Marry your best friend. This is an essential ingredient to a happy successful long term relationship.When you bring to mind your best friends, your closest and dearest friends, is your partner or spouse even on that list? If they’re not, they should be.
Friendship is one of the most important aspects of a good marriage.Marry your best friend and the world feels safe and secures. Of course there are others, passion, sexuality, common goals, trust, partnership and compatibility;but if you remove all the romantic aspects of a love relationship, what is at the foundation? Friendship.
It may be of interest to note that the “institution” we call marriage today is a rather recent invention. Historically, marriages were brokered for a variety of reasons. Families joined to create alliances in business, trade, real estate and even nation building at the royal level. These alliances had little, if anything to do with love or friendship. If the two married partners were compatible, so much the better, but the role of the woman in marriage was to provide the heir and keep the household.
Fast forward to modern times, and that whole concept of romantic love comes back into play. The modern woman wants more out of married life than to be a baby-making housekeeper, and so she should. Men and women truly want to marry your best friend. Marriage evolves into less of a contract (though it still is that), and more of a choice. Husbands, now are looking for someone they want to spend time with, someone to build their life with, someone to be a lover, confidante and friend. When we have the choice of partner, of course we’re going to choose someone we like, someone we feel safe with and someone we see ourselves with in the future. In other words, marriage is now a solid, more well-rounded relationship, built of love and passion, yes, but also built on a foundation of mutual respect and friendship.
The best couples work, love and play together. They’re easy together, whether in conversation or in silence. Those are the relationships where friendship is at the core. There’s no pretense, no striving to do or be anyone false. Each partner knows the other transparently,and accepts them wholly. If you marry your best friend the good, bad and the ugly are all wrapped up in the perfectly imperfect package that is their best friend, their lover and their life partner. They have shared interests, shared goals and a shared desire to simply be together through it all.
We’ve all seen relationships that burn hot. There’s a nearly visceral chemical reaction that flares, the passion is obvious between them. We might even envy them, but sometimes passion is not enough. Over the course of a long-term relationship, people go through phases, ardor cools, then heats up again. Life changes, children, careers and simply put, life happens. Are we surprised when those fiery relationships burn out? What was missing? The foundation of friendship.
No matter where you are in life with your partner, friendship between you should always be cultivated. Who do you think of calling when you hear something interesting, when you get good (or bad) news? When something happens, where does your mind go? I want to talk to my partner, share with them what’s going on in my life, what I’m feeling, my hopes, my dreams, my goals, all of it; because I want my partner right along with me on the journey.
When you think of taking a trip or going on an adventure, who do you want with you? I want to share all the big and important events in my life with my best friend, my partner. This way, if you marry your best friend we are making memories, having shared experiences and building an even deeper connection. These shared experiences, over a lifetime, make for an amazing history, a deep and full life.
As time goes on and we advance in years, while we still have a great passion for each other, a deep and abiding love; what we have in abundance, if we are doing it right, is a strong and enduring friendship. Let’s face it, we don’t always enjoy each other, we don’t always even like each other. Times get tough, then they get better, then they get tough again, such is life. Each individual has to go through their own process, but isn’t everything made so much better by knowing that we have our best friend to turn to? We know we have each other’s backs, and are there for one another to support, to hold up and help, no matter what life stage or circumstance in life we are going through. Mat seems like a no-brainer, but it’s deceptively easy to lose your friendship connection with your partner. Be wary of spending too much time apart, pursuing individual interests that don’t include your partner, or choosing to spend time with your friends and buddies and excluding your partner. While we all certainly need our alone and one on one time with others, too much time away can create a rift that is difficult to bridge. You all don’t have to be joined at the hip, no, far from it, but you can and should be living a life with your partner that is intertwined and inclusive. Small routines and rituals that you do together become the bedrock upon which your relationship rests, and that sense of ease and friendship can only grow from there. Morning walks, coffee dates, drinks and date nights, working out together and working on home improvement projects. The two of you side by side, simply being together, hanging out, spending time. That’s the friendship aspect of your relationship that you want to cultivate. 
To know that you can be truly and utterly yourself with someone, to lay yourself bare emotionally and to be authentic and real with someone is a great gift. Having your partner as your best friend means that you never have to go through anything alone, ever. That knowledge inspires us to be a better friend, to meet that support with an answering friendship that ensures that neither of us need ever suffer anything on their own. What an absolute joy and blessing it is to have a lover and a friend that you can count on and share this journey with all wrapped up in the very same person. Life is good when you marry your best friend.
