Is your spouse your best friend?

In My Humble Opinion
1

This topic came up in another thread and I’m curious.

As for me, my husband is not my best friend. He is the love of my life, but to me, that is something very different. If I had met him just a couple years earlier, he would have made the cut, maybe, but I met him at 15, and I met my best friend at 12, and timing is everything.

At 12, I was coming of age, and so was she. We were just blossoming into our own, and we were blossoming together. We went from two little Christian girls, to two rebellious teens, to two Afrocentric militants to two grown up moms…together.

We fell in love with hip hop together, we developed a love for music, food, travel, and life in the same way, on the same path. We had eachother’s back so fiercely, so many times, that our loyalty goes without saying, and anyone who knows us knows that. We have been roomies, business partners and just the best of friends for a quarter of a century. When she married a man I hated, I bit my tongue and sucked it up and when they broke up, I was there for her.

My husband means the world to me, but he isn’t my best friend. He’s my soul mate and my lover. He touches parts of me, physically, mentally and emotionally that my best friend has zero access to. My husband and I have something special and unique, but it’s not ‘bestfriendism’. He knows that if the phone rings in the middle of the night, and BF needs something, I am on it. I may or may not share with him what the issue is when I get back.

You all didn’t really need all that background, but I just love talking about my best friend. So tell me. Is your spouse your best friend?

2

My spouse-to-be is my best friend, and we only met 5 years ago and became a couple a year ago. But he knows and understands me more than anyone else, I’d rather spend time doing things or doing nothing with him than with anyone else, and if he was dangling off a bridge next to anyone else, I’d try to save him first. We don’t have decades of history together (yet), but he’s my favorite person in the world. ETA: And yes, I love talking about my best friend, too! :smiley:

It’s pretty awesome, but does have its drawbacks. I suspect my other friends are a bit miffed that they’ve barely seen me in the last year. But when your partner and lover and best friend (the same person) live with you, why go out much? :smiley:

3

Yep. We’ve been married for a whopping 12 days but for as long as I’ve known him he has been my best friend. I wouldn’t have married him otherwise. I have other friends too and they are also important but he is undoubtedly the best friend I could ever have.

4

12 days! Hahaa! You are basically still on your honeymoon. Woooohooooo! Let the Marvin Gaye play!

5

Yep, pretty much what WhyNot and **pbbth **said. (Congrats, pbbth!)

I don’t really have a BFF - at least, not in the way **Nzinga **described - in some part because my family moved around a lot when I was growing up, so I never really shared all the same “growing up” stuff… at least, not with one BFF. That kind of thing was spread around between a few different friendships, I guess.

Nzinga, consider yourself lucky to have such a friend in your life beyond your husband. In addition, you may consider yourself even luckier to have a husband who accepts that some part of your heart and soul belong to your BFF. Some people couldn’t handle that kind of … jealousy? I guess? … and from your OP you have none of that particular problem.

Me? I’ll just consider myself lucky to have my Other Shoe in my life.

6

Yeah, he totally is.

7

That phrase sort of makes me gag. I am one of those single women who get hit on my married men who use that phrase to justify their philandering actions, “I am married to my best friend but there is no more passion.”

Sorry - but a lot of men use that concept as an excuse or rationale in their sexless marriages. I counter that someone would never lie or cheat a “best friend.”

I can’t tell you how many times I have had this discussion with men… Saddens me terribly.

8

Shocker Khan is my wife and also my best friend. There’s nobody I’d rather spend my time with, and there is nobody that knows me as well as she does. We have a shorthand with each other, can finish each other’s sentences, and have so much in common it’s ridiculous.

9

I’ve never had a best friend the way the op describes one. So yes my wife is the bestest of friends I have.

10

Yep, my husband is my best friend, and says that I’m his. We have plenty of passion still too…

I’m not the kind of woman who has close girlfriends.

11

Sometimes I wonder if it is the passion in the relationship between my husband and me that prevents us from being ‘best friends’.

