"My partner is my best friend" Healthy or Unhealthy...

[Unacceptable]

...you decide
A very minor (but interesting and reoccurring) disagreement between DH and I.
Who do you agree with?

Nope.
I'm his bf but only as h3 only has 1 friend, and that's someone he works with
I don't do 'best friends' - I have friends related to the area of my life. Work, old school friends, school run/mum friends, running friends
I'm my own best friend. Or my dd and mum are the ones I'd chose to be with

I often think after reading MN that I don't have the kind of relationships with my female friends that lots of MNers have - the kind of ring you up at 4am and cry over a man relationship. Lots of threads appear to imply that there are lots of women who tell their bffs things they can't tell their DHs for example.

I wonder if it's because my DH and I have been together since we were children and therefore have been 'best friends' more than half our lives.

I have lots of lovely friends and 3 or 4 very close friends but my primary relationship is with my DH and there is nothing I wouldn't discuss with him.

Perhaps the length of our relationship has meant that we haven't needed to lean on anyone else?

Whatever the reason our relationship is very healthy. We have hobbies and friends and happily spend time apart but there is no one in the world that knows me like my DH not even my parents or siblings.

Isn't it a rather middle class thing?

Posh people I know spend a lot of time with their friends - seem to have hordes of them. And holiday in big groups, never as couples. They never go to the cinema together, or go out to dinner just husband and wife, let alone go on a day out as a nuclear family.

Same with un-posh people - spend a lot of time with extended family and rarely do anything as a couple.

I think that it's the mc who have developed this "us against the world" thing, probably through moving around, losing friends and family ties.

I would love to have friends and family, but I'm stuck with dh! Luckily we are bf most of the time...

Mine is my best friend. We go out, stay in,similar likes and dislikes. Have own likes as well. Have own friends. He is my best friend and soulmate

My dh is my best friend, and I'm his. I have female friends, but to be honest I don't trust them in the way I trust my husband. Personally for me my friends are who I see to have fun and talk about things I don't really talk about with dh, but if I have a problem or something really personal I would always go to dh. I know how much he loves me and that he always has my best interests at heart, is great at giving advice and won't talk about me behind my back as is my experience with female friends. He's also the only person I'm completely myself around and can be really silly with. I'm also close to my sister's, so maybe that's why I've never felt the need to have a female best friend. Finally I'm a very introverted person, so would struggle to see my friends and keep the amount of contact if we were best friends, as much as I like them.

My DH is definitely my best friend.
I like him more than anyone else, would rather spend time with him than anyone else, and don't really trust anyone else - for me friends are more for fun times than anything deep and meaningful.
We spend most of our free time together and do most things together.

Only got part way through at the moment but to quickly answer you Janiegaga I think my DH is my lover, my friend, my co-parent, my ally.
He considers me to be his best friend, his whole world, would reject others every single time if I wanted him to.
I think that's unhealthy and it is definitely intensifying over the years. I sometimes feel like I'm his only...something...outside of work. I think that's potentially detrimental to his emotional well being.
In a nutshell, I am far too dominant within the relationship. Don't think that's healthy. He not only seems to not mind but sees it as a sign that we are a perfect match!

I would say my DH is my best friend and I think that's how it should be. However I don't think it is healthy only to ever spend time with one person and we both have other friends. We spend most of our time together BUT do go out socially to different places with different people.

The key for me is balance but your partner should be the person you always put first imo.

My OH is my best friend. We do largely share a social group and hobbies, mostly because that's how we met. I have some friends who are more mine and he has some which are more his but we do know each other's friends. I guess he plays computer games which I don't and I do an evening class that he doesn't but we share our major two hobbies. I quite like that as it means we always have something to talk about.

Sometimes we are apart - I went on a girls holiday a while ago, for example, but did message him every night before I went to bed.

I think it's healthy. I mean, we're happy and I guess that's what counts. I don't mind if other people do their relationships differently.

My best friend in the sense of the person I love talking to about books, films, clothes, gossip, our children is my sister. We "get" each other, wordlessly. I can tell her things that would probably put me in a bad light if it was anyone else.

Like MrsDevere, I don't have that with my DH.
He is quiet. I talk a lot.
I work, he is a SAHP.
I love traveling, he is a home bird.
He has passions (photography, computers, gardening, football) which leave me cold.
I have passions (reading, MNing, feminism, baking) which leave him cold.

Yet my DH and I have a deep love, huge respect for each other and we like spending time together, going on holiday, going out for dinner. We do talk to each other about everything but our lives are not overlapping.

He is a wonderful husband and I adore him. But he is not everything I need, nor am I everything he needs.

