And when you are not “sleeping” with someone but just sleeping with someone? When you get sick? When you just want to talk? When our kids were small enough to take on vacations with us, deciding on them was no big problem.
None of the relatively few people I know who got divorced ever said that their spouse was their best friend. Do you know anyone in a happy marriage? Or don’t you believe that they exist?
I think of the characteristics of a best friend - always there for you, someone you like to do things with, someone to talk to, someone compatible - and my wife meets them all.
38 years, by the way.
This is what I think of when I hear the phrase.
I have married friends who’d say similar, maybe minus the retirement plan because of their age.
Yeah, the thing about people who are genuinely happy and content is that they don’t feel the need to start threads arguing that they are right, God damn it.
How long have you been divorced?
I’m curious as to what’s going to happen when your ex finds herself in a serious relationship. Still think you’ll be invited to the ex in-laws family functions when your ex is bringing her new BF?
I remember feeling the way you do when I first hot divorced. That feeling has a shelf life.
I’d consider my spouse one of my two best friends (the other is a school friend I’ve know for 40 years now). On the other hand, I don’t go around saying that, or going on and on about my wonderful marriage. I don’t need to. The marriage is what it is, actions speak louder than words and all that. I think there is a correlation between people going on in public about how wonderful their relationship is and relationship trouble, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t good, healthy relationships out there. It’s just that the people who aren’t having relationship trouble don’t feel a need to talk about their relationship all the time or convince themselves and others that things are fine when they’re not.
I also agree with this my wife and I will celebrate 45 years this October.
My best friend is the one that I want to spend the most time with. My best friend is the one who I first turn to when I have a problem or are hurt. My best friend is the one who I forgive and forget the fastest when she does something that hurts me. My best friend is the one who keeps me walking the straight line. My best friend is the one who can tell me when I am wrong, and though I may not agree with her at the time I will think about what she is saying and not just disregard it. My best friend is the one who I depend n the most.
If your wife is not your best friend then I fell sorry for you.
another thought if you are not friends with someone don’t become romantically involved.
No. My spouse is my best friend. I have other friends and very close friends but I love him as my spouse and he is also the closest friend I have.
Of all the people I know he’s the one I think of first when I want to share something, good or bad. He’s the one I think of first when I want to go out and do something fun. He’s the one who has been consistently beside me through everything- moves, deaths, successes, failures. I love him and he’s the one I want to share the bits and pieces of my life with.
It works for me. I’d rather you didn’t call it bullshit. Find what works for you without slamming what works for someone else.
When her father died, I was there for her. When her mother had dementia, I was there for her too. Now my mother is dying and my father is lost and she’s there for me. We’re a team, and we will face anything together knowing that we’ve been tested in fire. She’s my best friend.
Maybe the issue in your experience with married friends is the “declaring” part, in a “methinks thou doth protest too much” fashion.
I’ve never felt the need to declare my spouse as my best friend. I just quietly live my life with it being so.
So the question is not “can your spouse be your best friend” but “are people who dramatically proclaim it covering up unhappiness”.
As a general rule, I’m not a huge fan of the terms “best friend” or “soul mate” because “best” implies that a given friend is as good or better than all other friends, and that just isn’t the case. It’s similar, but sort of opposite, in that, to me “soul mate” doesn’t necessarily imply a romantic relationship, despite that that’s how most people use it, rather it is just someone that travels the same path, which could be a lifelong friend, a family member, or whatever. I will use either term, but only if I get to really be sure that I, and whoever I’m talking with, actually understand the meaning in context. So, in that regard I DO have a “best friend” who is the one friend I both have known longest with the least gaps and am closest to. As a general rule, I prefer “oldest friend” or “oldest friends” as that tends to be whom most people would describe as their “best friend” anyway and, for me, it works well.