My BF has never made me yell things at her to hurt her feelings. But I have definitely done that to my husband. And of course, my BF has never made love to me after a particularly nasty argument. So there is just this *difference *between a best friend and a spouse, in my own mind. I don’t know if I would call it passion, I guess. But whatever that element that changes in a relationship when the relationship is sexual, and all the emotion that comes out of that aspect of the relationship…that’s not there with my best friend. Obviously.

12

I would say my husband is my best friend – we have shared so much, have so many inside jokes (that no one else would get, possibly even after we explained them), so much of a shorthand (as Bob Ducca said), that no one else comes close.

However… I understand what you mean about best girlfriends being special. I have a best (girl)friend who has known me since I was twelve, ten years longer than my husband has. She and I went through high school together, were there for each other through college/adolescent woes and grad school woes (though we were across the country by then), boyfriend breakups, meeting the loves of our lives, and now motherhood (we had babies within 6 months of each other). She understands my relationship with my crazy-Korean parents, which I don’t think my husband does (he accepts it, but simply hasn’t seen me in their context that much, since he didn’t grow up with me the way she did, and doesn’t know as many other Asians as BF does). I talk about things with her that I don’t talk about with my husband – not to leave him out of the loop, and it usually leads to interesting discussions with him later, but it’s just that BF and I tend to talk about different kinds of things. If she needed me I’d be flying across the country in a heartbeat. She fills a need that my husband doesn’t. (Conversely, of course, he fills many needs she does not; and I have at least one other friend who fills needs neither of them do. I could probably run for quite a while on those three people alone, though.)

BF would also say her husband is her best friend (this was even in their wedding vows), but (as I do) refers to me as “best friend” in casual conversation meant to imply “best-girl-friend.” So, yeah, I think overall I agree with the OP… best girlfriends are special. (And thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about mine!) It may just be a definition thing?

13

I don’t have a best friend as described in the title, including Mr. GilaB. He and I love each other very much, and are happily married, but although we totally have each other’s backs, we’re just too different.

14

Yes, she is my best friend.

Luckily my best friend also rocks my socks off in bed. Best of all worlds.

15

My husband is my best friend, soul mate, confidante, call it whatever you want.

My other friends are friends. Some are closer to me than others, but none of those friendships compare to the openess and honesty that exists between me and my husband.

16

I agree with this. For me, “husband” is a totally separate category from “friend.” I mean, it feels to me like a lot of people are grouping all non-blood relationships into the “friend” category, and then putting their spouse at the top: Therefore, the spouse is the best friend. For me, spouse is a totally different category from “friend,” though. My husband isn’t my friend, he’s my husband. He turns me on, he makes me laugh, he knows exactly what I’m thinking just from me wrinkling my forehead slightly, he’s… my husband. He’s awesome. But he’s not my “friend.” That’s like a totally separate category.

17

No. I like him and we “live well together under one roof” . But my best friend is the girl I met when we were both 14 year old girls.

18

MsWhatsit, I think the word ‘best’ may bother some folks. The fact that my BF, (let’s call her Jane) the fact that Jane is called my Best friend doesn’t mean she is the BEST and BETTER than my hubby. Best Friend just has a specific meaning that doesn’t really match the label. It doesn’t really mean they are the BEST at anything.

19

Yes, he is. There is no one I’d rather spend my time with. There is no one who I look forward to spending time with more. There is no one else I feel more comfortable with, or who I tell absolutely everything. We’ve been together for almost 16 years, married for 10, and my feelings on this have never changed.

20

This is exactly how I feel, too. I could tell my husband almost anything, and he’s probably the only one who understands almost every nuance of my personality. He knows me more deeply and thoroughly than anyone else. But he’s not my friend.

And the dynamics between the two of us are so very different than the dynamics between me and my friends. I’d never dress for my friends because I know they like me in that skirt, even if I felt a little silly in it. I’d never do anything possible to make a friend laugh. And my friends don’t have the ability to hurt me (or be hurt by me) the same way my husband does. He rarely does anything remotely like that, but he could because he knows me so well.

So, no - my husband is not my best friend. He doesn’t think I’m his best friend, either, for the same reasons.