Is your romantic partner your "best friend"?

[SweetiePotato]

Hi guys! I haven't begun a lot of threads, my last big one being a "will he ever marry me" thread. I'm happy to report, as a follow up, that I dropped the topic, let him marinate, and was rewarded with an impromptu, "maybe it IS about time to get married" talk while holding hands in the park. Thanks to everyone who counselled me correctly!

So, after reading this BS article in the Atlantic about how marriage is an outdated institution (but, and I'm sure you'll agree, the author isn't exactly someone I'd want to be married to myself), I began thinking about roles.

Specifically, I've been noodling on "best friend" vs. "boyfriend" vs. "husband", and the different behaviors and assumptions that come with those labels. My boyfriend is clearly my best friend, currently, but in the past, my boyfriends and best friends have always been separate. I'm not sure if this is because I'm living in a new city with none of my long-time girlfriends close by, or whether your social compass points more to family than friends as you get older.

So my question is, SDMB, do you think of your romantic partner as your best friend? Has this always been the case? I'm wondering if this breaks down by age and gender lines. My wild-ass assumption is going to be that older men are more likely to classify their female partners as their best friends, whereas most women are more likely to put a close girlfriend into that status.

[diggerwam]

Married 20 years next month and my wife has been my bestie for more than 22 years. Not always been an easy set up but she definitely is. Wouldn't have it any other way

[Arrendajo]

No. None of them are.

[Covered_In_Bees!]

Originally Posted by Arrendajo

No. None of them are.

While I only have one romantic partner right now and only ever have one at a time, this is still true.

My girlfriend might know about me and my day-to-life than my true best friend, but that's only because he lives 300+ miles away and it's more difficult for me to fill him in on what I'm up to.

[Missy2U]

Yes, my husband and I are best friends.

[Anaamika]

Yes, of course he is my best friend. No one else in my life even comes close.

[thelurkinghorror]

Yes. Maybe I have more shared interests with some guys, but she is partially because of the amount of time we spend together, and I'm ok with that happening.

[Tad--]

Yes she is and I wouldn't ever marry anyone who wasn't. I wouldn't marry anyone other than her, but that's another story. And I am looking forward to just that. I'm also a (relatively) young man in my late-ish 20s.

However, marriage most definitely is an outdated and often silly institution that causes more harm than good. But there are meanings associated with it, legal and symbolic, that are still very much important. That does not mean everyone should be getting married, though.

[Maggie the Ocelot]

No. I am closer to Husband than anyone else, and vice versa - however, the relationship is romantic, which is deeper than friendship.

A friend, or best friend, is someone you aren't romantically involved with.

A friend with benefits is someone you're sleeping with, but aren't romantically involved with.

If you're sleeping with them and in love with them, the relationship has by definition moved beyond friendship. To call it that, IMO, is to cheapen it.

[hogarth]

My wife is my best friend, although logically I would have to admit that proximity and the amount of time we spend together are part of the equation. If I lived with someone else and I only saw/talked to my wife once a year, things might well be different.

[shiftless]

I couldn't imagine being married to someone I didn't want to hang out with, so my wife is my best bud. A few guys I know have best friends who aren't their spouses and they always give me a vague creepy feeling, like they are trying to get away with, or from, something. Probably just me, I usually have just one bestest friend at a time.

[Tastes of Chocolate]

Originally Posted by Maggie the Ocelot

A friend, or best friend, is someone you aren't romantically involved with.

Balony

If you're sleeping with them and in love with them, the relationship has by definition moved beyond friendship. To call it that, IMO, is to cheapen it.

More balony, and totally incorrect.

Friendship and love can be seperate things. There is nothing "cheapening" about friendship. You don't move beyond friendship, you add a new layer to it.

I love my parents, I am not best friends with my parents. I loved my grandparents, but we were not enough alike to really be friends.

I know couples that love each other, but don't seem to be good friends.

My SO and I are best friends AND we are in love. Friendship is wanting to go to a movie or a concert together. Love is wanting to plan a future together. Both are good, and for me, both are necessary in an SO relationship.

[Missy2U]

Tastes of Chocolate, that was very well said, and what I have been trying to figure out how to say because I had the same reaction to that post.

Well put!!

[lavenderviolet]

We were best friends in a totally platonic sense before we fell in love. I still think of him as the person who understands me best and who I trust the most, so I would definitely consider him my best friend still. I think that being such good friends has definitely helped our relationship survive.

[olivesmarch4th]

Actually, the best way I can answer this is to say that he started out not as a guy I was dating, but as my best friend in college. (My girl best friend and I decided in high school that you can have one girl best friend and one guy best friend, so no problem there.)

After a period of incredibly close friendship, we began to develop feelings for one another. There was a time when I really wasn't sure if I wanted to take the relationship to the romance level. But then I thought about the future... that we would graduate college, and he would find a girlfriend and maybe settle down and get married, and we would never retain that closeness. And the idea of not continuing to be as close as we were was maddening, as was the idea that he would be close to some other woman. And that is pretty much how I knew I had romantic feelings toward him- because it was the only way I could REALLY hang onto him.

We are very attracted to one another, great chemistry. But our friendship always comes first. This is the man I can stay up until 3am talking about the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles with. This is the situation where we totally blow by our exits in traffic because we're so engrossed in conversation. Saturday morning cartoons, board games, walks around the neighborhood, movies, music, whatever we heard on NPR that day, how we feel about life the universe and everything... he's always there. Hell, we even have fun working on the budget together. Whenever we're going through some shit time, I say, ''I would rather have this terrible day with you than a wonderful day with anyone else.'' And I mean that.

[Drain Bead]

My husband is my best friend, most definitely. I miss him terribly when he's not around, and we can talk about anything.