That said, I get what is meant by “I married my best friend”, though it is, unfortunately, often used to try to smooth over a dysfunctional relationship, it’s when one’s spouse is also that one person they trust and know best, and that person trusts and knows me best. I can say, from past relationships, despite really caring about her, whoever she was at the time, I generally didn’t know her as well as I knew or now know my oldest friends. However, I do know a few couples where their spouse is, in fact, clearly the person they trust and know and is known by best. I think these sorts of marriages are a lot rarer than people like to believe, but they’re also the ones that we tend to see staying very much in love for 50 years or whatever. Besides, I also think that a romantic relationship really NEEDS to have a solid friendship at it’s base. If all you have in common is sexual attraction, raising kids, paying bills, but don’t actually enjoy spending any time together… frankly, that sounds pretty damn miserable. I don’t think it necessarily needs to be “best friends” but at least good friends.
And, the OP also seems to imply that there’s some sort of hierarchy of relationships for which “spouse” is inherently at the top and “best friend” is second. I don’t see it that way, they’re just different types of relationships. Each relationship may have multiple or only a single property. For instance, one may have a mentor relationship but also be friends or not. As an example, I’d say my relationship with my mom isn’t only one of “parent-child”, but one of “friend” as well; for my dad, only “parent-child”. I’ve had relationships with teachers/mentors or AS the teacher/mentor where we were friends as well. And, when it comes to relationships, I’ve had girlfriends where we were also friends and ones where we weren’t and, obviously, the latter ones didn’t work out too well. I think being friends makes most relationships better, though it can complicate some mentor or parent-child relationships, especially the latter when the child isn’t an adult, so I don’t see an issue there.
And even inside of friendships, again, part of the reason I have issue with “best friend” is because the nature of my friendship and what I share with them and vice-versa changes from friendship to friendship. My “best friend” is someone I would generally share most things with, but there’s still certain things I tend to share with other friends more. For instance, my “best friend” just isn’t a super sympathetic person, where another very close friend of mine is extremely sympathetic, so I certainly talk to him about these sorts of things, but I approach the latter when I need more emotional support, and she’s awesome at that. Or one friend I may really connect with on certain interests and less so on others, so when I want to engage particular interests, I’ll reach out to those friends more. So, really, the only way I can see someone even being a “best friend” is if they’re figuratively like the completing puzzle piece, where that person’s strengths meet my weaknesses and vice versa, and we have not only similar interests, but similar passion in those interests. I just think people are, in general, too complicated to have a singular relationship be such a perfect fit, but at least anecdotally, I’ve seen a few that are, or are really darn close to being that.
My wife is probably my best friend, but she is not my Best Friend.
My Best Friend is the guy I’ve been best friends with for 25 years. Best Friend is a title awarded to your true buddy, the man or woman who you’ll always be friends with, the person who you’ll help cover up a crime for.
Your spouse may, indeed, be a closer, better friend than your Best Friend, as my wife is. She is vastly superior as a friend to my Best Friend. However, my bud remains my Best Friend. Best Friend is a different person from your spouse.
If it’s not, you need to make more friends.
I’m not sure I’ve ever classified my relationships, but being very introverted my wife (11 years) is easily the person I spend the most time with, talk the most to, etc. I have other friends, but none come close to knowing as much about me as my wife.
I think part of it is we are so honest with eachother and know eachother so well that we can say, “Hey, I need some alone time” or “I want to go out with my friends” and we’re fine with it. We spend more time with eachother than anyone else, but realize when we need breaks from eachother.
I guess I just assumed everyone knew how I would answer the question “Who’s your best friend?”
I can’t speak to the question about being married to your best friend. I am barely capable of having friends, and dating ended decades ago. But I have to say, based on this paragraph, you have some really shitty people as friends. That may have something to do with what you’ve observed.
Why wouldn’t my husband be my closest friend? I don’t really like the term best friend either. But we’ve been together for 20 years and have been together through thick and thin. Next week we are taking vacation together and will see no one else except for cashiers and the like. This is the way we like it. I don’t just love him, I like him a whole heck of a lot, too. I can be honest with him. We like to do most of the same things for fun. I can confess things to him.
Admittedly I don’t term him my “best friend”. But then again I rarely complain about him in public either. So maybe you’d think we really weren’t getting along or something.
