To think it's totally normal to love and like your best female friend more than your husband?

[mimblefish]

What the title says, really. I am in constant contact with my best female friend. I adore her, she is the other half of me. My husband has never been remotely bothered about this, I love him and he's a nice man and I find him very funny and he is my best friend after her. We have never had any problems.

A bisexual friend of mine said recently that if she was married to me, she'd feel really threatened by my relationship with my best friend. Now, I am not sexually attracted to best friend at all. If it was between her and husband I'd probably pick her to pull out of a burning building, but that doesn't mean it's a romantic attraction. I get that things might be more complicated if you're not straight, but, eh. What do you think, mumsnet? AIBU to think lots of women love their best friends more than anyone but their children?

Such a heartening thread! Of course it can feel like that. My closest female friend -I adore her, yet am not sexually attracted to her at all. And I'm not in some kind of sapphic denial; I have had flings with women, and know how I feel when I fancy a woman. DP is amazing (met him through her 25 years ago), they're both part of me, but she's just all of the smooth, whereas DP is the rough as well. DF and I are like Messed, plotting our old age together. It's nice.

Absolutely not normal at all. I wouldn't choose anyone above my DH, except our children. If he told me if liked and loved his best friend more than me, and would save them from a burning building first, then I would be extremely hurt and think that our marriage was probably ending.

This is very weird to me, my husband is my best friend and I can't really imagine marriage any other way.

I remember once describing a conversation I'd had with my husband, some kind of silly bedtime banter, and a friend said that she and her husband never talked to each other like that - I was blown away.

Different strokes, but I wonder what people get out of marriages where there's this sort of emotional/intellectual/personal? separation?

I’ve been friends with my best friend for over 30 years but I share every day with my husband and would definitely choose him.

Er no. I find that very odd.

I have a wonderful bf of 30 years Platonic soulmate. But if it were life or death my husband comes first. Thats how it should be. Forsaking all others?

Gosh no. I really can’t relate to this one bit. My husband IS my best friend. I have loads of other friends and a life outside of him but our intimacy, affection and familiarity with one another tops any friendship no matter how close and long lasting.

I have 2 very good friends that I've known a lot longer than my DH. I love them to bits and trust them. I get on better with them, we talk more, laugh more and I'd be lost without them. i love DH but if anything its far more contingent. Men can and have been replaced, not sure if I'd want a replacement if anything happened, but i bet if I wanted I could. Good friends are harder to find.

Unusual? No.

But ‘totally normal’?! No, it’s not that either.

And I say this as someone with a best female friend of 41 years (met in year 1 of school), been through high school, uni, living overseas, and having our first babies three weeks apart. We grew up together and are essentially sisters.

DH is my rock, and is the person I’ve chosen to spend my life with. I may not have knowM him as long, but he’s equally my best friend.

There is really no need to choose.

I love my best friend.
Friends for 20 odd years now and i love her like a sister and tell her everything and trust her completely as she does me.
We dont talk every day. Once a week maybe. See each other 5 or 6 times a year as we live a distance away from each other.
Im single.
So other than my ds she would be top of my list of people to save out of a burning building.
Nothing and nobody will ever break our bond, but i wouldnt marry a man I loved less than i love her.
To me being married is putting that person before everything else, other than kids.
And if you know you cant do that you shouldn't be married.
How would you feel if your husband said the same about one of his guy friends?

My husband is my best friend and comes before anyone (we have no children), I would run in front of a bullet for him and he would for me.

I love DH. Like really love him. I met him when I was nineteen. So I was young. But I met my best Friends a whole, twelve and 9 years before that.

We’ve seen eachother through school, through our first night out, celebrating, failing, when we left our religion, college, uni, buying houses, abuse, assault, parental divorce, bereavement, learning to drive, pets, literally everything. And because we were so young when we met and because we all come from big families in a small town we were totally emeshed in eachothers Lives from the get go.

It took a long time for DH to have been present enough to have shared the same amount, the visceral, tricky, and heavy as well as the awe inspiring, exciting and beautiful bits. & I wonder if that’s part of your experience. Particularly if you’re speaking of a childhood friendship.
I can’t think of an event in my life from the age of seven that my best friend hasn’t been a part of but there are plenty of things before I met him, when we were just friends and during the early part of our relationship as well as during his two year long illness that DH wasn’t around for.
It took us going through things together, the hard gritty things as well as the euphoric honeymoon joy, for me to feel truly connected to DH.

