Is your partner your best friend?

[MeMarmite]

And do you think this is a healthy thing?

Lockdown has seen my partner and I both lose some friendships, sadly. Long distance, frayed nerves, and it not being so easy to smooth over difficulties with a takeaway and bottle of wine, etc.

We've realised that we've grown to depend on a much smaller group of people, with each of us being the most prominent support to the other.

I think it's fine, and that it makes sense to consider one another our best friends, but she's wondering if it might make our relationship too insular.

I was interested in others' opinions.

I used to dismiss the idea that your other half should be your best friend, largely because I knew that the guy I was dating wouldn’t even be my friend if we weren’t together, and I was very defensive about it.

My husband is my best friend, and that’s the way it should be. The person should be your favourite person on the planet. You get one life, so why dedicate all you time to someone who isn’t literally the greatest person you know? The core of a relationship is friendship, and that’s what makes it strong.

Mine definitely is, and was way before lockdown.
We tell each other everything, share a hobby, like similar things on TV, support each other, play games together .. it's like everything you'd want from a best friend, except we live together and have sex. There's no stress about housework etc as we share it.

I mean, I don't know whether living together for 3 years still counts as the honeymoon period, maybe it does, but hearing my phone ring while he's at work makes me smile (he phones me to see what I'm up to) and seeing him pull onto the drive at the end of the day is my favourite thing.

I have plenty of friends. Obviously can't see them at the moment, but when we're not in lockdown I regularly see them.

But yeah, spending more time with my partner over lockdown has been amazing, and not a hardship in the slightest.

@MadeForThis

Yes he is. I have a few other close friends but I am married to my best friend.

It doesn't mean that we agree on everything and I argue with him more than I would a friend. I feel more comfortable with him than anyone else.

Absolutely this.

@MyGazeboisLeaking

I suppose he does have some of the same qualities but I don't believe in best friends anyway, I have lots of close friends. I just see friends as platonic and my husband is different, sex changes it all for me. I do love and adore him, we're very close but he isn't my friend

Sadly, no.

Nope. Nobody will ever replace my BFF she's my true soul mate.

@IndieRo

My husband is my best friend. I tell him everything. He has seen me at my best and my worst. He supports me in everything I do. He is the only person I like to spend my time with. I have friends but can only handle them in small doses as they drain me. I hate the whole husband bashing they go on with.

I agree about the husband bashing - I have one good female friend who tries to slag her husband off to me whenever we meet and I can’t bear it as it feels so disloyal.

My best friend is my best friend, my husband is my husband. Two very different people :)

I guess he is.
I have a few close friends but he is the one that is with me virtually everyday, has my back, makes me laugh, looks after me. He's the one that plans adventures with me, gets drunk with me, supports my career etc. He has proven time and time again his loyalty and faith in me.
That's a pretty good all rounder friend to have!

Absolutely not. He lacks some of the qualities I would want in a friend.

Yes, he's my best friend/favourite person.

But I also have a very close knit group of gfs who are also my best friends, in a very different way. I can do things with them I wouldn't enjoy as much with my bf - and I need them to discuss the more female sides of me no man could understand as well.

No, he’s my husband. That doesn’t mean he isn’t my favourite person, that I don’t like spending time with him or don’t have a lot of things in common with him. He knows me better than anyone and is the first person I will share good or bad news with. He’s my confidante, he’s the person who can usually make me laugh more than anyone (I don’t think anyone else actually finds him funny, which should tell you a lot). He’s the person who can make me feel safe, who can calm me when I feel anxious. Ive never had a connection with someone like the instant connection with him, he knows what I’m feeling without me having to speak. We can communicate without words. However, he isn’t my friend. He is more. Partner can encompass the elements of friendship but it should go way beyond friendship too. Labelling him as a friend, or best friend, seems to dampen the relationship because our relationship is so much more than that.

When I started uni, I made a group of friends but I was closest to one person. We’d hang out with just each other, we lived in separate accommodation, so it was usually leaving our group of other friends to hang out with each other just the two of us. After 6 months, we started dating. Spoiler alert - it didn’t end well. But we were such close friends before that we tried to go back to being friends. We managed it for a while, even after DH came on the scene. I would still hang out with my ex, we’d still do our common interest alone. When I met my DH, friendship was never on the cards for me, it was dating or nothing. If we break up, I’m not going to remain friends with him. I don’t want to. I don’t want to look back on everything we had and just be stuck with his friendship. Again, it’s all or nothing. If we have children, I hope we remain friendly to allow us to coparent effectively. However, friendly is not friends. I’m not going to pop round to his and have a cup of tea if we break up, I’m not going to send him a little care package because I know he’s been down or send him some ridiculous gif I know he’d enjoy. If our relationship ends, all those things that means he’s more than a friend or even a best friend, also end.

He was my best friend long before we became
A couple.

Thanks for explaining, @Shoxfordian.

That does make things clearer. I guess if the question was "is your husband the person you're closest to in the world", that would bring a different response?

Yes, my DH is my bf. I have other friends and think this is really important but he is my best friend.

No. I think 'husband' holds a different/higher position than 'best friend' iyswim. He is my husband so the terms of our relationship differ and hold a deeper meaning than bf.

100%.. We were best friends before we got together. It adds elements that I've never had in previous relationships. We still love doing everything together, but we also don't have to. We can still talk about anything. Its v hard to offend the other after years of banter between us. Issues get sorted quickly and we are back to having fun.. in the bedroom or thrashing each other on the PlayStation

My husband is not my best friend. We both have our own, same sex best friends. We are very different people in terms of interests but fundamentally on the same page in terms of how we live our life, which is why it works.

He is however my favourite person in the world & our relationship has actually grown stronger through lockdown despite some truly shitty things happening to us.

@MyGazeboisLeaking

Is it wrong that the answer is my Mum? She's the closest person I am to in the world, like another piece of my heart. I love my husband but he isn't similar to me, he's not a part of me like she is.

@Shoxfordian - not at all - there's no wrong answer.
I'm sure a lot of people would answer the same to that question.

That's why I think it's really interesting to phrase questions in nuanced ways, because you get such different responses.

Yes he definitely is. We can tell each other anything, talk about anything and everything.

We are so close I can literally know what he is thinking a lot of the time. I very often sense that he is about to phone me and pick up my phone literally as it is about to ring. Some days he phones me some he doesn't, it can be any time so no way is there a pattern.

I would rather spend time with him than anyone else. Of course we have our rows but, on the whole, we don't get fed up with each others' company.

We have loved lock down because it has meant we have spent all day every day with each other. We haven't been bored at all and most days we have a good laugh. That's not bad after 40 years together.

I could not be married to someone who wasn't my best friend

Yes we are each others best friends of course! But we also have other friends

Absolutely. There’s nothing I’d feel like I couldn’t tell him and I feel like he understands me better than anyone else in the world. He’d always have my back and I know I can rely on him for anything really.
I think our relationship is healthy. We have friends, plenty of them, who we can rely on but he’s the first person I’d go to with anything.

I think like many things, this is largely down to a difference in definition. So the people saying yes and the people saying no don't necessarily have a different type of relationship with their partner, they are just interpreting the meaning of 'best friend' in a different way.

Definitely, it depends how you define best friend or closest person