> After all, if your spouse is your best friend, then whom do you complain to your spouse about?<p>Absolutely no one. I've been married for 11 years. My wife isn't perfect of course, but she's still pretty fantastic. She is my best friend, for which I'm thankful. I don't and won't gossip about her.<p>As a second- or third- hand observer, I can't count the number of times I've heard someone gripe about their spouse and felt sorry for them. Marriage, and relationships generally, are so much richer when you can either get over a minor injury without even mentioning it, or respectfully discuss a more serious one. I know it isn't "cool" to quote scripture around here but the Bible says "Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense." Amen.
My wife was my best friend when we got married over twenty years ago, and that has only ripened and deepened since then. She is the person I want to share the joys and rough times with. When I see something beautiful, I want to share it with her. When I have a rough day, or week, I want to talk it over with her. We're raising our children together, planning for our retirement together, and enjoying the days and years as they come.<p>And I hope the author didn't really mean the "with whom do you complain about your spouse" line. If people respected and worked with their spouses instead of complaining about them to other people, there'd be a lot fewer failed marriages.
A mostly uninteresting article in my opinion, but didn't agree with this:<p>> Dr. Bader said that she wished popular magazines would challenge the notion that you shouldn’t get married to change someone.<p>Most of the relationships I've seen where one partner has a goal of changing the other person have failed. I would bet that this would bear out in a well-designed study as well.
> After all, if your spouse is your best friend, then whom do you complain to your spouse about?<p>Never complain or otherwise say anything bad about your spouse to anyone but a therapist. Never.<p>Your therapist doesn't have to forgive your spouse. A therapist doesn't have to like your spouse. While you may forgive them, your friends/family won't be so quick to do so, if they do so at all.
Of all the life long marriages I know (mine included at 11 years so far), all consider their spouse their best friend.<p>I personally think my marriage could have been ruined many times over if I leaned on someone other than my wife during times of difficulty.
I am perhaps irrationally annoyed by people calling spouses their “best friends”. We get it: you chose to <i>marry</i> the person so <i>obviously</i> you like this person “best”, therefore someone <i>else</i> should be your “best friend”. A friend is a different thing. You can behave differently with a best friend. You shouldn’t feel like you’re somehow undercutting your spouse just because someone else is your best friend.
Here are some good points on this. About how expecting all your needs to be met by one person will lead to dysfunction and how we create organizations to fulfill these needs. The groups the make the most impact are those of sufficient size to fulfill all these needs.<p><a href="http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=78cbbb7f2882629a5157fa593&id=8641203570" rel="nofollow">http://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=78cbbb7f2882629a5157fa593...</a>
The article mostly throws up its metaphorical hands and concludes "maybe, language is hard", which is fair enough. But:<p>> if your spouse is your best friend, then whom do you complain to your spouse about?<p>Complaining about your spouse to your friends is a wonderful way to damage your relationship; the unthinking assumption that you <i>should</i> be venting about your spouse is harmful and should be challenged.<p>> Dr. Bader said that she wished popular magazines would challenge the notion that you shouldn’t get married to change someone. “I think that’s what marriage is about,” she said.<p>That sounds like horrifying bad advice if taken literally. I hope there was some context that was omitted from the article. People certainly can and do change, and obviously spouses should help encourage each other to change for the better. So sure, marriage is, in part, about change, inasmuch as marriage is a part of life, and life is about change. But to get married <i>in order</i> to change someone? As in "wow, I hate how extroverted this person I'm dating is, <i>I know we'll get married so I can make them introverted</i>"? That's the opposite of a good idea, and warning people off it is a staple of popular magazines, unpopular magazines, relationship counselling, and dating advice because it's a <i>really dumb notion</i>.
The article doesn't touch upon it - but IMO, the gender of that "best friend" matters a lot. Most people would probably be just fine with their spouse having another best friend of the same gender, but definitely not of the opposite.
<i>Over time, of course, this physical connection wanes. While many bemoan this loss of titillation, Dr. Levine celebrates it. “It’s smart,” he said. “If you’re going to be crazy about the other person all the time, how are you going to raise kids? How are you going to be able to work?”</i><p>This article is all kinds of horrifying. The above paragraph plus the phrase "maintenance sex" = ick. What does that mean? "We are just going through the motions cuz we gotta. Kind of like plunging the toilet."?<p>Maybe you should go read a book like "Lovers in marriage" before you go trying to write anymore marriage advice.<p>My ex was my best friend. That in no way suggested it was platonic.
Viewing a spouse in terms of a friendship is not helpful in my opinion. Marriage is <i>sui generis.</i> It is, especially if you have kids, an economic and financial partnership. I think my wife is funny and I like spending time with her, but what really lets me sleep deeply at night is that she’s highly capable and professionally successful. I could die tomorrow and my daughter would be well provided for. It’s not something I appreciated when I was young and had fanciful ideas about western love marriage, but is definitely something I appreciate now that I’m old.
I've never been married, but I don't quite know if it's even possible to be with someone for the long haul and not be close friends. It would be very much unpleasant otherwise. A business transaction of sorts. Having said that, from my personal experience, I think seeing your partner as your only best friend is something comparable to putting all of your eggs in one basket. Nothing lasts forever and as amazing as things look today they might not be all that great tomorrow and all of a sudden you're all you've got. Just for that reason alone I think it's healthy to maintain a close friendship with someone other than your partner.
Answer: It depends.<p>I have friends who really aren’t, but they seem to have a rewarding relationship anyway. Not my cup of tea, but other people’s marriages aren’t any of my business!