He's my favourite person, the person I'm most comfortable, confident and honest with. We laugh most together. But it goes beyond 'best friend', or occupies a different space. It's a special, one-off relationship; I have great friends and I don't see it as the same sort of thing.

DP is my best friend and I am his. This has been how it is for 8 years and we've loved it. Hardly seen anyone else and just been about each other, seeing other friends a couple of times a year. Since my dad died last year though I've done a lot of soul searching and realised we don't have EVERYTHING in common and there are certain things I need from other friendships. I also think it's healthier that way. He has a few friends who he chats to about stuff I'm not interested in but mostly he's still all about me. It's better to talk about certain subjects with others who are genuinely interested rather than boring our partners with it. So he is still my best friend but I have realised he shouldn't be my everything.

DH was my best friend before we got together. I found it quite hard for a while after we did get together and move in with each other as my social world collapsed from having housemates, a boyfriend and a best friend to having one person who performed all three roles - it was a bit stifling.

DP is my best friend, but I have known him for 5+ years and I also have a best female friend, who is more like my sister than my sister is, IYKWIM, who I have known for nearly 19 years. I can happily spend two weeks alone with DP on holiday, but cannot imagine doing that with BFF.

I think it's normal to be your OH's best friend, not normal to not be a person in your own right. My DM is utterly enmeshed with my DF and it is killing her now that he is in a nursing home with Parkinson's and dementia. She is so dependent on him for her emotional health that she has none left now and it's awful to see. I can understand why she is that way, she had a horribly emotionally abusive childhood and my DF was her first normal and healthy relationship - but such dependency is damaging. I am very glad my relationship with my DH is not like that.

I don't think I've ever really had a best friend. Good friends, yes.

Dh is the person I trust most in the world. He's probably the only person who has totally got my back.

That would make him my best friend I suppose.

My husband is my best friend in that if I had a problem he's the first person I'd turn to. My good female friends were made years ago but now sadly live several hours away and I've not tended to make such strong female friendships as I've got older. I have lots of acquaintances through hobbies.

I'm my husband's best friend. Like me he has plenty of hobby based friends but doesn't have 1 bloke he phones or goes out with regularly.
We both work and have several time consuming hobbies so don't really have time or inclination for time consuming friendships even though the kids have now largely left home or are about to.

I don't have many friends, and I don't have a best friend, I think last time I had a best friend I was in secondary school. I find making friends difficult and it takes me a very long time to trust a friend, especially a woman as I find that we gossip too much so I rarely tell anything personal. I trust dh 100% with everything, absolutely consider him to be my best friend.

Same as Rebecca I have lots of acquaintances and go out and have hobbies/sport but only very few closer friends.

DH is my best friend. I don't really have any other close friends, just acquaintances and hobby friends. DH is the same. We both have separate hobbies, but we're default companions for social events and nights out. I talk more about things to him than anyone else - whether that's news discussion or random events of my day. I'm not the sort of person who needs to talk over problems though, I tend to mull things over on my own so I don't discuss them with DH or anyone else.

I do socialise without him but not that often - usually as a group night out related to my hobby.

Yes he is, I love spending time with him doing many different things. I never get bored of his company. But I class my mum as my best friend as well, between them both I have everything I need.

I don't have many friends I actually socialise with, I have people I can talk to, I can think of many people I could call if I needed someone but I no longer have a best friend as such so most of my socialising is with my mum and husband. If I go out for a night out 9 times out of 10 it is with my mum and old family friends or my sister.

I admit that it worries me a little because my mum is getting older and I'm not always going to be able to socialise with her. I find it hard to make friends and have tried a lot in the past, but the fact is most of the time I simply prefer spending spare time with my family so even if I did make new friends Im not sure I would see them much

We don't have anything in common. (...) We have never spent loads of time together.

I find this really sad :( Can't even begin to imagine that kind of marriage and think I'd rather be on my own, to be honest. But I do appreciate everyone is different and it's just a reflection of my own family history and relationships.

Ours isn't perfect by any means - after 20+ years, fertility treatments, children and demanding careers, romance has definitely taken a knock - but what keeps us going is that we're still each other's best friend and a team. Not joined at the hip by any means, but given the choice we'd still always rather spend time in each other's company than apart. We're very sociable so that often means in the company of others, and we do go for nights out etc with separate friends, but whenever possible we include each other.

For me, the key point about a "best friend" is that that's the first person I want to share and discuss important things with, and although I've got wonderful female friends (and male ones too), that would always be DH. We're apart a lot for work, but always speak at least once a day because one of us feels the need to bounce something off the other. For me, that's what marriage is all about.