of being best friends with one person I opened up a lot and started finding me again. If you rely to much on one person you become dissapointed if they aren't there for you. One person can't be another person's everything. If you have more than one person to lean on you don't think so hard about person A not being there because you could call person B instead. (I think that makes sense... I may just be rambling now.)

Besides who am I going to complain about Ryan to if he is my only bestfriend?

I'm so sorry to hear that Bizarro. I'm not very good in the advice department with this sort of thing but perhaps some counseling could help?? But you both have to want to work it out, otherwise counseling does nothing. My hubby and I did a lot of pre-marital counseling that have helped us in our marriage. It hasn't always been easy but I'm a firm believer in counseling and think it can help if both parties are willing to learn/change. Best of luck to you!!

This does sound kind of sad, especially after 12 years. If you're interested at all, can I suggest that you check into something you guys *do* have in common and celebrate that? (Breakfast at Tiffany's)

Also, be careful of close relationships with members of the opposite sex, 'cause that's playing around on the edge of temptation.

If any of this helps, great, but if not, please ignore.

TEEEEEEJ

Note: This was longer than intended and goes off on a tangent or two including things probably better suited for JoJo's thread...

Is DH my best friend or is someone else? Yes.

Nice answer huh?

Most of the time I can talk to DH about anything [though I generally steer clear of fic], though he doesn't 'get' things like PMS or physical changes because of pregnancies or whatever. He has NO IDEA how bad the PPD got after the last two babies. Oh, he knows it's there, but he doesn't know how bad it was. He's a mental health professional and sees horrible things and deals with depressed and otherwise troubled kids all day and then teaches four classes on top of that. He's gone all day M-TH [though he picks the kids up for church on M and we all go to church on W] and by the time he gets home we're both tired. He does so much and I don't want to burden him with my problems on top of everything else. COULD I tell him? Yes, but I've chosen not to. Pretty much everything else, I do. He loves me and I know that.

The PPD got really bad a few weeks ago and one of the things he said to me was what finally got through even though he didn't know. I was able to start making myself take my meds regularly again and the difference is incredible. Even though I hadn't told him, he knew something was going on - though I still don't think he knows the depth of it - he chalked most of it up to exhaustion because of DS being up so much at night - and he was able to help pull me out of it. I still have a ways to go but it's much better. And I most likely will tell him the depths of it some day, but not today.

There's a couple of girl friends I can also talk to about just about anything - with the 'off limits' topics being slightly different with each one - politics with one, religion with another, etc. My problem lately has been that they all have something 'bigger' going on - one's DH left after an affair leaving them with NO monetary support; another is working full time, trying to finish grad school and internships and getting married next month; another has more serious marriage problems - whatever it is is always 'bigger' and more important. A couple other online friends have stood in some of the gaps and for that I'm grateful [you know who you are ]. I still miss my best friends though. It's not their faults - I never said anything and to an extent it was probably the PPD talking. If things had gotten truly bad, even a little worse than they were, I *know* any one of them would have dropped everything for me.

My point? DH is the only one who sees/talks to me day in and day out. We talk on the phone several times a day and if I don't call him, he calls me because it means something's probably wrong. He can tell and even though I never discussed it with him, he knew the right thing to say though I'm not sure he knows it. He is my best friend, hands down. Period. Does that mean I'll always share absolutely everything with him? Probably not but it's not because I CAN'T - does that make sense? It does in my head . Even though I may not tell him everything - it's not because it's 'off limits' like with my other friends.

{{{BIZARRO}}} I don't know what to tell you, but I hope you can take a good look at the relationship and see if you can find what drew you to it in the first place. Is it worth holding on to and fighting for? Have you both moved on? Are you just having a bad day? It's sounds like some serious evaluation may be called for and it this person truly is 'the one', then surely a way can be found to find middle ground. Can you still have separate interests? Sure. DH cares nothing for fic or sappy romance novels and I'm not a big fan of fantasy sports or online poker, but there's plenty of other things we both enjoy.

Feelings fade. That initial rush of adrenaline where everything's all tingly every time you look at each other does not last [no matter how much we write it into fic]. Are there times it still happens? Definitely. Are there times when four kids and laundry and bills and jobs and petty fights over who drank the last of the caffeine make you want to scream? Heck yeah. And it's the friendship that gets you through those times, because the initial rush just isn't enough. It's not a foundation - kind of like the old kid's song "The wise man built his house on a rock and it stood firm. The foolish man built his house on the sand and it went SPLAT." Friendship is the foundation that gets you through the hard times.

Someone said it in JoJo's thread. Love is a verb. Love is holding someone's hair when they throw up every day during pregnancy, even though it makes you gag to do so. Love is taking a week off work with sick kids, while your spouse is in the hospital with a sick baby, and trying to figure out how you're going to get a sick child to the ER if she doesn't start to breathe better soon. Love is changing the dirty diapers because it makes your pregnant spouse nauseous. Love is cleaning the kitchen without complaining because your spouse is exhausted. Love is taking someone to the ER at 4 in the morning with a kidney stone even though you've had 2 hours of sleep. Love is forgoing things you want so that the budget balances when there's extra doctor bills. Love is literally crying when you see the light inside the one you love fading even though you don't know why and you don't know what to do to help her [I'll let you figure out where that one fits in].

