Spouse as Best Friend?

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SurlyMermaid

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Had a conversation yesterday with someone and we disagreed on whether it’s healthy to refer to your spouse as also your “best friend.”

I’m curious what others think! Thanks!! 🙂
 
Well, “friend” is such an ambiguous term.
Does it automatically exclude family? Some say yes, others no…
I don’t know if the term “best friend” really means the same thing to everyone.

SURE, my husband is my best friend! I’m closer to him than anyone else in the entire world. We tell each other our deepest secrets and confide our thoughts and feelings with one another…

But I don’t necessarily *REFER *to him as a “friend”… he’s more… he’s my husband!

I don’t think there’s an emotional level of “health” associated with that term, though… good or bad… 🤷
 
My husband (24 years) is most definitely my best friend. Why or how that would be unhealthy is beyond me.
 
I think “best friend” is one of many hats a spouse wears. It’s unhealthy if that is their only hat.

My husband was one of my greatest friends at least three years before we started dating never mind married. I really don’t feel weird calling him my “best friend” at all (though it’s not my default term for him…that would be “husband”). It’s his first and oldest hat. 😛
 
interesting how you phrased that.

Is it unhealthy to refer to your spouse as your best friend, or would it be unhealthy to actually have your spouse as your best friend?

I think that neither would be unhealthy. To me, a friend is one who i feel comfortable being myself with. One who i choose to be around. One who i find common interests with - and one with whom i have lived through good and bad times together - and we can still find redeeming qualities in each other.

A spouse is one who i cherish above all. One who i have chosen and committed to spend my life with. One with whom, i want to have children with - raise those children - and enjoying growing old with.

I think it is healthy to have good friendships apart from your spouse, and i think it is good to be good friends with your spouse.

So if you mean that your spouse is your best (and only) friend, I would have a hard time with that. If you are saying that apart from an intimate relationship, you would rather spend casual time with your spouse than anyone else - I think that is terrific.

Otherwise, I don’t think it is unhealthy to call your spouse your best friend - and i wouldn’t think it was unhealthy to have your spouse as your best friend.
 
I like the term “I was lucky enough to marry my best friend”.
 
I definitely consider my husband my best friend. I’m not sure why that would be consider psychologically incorrect. 🤷
 
These are different dimensions of each spouse in the catholic marriage:

For woman : Sweetheart (love), Mistress (lover), Muse, Wife, Girlfriend, Best Friend and Mother -.

For man: Sweetheart (love), Lover, Mentor, Husband, Boyfriend, Best Friend and Father -.

There are several dimensions and I love saying as a great thinker and like a man ---- Demosthenes ---- but with a changing of his quotation , that:

“For fun, we have only wife, for the daily care of the body, we have only wife . And then for legitimate children and keep the home we have only wives”.

The same for the husband.
 
I see no problem with this. Ideally, in a marriage, don’t you want to be married to your best friend? The communication necessary to raise your family, handle finances, etc. requires a very special relationship. Yes, a marriage is different that your relationship with a friend but, I feel that your spouse should definitely be one of your best friends if not your best.
 
I think this question is wholly dependent on the particular definition of “best friend”. If by best friend, you mean the closest person you have a relationship with, then your husband really ought to be your “bestest” best friend!

If “best friend” means the only person your close with, then it may not be healthy to have no close friends aside from your spouse. In this limited, kind of sad :(, definition then your husband shouldn’t be your best/only friend.

However, under virtually no circumstances should you have a closer relationship/friendship with someone other than your spouse!
 
I don’t really use the term “best friend” (it seems a little middle-schoolish to me) but I suppose I would consider my husband my best friend. If the person you are closest to in the world, who you trust the most, can talk to about anything…is your best friend, then I would think most people’s spouses should be their “best friend”. I’m not sure I understand what would be unhealthy about it? :confused:
 
SurlyMermaid said:
Had a conversation yesterday with someone and we disagreed on whether it’s healthy to refer to your spouse as also your “best friend.”

I’m curious what others think! Thanks!! 🙂
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I couldn’t imagine having anyone but my husband as my best friend. 🤷

Luna
 
Actually, I literally married my “best friend” - we had been friends for literally over a decade prior to ever getting involved. I think you should definitely have other good/best friends outside of your spouse - but I can’t imagine being as close as I am to anyone else - other than my husband - who yes was my best friend prior to being my husband -
God Bless
Rye
 
As an OP said, as long as the spouse is not ONLY a BF! When it gets to the point where you feel like you’re just great companions, then you do have an unhealthy marriage.
 
My spouse is definitely my best friend, among other things of course.

Surlymermaid, now you have to come back and tell us why someone would think it’s problematic…I’m hanging in suspense here 😃
 
I don’t think called anyone my “best friend” in years. I have friends, I have close friends, and I have my husband - who is both friend/lover/confidante/etc.

There are things I will only tell my dh; not anyone else, even my closest of close friends. Now, granted, there are things I don’t tell dh that I tell my closest friends, but it’s usually “girl talk” that he wouldn’t want to hear anyway, or something that is a surprise for him - nothing that I shouldn’t be keeping from him.

So, I guess if I needed to put a “best friend” label on anyone, then yes, it would be my dh. But he is by no means my only friend, or even the only one I confide in.
 
DH is definitely my best friend, but he’s also much more than that. He’s my husband. I’m wondering why someone would think that could be problematic?

Perhaps it could become a problem if your husband became more of a best friend and less of a spouse… but I think that being a spouse includes taking on the role of best friend. Spouses are many things for each other. But perhaps it could be a problem if a spouse becomes only one thing for each other.
 
I think I understand SurlyMermaid’s perspective.

Maybe it comes from hearing people talk about their child being their “best friend.” Or someone will say, “My mom is my best friend!” I don’t know if those statements are even true, but perhaps they are trying to express the closeness of the relationship and they don’t think that just being a parent or being a child who is close to that parent is sufficient.

To my mind, the category “best friend” has never included having sex with that person. The role of “spouse” does include physical intimacy. And the 2 roles or categories do seem mutually exclusive, in my mind. Or, rather, the “spouse” role includes that of being my dearest friend, but also a higher level of intimacy such that calling him my “best friend” would actually demote him.

My husband is the person I most admire, I most respect, I most care about, the one I invest in, the one I want to love and be loved by the most. I have taken vows with him, he is way beyond my BFF.
 
TheRealJuliane said:
My husband is the person I most admire, I most respect, I most care about, the one I invest in, the one I want to love and be loved by the most. I have taken vows with him, he is way beyond my BFF.
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:thumbsup:I like this statement, I feel the same way about my wife.
 
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