I guess I don’t understand the reluctance to label a spouse a friend. I mean, yes, she’s more than just your friend, but isn’t she also a friend, and a wonderful one at that?
My husband is my best friend. My mom is also a good friend of mine. Yes, we have a mother-daughter dynamic, but we also have a really great friendship. My brother and I have been siblings my entire life, but it has only been the last few years that we have really started to become friends. My husband has two brothers, both of whom he loves very much. But he is only friends with one of them.
You make it sound like a friend is a bad thing, but I don’t see it that way. Friendship is a unique relationship all its own, that can be present with our without familial or spousal ties. I know married couples who enjoy a very deep bond of friendship, and their whole relationship is far different from the couples that I know who are not friends. The couple who isn’t friends may be just as committed and devoted, they may be great parents together, and they may love each other very much, but their relationship is different from a couple that is friends as well as lovers.