[JKellyMap]

Yes, absolutely. I didn't enter into marriage assuming (or even thinking) this would be the case, but that's how it's turned out, and it's great. (I could imagine it would be fine, too, if someone else happened to be my BF).

[PandaBear77]

Yes, my husband is my best friend and the truest friend I've ever had.

[kmshrader]

My ex was my best friend while we were dating (three years) and still a good friend. When we broke up it was definitely the friendship I missed the most, and I'm incredibly grateful that it could be salvaged. My "best" friend is now my best girlfriend, but I'd expect that to change if I got into another serious relationship.

[Lasciel]

I've only ever dated close friends, and the one relationship that didn't work out was the most contentious of the friendships. I figure there has to be something to that.

Of course my husband is my best friend. I love and trust and want to be with him, so that means that we need to have a lot of interests in common, and so we do. We also have a good personality mesh - we just GO well together.

On the other hand, I am a total introvert, so I have a very small circle of extremely close friends. I have a "best" girl friend who I've been bests with since we were seven, and two "best" guy friends, one of whom was my first boyfriend ever - we're still very close even though that relationship failed.

So my husband doesn't end up being the "one person in my life who can complete me/understand me/gets to hear me bitch and moan/have to deal with all my issues" because I have other "best" friends that I can share that load around to.


I think that's really important. I also think it's important that he has some things that he does that I don't particularly care about participating in, and so do I - it gives us something to talk about other than work.

[Sudden Kestrel]

Originally Posted by diggerwam

Married 20 years next month and my wife has been my bestie for more than 22 years. Not always been an easy set up but she definitely is. Wouldn't have it any other way

My husband and I celebrate our 20th in the fall and have been best friends since the moment we set eyes on each other in 1990. The friend relationship wasn't as strong in my earlier romantic entanglements, even the ones that started out as "just" friendships.

[drewtwo99]

He's my best friend, sure. Though he's not the first person that comes to mind when someone says, "who is your best friend?"

[Ají de Gallina]

I could not have married a woman who wasn't my best friend.
Even without sex, kisses, and nakedness she'd still be my best friend.

[panache45]

Originally Posted by Maggie the Ocelot

No. I am closer to Husband than anyone else, and vice versa - however, the relationship is romantic, which is deeper than friendship.

Why?

A friend, or best friend, is someone you aren't romantically involved with.

Why?

A friend with benefits is someone you're sleeping with, but aren't romantically involved with.

Why?

If you're sleeping with them and in love with them, the relationship has by definition moved beyond friendship. To call it that, IMO, is to cheapen it.

Why?

And does your husband feel the same way?

[CrazyCatLady]

Originally Posted by Maggie the Ocelot

No. I am closer to Husband than anyone else, and vice versa - however, the relationship is romantic, which is deeper than friendship.

If you're sleeping with them and in love with them, the relationship has by definition moved beyond friendship. To call it that, IMO, is to cheapen it.

That's a steaming load. I know a lot of people who are sleeping together and in love with each other but if they weren't involved romantically they wouldn't have any sort of relationship at all because deep down they don't really like each other as people all that much. If you stripped all the sex and romance and wanting to spend our lives together and other "in love" stuff out of my relationship with my husband, you'd have a friendship--and it would be something deeper, truer, more beautiful, and more enduring than what those people feel for their spouses. Cheapen it, my fucking ass.

[Smashed Ice Cream]

My husband of just over a decade is absolutely, positively my best friend of all time. We are incredible buddies, adventure partners allies, cuddlemates, and we like to think are a comedy duo playing perfectly to our nearly identical sense of humor. We've been completely comfortable with each other since the day we met. Zero feelings of uncertianty.

I have had relationships in the past where I didn't feel that aspect at all. In my 20s I believe I thought relationships needed to be dramatic and high excitement. Feeling comfy or content made me think something was missing. When hubby and I got together we both were amazed at how EASY the relationship was. And still is. I'm ecstatically happy. Being married with him is simply the easiest thing I do.

My repeated advice to yet unmarried friends is "once you meet 'the one,' none of your past relationships will make much sense anymore." I wish I'd known that earlier...

[Anaamika]

Originally Posted by Maggie the Ocelot

If you're sleeping with them and in love with them, the relationship has by definition moved beyond friendship. To call it that, IMO, is to cheapen it.

Cheapens it?! That's a bit harsh, isn't it? As others have implied. Of course he and I are best friends - that means that everything outside of the bedroom we are also compatible in. Love is not just sex, it's not just a partnership, and I for one would never stay with someone I wasn't also best friends with.

[Engineer Dude]

Yes.

[Woeg]

My ex was NOT my best friend. We were married, we loved each other (well, at least, I loved her), but we had so little in common. We had nothing to talk about beyond parental responsibilities, nothing in common interest wise. She hated pretty much everything I loved, so I never talked to her about those things. Looking back, its crazy that I never realized how very little we shared in common.

The woman I am married to now is totally my best friend. We have tons in common, share points of view on most everything, have similar interests, and though we both still have hobbies the other may not indulge in, we understand the other's interest in said hobbies and we support each other. When I have something I want to talk about, she's the first person I think of. When a new geeky toy comes out, she's the first person I want to gush about it to. When I'm pissy, she's the person I turn to when I need to vent.

Totally my best friend.

[Mr. Slant]

Yup.
She is absolutely my best friend. We share a ton of interests, and there is no one I want to hang out with more.
She is also the only person that's ever 'got' me and understood what I'm thinking, and had similar challenges growing up to what I had.

I was, previously, married to a women with whom I shared less.
I wish I had known that the current experience was out there... and that love like this existed.
Then I could have avoided wasting time and money on other women, while I squirreled away money to have bad-ass vacations with this one when I met her.