Being spouses is kind of a separate relationship- more than “friends”, which is why when someone says that, they’re trying to say that in a non-sexual, non-romantic, non-married way, they’re very close otherwise. In essence, that they’d have been best friends, or at least have had the potential for it, had they not met in a romantic context. It doesn’t preclude having actual best friends as well as your spouse- in this view, your spouse is something other (more?) than just a best friend.
Now if someone goes about proclaiming it all the time to various and sundry people, they’re probably likely trying to convince themselves of it because they don’t believe it.
I’ll add one more vote for this. Married 16 years, 20 years together overall and that’s we’ll over half my life.
All those attributes one would ascribe a best friend are there in my wife. All the activities I would imagine doing with the guys I’ve previously been best friends with, I do with her. All their functions within my view of the universe are in her. All the humor, in-jokes, shared experiences. We can pause an argument to mutually take care of some other pressing task. All sorts of things. We function both as a romantic couple and as platonic friends.
I feel sorry for those who marry someone who isn’t that.
(One small exception: I have to let her win games far more than I would a normal friend. She’s a sore loser. Actually, I’d never “let” a normal guy friend win. )
The whole notion that there is such a thing as a “friend zone” which precludes romance is a modern invention of the Hollywood romantic comedy mill. If you get along with someone, then it’s a degree of friendship, whether there’s romance or not. If you get along with that person so well that you want to spend more time with them and share more of yourself with them than anyone else, then why would you not call that person your best friend?
I generally prefer not to talk about my marriage, but if it comes up in conversations I’d say that my husband is my best friend. That doesn’t mean I don’t have other very close friends, but he is the person I like the most in the world (aside from our child).
We’ve been together for 21 yrs and nobody is more shocked at how close we still are than we are. Not a perfect marriage, sometimes I secretly roll my eyes at some of his ideas, and I am sure he has strained an eye muscle or two at my many faults. And yet, we have never had a real argument, or raised our voices at each other.
We do genuinely like each other and appreciate what we have. It’s a good place to be.
Joining in on the chorus that the spouse SHOULD be your best friend and I think this thread is pretty strong contrary evidence to your “if they declare it they are unhappy” line of thinking.
The most successful relationships I had were based on us being friends FIRST, and partners second. Once those relationships ended I found myself missing the girls as people. Not as the person I was messing around with, or my “girlfriend”, I missed the person I could just tell my day to and bounce stupid thoughts off of. My friends.
Ms. Cups and I aren’t married yet (give us a year), but if something were to happen to us as a couple, I can assure you that my first and lasting thought is “I miss my friend”.
I don’t use the best friend term because I find it trite, even if it is correct.
But I find it odd that you don’t get the rough patches comment. I suspect every marriage goes through rough patches. It might be one partner doing something bad, but it could also be medical problems, or stress at work, or a new and crying baby. When I was writing my dissertation and when I was working 14 hour days I wasn’t much fun to be around. If you go into a marriage expecting bliss every second, you are bound to be disappointed.
I don’t consider arguments rough patches.
You apparently understand the situation so I’m not seeing why you’re having difficulties with it.
A spouse is one kind of relationship. A best friend is a different kind of relationship. There’s no reason why they have to be with the same person but there’s no reason why they can’t be.
My boss is one kind of relationship. My next door neighbour is another kind of relationship. But if I said my next door neighbour was my boss, would you have difficulty with the concept?
For that matter, if I said my best friend was my next door neighbour, would you argue the point and say there’s no way one person can be both my best friend and my next door neighbour and I should keep the two relationships separate?
I understand set theory so your examples make perfect logical sense but the language used to describe relationships isn’t as neat. I understand that most successful, modern Western-style marriages have friendship as a large component of the relationship (that wasn’t the case historically and still isn’t in much of rest of the world though).
Let’s say it really is true that a husband and wife really are committed spouses and also each others true “Best Friends”. That sounds more than a little codependent to me at least but maybe its because I use the term “Best Friend” in a very specific way. Most people have someone else that they grew up with or they have also known for a very long time that they are also close to that they use the term for. As others have said, it is trite and sappy to publicly state that your spouse is your best friend even if it is true. It may not be healthy either. What if your spouse dies or leaves you suddenly?
I don’t care how people live their lives or view their relationships but I can’t help but notice especially when they are making sure that everyone hears them proclaim something like that. Couldn’t they just say that they still really like spending time with their spouse?