I don’t think I love my two best friends more than H, I love them all fiercely and differently. My two best friends are an extension of my family, and I don’t want to imagine pulling anyone out of a burning building.
DH won’t ever be the person who I rode my pushbike to the football with every Saturday or the person who I would meet at Tesco at 7:30 in the morning to get pick and mix with my Labrador. His granny isn’t the person that taught me to spell necessary or drove me to my first concert. But he is the man that made me a mother, he’s the person I started a family with, he taught me about video games and computer programming, held my hand when I was beaten up, got wine drunk with me after fancy dinners, who looked after my mum when she wasn’t her best.

I don’t think we have a finite amount of love to give. And I think there are different types of soulmate.

Where it feels like you’re going wrong is the idea that it’s a competition between BF & your husband. When they can both be dear to you.

I mean, ‘pull from a burning building’...?

When would you ever be in a life or death scenario, whereby you’d have to choose between two loved ones?

You wouldn’t. So what comes from ranking them? It feels a bit childish.

I have a few long term close friends, some of whom I’ve known longer than my DH. But I don’t think any of us would choose each other over our partners ( we’re all in LTR’s).

I still care deeply about them though.

Sounds fair enough to me. I think it's very normal for women to have such deep friendships. I'm kind of offended by all these posters who keep posting that you are over-invested or having some sort of emotional affair, or married the wrong man? because they don't feel that way. I don't agree and don't see it that way at all.

It isn't normal.

I don't think it's wrong though. You're allowed to love whoever you want to love.

You'll get a pasting on here, though. The vast majority of women have accepted the delusion that "romantic" love is the central theme and validating guiding concept of their entire identity.

Wait - you would pick her to pull out of a burning building, and not your husband?

To add, if you have children (assuming they're also your DH's) - in this hypothetical scenario, you would rather rescue YOUR best friend than YOUR CHILDREN'S dad? Sounds to me like you love yourself most of all, more than your husband, children or friend.

It’s weird when people rank people in their lives. There’s something really messed up about thinking that way in my opinion.

@YouWereGr8InLittleMenstruators

Such a heartening thread! Of course it can feel like that. My closest female friend -I adore her, yet am not sexually attracted to her at all. And I'm not in some kind of sapphic denial; I have had flings with women, and know how I feel when I fancy a woman. DP is amazing (met him through her 25 years ago), they're both part of me, but she's just all of the smooth, whereas DP is the rough as well. DF and I are like Messed, plotting our old age together. It's nice.

Maybe we should start a retirement fund together! And you’re absolutely right: so heartening. Prompted (yet another) validating and nauseating-to-anyone-else text conversation between my bestie and I. It’s wonderful that some people find their best friend in a partner/spouse. Obviously, it doesn’t always work that way. Better to find that connection in a platonic friendship than not at all. ❤️

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Wait - you would pick her to pull out of a burning building, and not your husband?

To add, if you have children (assuming they're also your DH's) - in this hypothetical scenario, you would rather rescue YOUR best friend than YOUR CHILDREN'S dad? Sounds to me like you love yourself most of all, more than your husband, children or friend.

Yes, as long as you have a companion once the burning building has been doused, that’s the main thing....

Sod the rest of them.

One of my best friends is known to everyone as my wife and I as her husband (mainly because I'm the practical one). It started out as a bit of a joke that stuck. Both our husbands have said that if anything happened to them they would fully support us getting married for legal purposes in terms of inheritance etc. She has become my sister, my family refer to her as being part of our family and she is my person.

We have been through births, deaths and marriages, seen more of each other naked over the years than we care to mention and know more about each other's relationships than our husbands know. Emotionally, I rely on her more than DH because he is a fixer rather than listener, but I couldn't be without both.

I don't have a female friend that I am in constant contact with. What does it feel like. Does it feel like love?

I wonder if it’s not the strength of your friendship that’s unusual but the strength of your relationship/marriage. ‘Nice man’?! Damned by faint praise! I’d not describe my husband that way - he is my best pal, the kindest person I know, hilarious and the centre of my world. I have a wonderful best friend - more like a sister - who ‘gets’ me, we laugh until we cry, I’m godmother to her two kids, and we can sit comfortably in silence or talk for hours... but she’s still just a friend and my husband comes first.

I kind of think YABU. I get that the relationship you have with your best friend is different to the one you have with your husband and I think whoever said that your husband should feel threatened by it clearly doesn’t understand that. However to say that you like and love her more than him? I can’t imagine ever feeling that way about a friend, however close. The only people I love more than my husband are my children. But that’s me. If it works for all of you there’s nothing to worry about!

Sounds like you are married to the wrong man..