Love is being there and never leaving no matter what**.

It's the friendship that gets you through those times because let me tell you, if there's not something beyond the heady feelings of early infatuation/love it won't last. Can it happen? Can people meet, fall in love, marry quickly and have it last? Yes. We have friends who met and married in 6 weeks. Their 11 year anniversary was last month. But since then they've worked to become best friends so that there is something solid underneath all of that.

Yeah this is longer than expected and may not be relevant or mean anything to anyone and I may come along and edit it later, but there you go...

Carol

**Don't read that to mean abuse etc.

Carol, I'm so sorry you've had such a struggle with PPD. I can't say I know what you're going through seeing as I've never had a baby but I imagine its a pretty hopeless feeling. I'm glad your hubby is there for you and that you are getting better.

Remember, there's always a rainbow after the storm.

I'm always here if you need to talk or need prayer. For real, don't be afraid to ask!

I'm sorry that you've been feeling bad, Carol, and I'm glad that you are better.

I think it is important to be really good friends with you spouse. Interestingly, I read something - probably in New York Times a few years ago - which claimed that people in the United States tend to have fewer friends now than they used to. That could be because more people work today than, say, fifty or even thirty years ago, and many people also work longer hours. There is less time for friends in your spare time, because there is less spare time in the first place.

If it is true that people have less spare time and generally less time for friends outside the family now than before, then clearly the family becomes more important. Then it also becomes more important to be able to discuss all kinds of problems and situations with your spouse and to be able to rely on him or her for emotional support.

Generally speaking, I think it is going to be hard to hold on to a marriage if you are not good friends with your spouse.

Ann

I can easily believe that, Ann (even if it is from the New York Times <bg>, jk). What with kids and work, the weekends tend to be nothing but recovering from exhaustion from the rest of the week. It's tough to find time for yourself or to spend with your spouse alone. I don't have very many friends outside of my wife, who is my best friend. Most of the friends I have don't live in the same city and were my best friends during college about 20 years ago. I'm simply too tired most days to do anything but stay home, so it's tough to go out and find new ones.

It is a lot easier to make time if you don't have kids, of course, but I wouldn't give up fatherhood for anything.

My vote is still up in the air. My ex-best friend and I tried dating, and we barely made it to the starting line. He ended up driving me crazy, and god love the guy but he's very...Disney, for lack of a better descriptive. I'm still not quite sure he lives in the real world, but as we no longer speak to each other, it's not really an issue for me anymore.

I picked up a new best friend over the course of a few years, and we can tell each other anything, he's one of few people I'll let haul me out of bed at 2 in the morning for anything...and he has a girlfriend. I'm HUGELY impressed that I'm not an issue for her, since we spend way too much time together.

And here's my dilemma. Do I really want to date myself at the end of the day? We have a few different interests for example. I would never listen to his music for one, and he can't believe I'm into Patrick Dempsey like he's a religion (In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit *wink*). But ultimately we lead the exact same life more days than not, and honestly it just sounds a little...boring heh. Maybe it would be nice when we're retired, but in our 20s? I've got a planet to conquer.

So I'll weigh in as: I think if I get married, he'll grow into my best friend, but I'm not sure I could date an existing one. And that's all I have time to say since it's taco night.
JD

Hands down, James is my best buddy. There are many things over the years that I've shared with him that I've never shared with anyone else. There are some things I know that he has never talked about with his guy friends.

He is not my only friend. I have several girl friends. My closest friends are the ones that I eat with, chat with and pray with. I really don't have any topics that I can't talk about with my friends (my extended family is a different story), but I try to protect their privacy. I won't talk about friend X's intimate problems or joys with friend Y. I also don't talk about James' biggest hopes and fears with anyone either.

I think that James and I have more common interests than most people, but we don't tend to stifle each other--although maybe we will after empty nest sets in. There's always time to drive each other cuckoo later.

Interestingly enough, my best girl friend is my mother. We distanced ourselves when I was a newlywed, but over the years we found our way out of a child/adult relationship and into a friendship. For one thing, we've lived a lot of life together.

Anywho, that's my two cents worth.


Elisabeth

I am still searching for my Mr. Right aka "my Clark," but agree with everyone else who has said that I should/want to consider my future husband my best friend-if not a very close one.

I think this relates to another thread on this board, that I admit to not having replied to yet but will in a minute, (about love definitions), there are many definitions of "friend."

Mona

Bizarro--If it's any help, I was in the same type of relationship. One day, I realised that he was in no way my friend, let alone my best friend. It was a horrible realisation. If you ever need to talk to someone, feel free to pm me. I've been there.

I am now one hundred percent certain that the man I marry needs to be my best friend. Yes, other friends are necessary and good, but he needs to be the FIRST person I want to share things with, and I need to know that he will be as excited to see me happy as I am to be that way (and vs). The only good relationships I've seen are ones where there are two people who are partners and friends, sharing things. Of course the levels of friendship will vary, but if you're not friends at all, what on earth keeps you together when you're too old to DO anything anymore?