I’ve always said, you don’t really know what’s going on inside a marriage. No matter how much you think you do.
I believe happy marriages probably exist but are a lot more rare than most people like to admit. If you and others say that you have one yourselves, I take that at face value and I am happy for you. However, it is really hard to sort out the real happy marriages from the ones that are just posing as one because the latter is probably much more common.
My main point isn’t whether happy marriages exist at all however. It is the terms that people use to describe their own and why they do it. Another one that I have never figured out is “We have been through some rough patches but we are still together.” I have no idea what that implies either. Does it mean that the couple got into a fight about toilet paper once or that the husband blew their nest egg on gambling and strippers? Who knows but that bit of subtext is trying to communicate something albeit very poorly. Judging by some of the “rough patches” that I have known the details of, I lean towards something pretty substantial.
I don’t know about whether someone ‘should’ have a best friend other than their spouse, but I do know that people with failed marriages tend to be bitter about it, and often derogatory and derisive toward people who ‘claim’ to have wonderful marriages.
It’s like a lot of stuff on the internet v real life. In real life we wouldn’t go to a party and talk about how terrific our marriage is (a ‘delusion’ we’ve both been suffering from for 33 yrs). We know some of our friends haven’t been as lucky, and it’s possible others aren’t happy that we don’t know about. On the internet there’s more a tendency to drop such politeness and tell the truth. But it gets some people with unhappy marriages (including the ‘happy to be divorced’ types) bitter and riled up, guaranteed. So forget I said it. 
Both my husband and I consider ourselves each other’s best friends. We don’t announce it from the roof tops but we know it is so.
What this means is that there is no other person in the world that we would rather talk to about 99% of the things we experience in life. I mean, we still have private lives and keep some things to ourselves. But there are few things in this world I would prefer talking to someone else about. If something great or bad happens to me, he’s always the first to know and vice versa. I know he will listen and understand and if need be, help me process stuff in a way that no one else will. Not because he actively tries to, but because our compatibility allows us to function as trusted confidants.
His reactions to what I say and do are predictable and so we hardly ever have the kind of misunderstandings that lead to arguments and hurt feelings. Knowing each other like this is another quality of a best friend. When I’m quiet and lost in thought, he knows what that means; I’m not mad or upset, just in introvert mode. If he has had two or three bad nights of sleep in a row, I know this means he will be anxious in the morning and in need of nurturing from a distance. This insight doesn’t come from having deep romantic insight; it comes from deep friendship.
I can’t imagine being married to someone who isn’t my best friend and vice versa. I like knowing that my husband goes to me first when he has something on his mind about work, for instance. This tells me he sees as more than just someone that he’s sharing a bed with. I also like knowing that the one person in the world whom I most relaxed around and understand is also the one person I’ve committed to being with my whole life.
Eh, people have different ways of viewing friends, so this statement doesn’t fly.
I’ve always rolled my eyes at the expression; glad to see I’m not the only one. I have the feeling I’m not going to word this well, but let me try anyways.
In my experience, the best friend role is one devoid of romance. For me, one of the biggest roles of my best friend is to listen and help talk me through big decisions in my life. She knows me very well, and can have insight into whether I would really enjoy switching jobs, moving to a new location, buying a certain car, etc. While I also talk with my husband about these things, the difference is that my husband is affected by many more of the decisions I make. When he listens or gives advice, it tends to be more from the perspective of “how will this affect our marriage?”. Not saying there’s anything wrong with that, of course you need to consider your marriage when you make big, important decisions. But it does make for a different dynamic than my friendship with my best friend.
ETA: Thinking back to previous relationships as well, when I have a friendship that later turns romantic, I also think that the fact that it turns romantic affects their ability to be my best friend. In the early stages of romance, I have a lot of decisions to make about how far I want to go, how fast I want to go, how committed I feel, whether I’m putting too much effort into the relationship, not enough, etc. And while I certainly can, should, and do discuss those things with my new romantic partner, it also helps me to get the perspective of someone outside the relationship who knows me well. The best friend is the person providing perspective from the outside.