That wasn’t my original objection though. My real issue was with people that publicly proclaim that their spouse is their best friend when they don’t even have a functioning marriage and can’t really stand each other. I learned to be on the lookout for the divorce announcement whenever I hear anyone go out of their way to make that statement because it has happened way too many times to be a coincidence.
For people that hum along quietly in a happy marriage, this question isn’t directed at you and I am happy for you. The reason I asked the question was because I noticed the same pattern among very different groups and I was curious if anyone had any insight into what drives it.
I take it to mean that in addition to having feelings of romantic love and sexual attraction, you also really love the person as a friend and can count on them that way. You could marry someone who floats your boat as a romantic partner but still truly confide in someone else as a best friend.
I think it’s saying that you have the best of both worlds in one person.
The things that make for best-friendship do not necessarily overlap with the things that make one happy with one’s spouse. I love my wife more than I love my best friend, but in some ways I like my best friend m same friends froore; We read the same authors, work in the same industry, like to bake I’m sure my wife likes her best rriend more than me in some ways. The two of them can watch football together without one being bored, both watch GAME OF THRONES, and so on.
By contrast, my youngest sister WAS married to her best friend. Their friendship outlasted their marriage.
My marriage was often unhappy. Rife with problems, mental issues and my husband’s declining health, we had lots and lots of things that gave us fits. And the sex ship sailed long ago because of his various issues. But no matter what was going on within the bounds of holy matrimony, he was still my best friend. Because like someone else said, I liked him best of all the people I know. He was hella smart, wickedly fun, honest to a fault, so kind hearted it was a little disturbing and unbelievably loyal. So, why wouldn’t he be? That’s why if we’d ever divorced, we knew we’d almost be in each other’s lives as much as before. He was the total package and I’ll probably never find that anywhere else again ever.
Also, I have plenty of friends. A few that are extremely close too. However, if I only got to have one person on my desert island / in my life boat / with me during the zombie apocalypse, it would always be Jaceson.
Yes, there are cases where people try to deny their marriage is in trouble by proclaiming how great things are. But the problems in these marriages are in the marital bonds not in the friendship bonds. Saying or not saying that your spouse is your best friend is a minor side-issue when the real problem is you don’t want that person to be your spouse.
Yes a side issue, and the real issue of this thread fairly obviously IMHO is the natural human tendency of people who are unhappy in some aspect of their lives to be resentful of those who are happy in that aspect, and/or try to convince themselves those other people really aren’t happy. In some particular cases that’s probably a correct assertion. But doesn’t change the point, the natural need of some unhappy people to find comfort in the unhappiness, real or imagined, of other people.
Whether or not a happy married couple ever happens to use* the turn of phrase ‘married to my best friend’ is a complete triviality. Whether there’s a ‘problem’ with marital happiness bragging, true or false, seems only slightly less trivial to me. Lots of people make others feel inadequate (on purpose or not, truthfully or not) with their Facebook accounts or whatever else, about all kinds of things.
*My wife has said to me ‘I’m glad you’re my buddy’ and it was touching. But we never talk at all in the real world to other people about how our marriage is, unless just ‘yeah’ if other people comment that we seem happy and close. We are.
I get all :dubious: when someone’s always going on about how wonderful their spouse is, when I can see between the lines that this isn’t the case. Body language speaks volumes, believe me.
We started dating when I was 17 and he was 19. We married at 21 and 23, 40 years ago. We formed a duprass while dating. We still mingle soles daily unless one of us is out of town. What was the question again?
Maybe they don’t have any friends?
I kind of feel like “wife” is a different relationship from “best friend”. Best friend isn’t legally binding and you don’t always have to work on the “friendship”. Plus there are a lot of activities I have to do with the wife (visit inlaws, clean the house, raise the kid) that aren’t particularly fun, but are part of the obligation of being married.
Truth be told the “wife” relationship feels more like a very close work friend with who I’ve been assigned to co-manage a project together.
Honestly female-female friendships seem tedious to me. Most of the ones I’ve witnessed IRL seem to have a similar dynamic to those Real Housewives shows on Bravo. Constant gossiping, bickering, jockeying for status and one-upmanship (one-upwomanship?). So it wouldn’t be surprising to me if some women would minimize or abandon those relationships altogether once they found a husband. Or they simply don’t have time to do the casual activities that friends without kids get to do. So the husband becomes the “best friend” by default.
Yes, it’s quite understandable when you consider that female friendships are mere hollow bitchy shams that only last as long as it takes her to find a man and settle down to making babies, cleaning, and fetching his pipe and slippers.
