No, I’m not marrying my best friend (…her husband may take issue!)

Guest post by Sara

Sorry, Cathy's Classic Aisle Runner. I'm marrying my fiance, not my best friend.
Sorry, Cathy's Classic Aisle Runner. I'm marrying my fiance, not my best friend.
Since we've gotten engaged, a couple of people have mentioned things about “marrying your best friend.” As in “Oh, isn't it great that you get to be with your best friend forever?” I don't correct them, because I feel like it isn't worth the argument, but it's something that strikes me as odd.

Let me be clear, if you are a person who feels that they will be marrying/have married their best friend, that's great! You do you, whatever makes you happy. But I'm a little weirded out how this seems to be the assumption now. Even when you look at all merchandise — all the cards and t-shirts and tote bags and aisle runners — the wedding industry seems to think that if you're marrying someone they must be your best friend, and that's just… odd to me. Obviously some people are marrying their best friend, but surely not everyone?

People never assumed this stuff when my fiancé was just a boyfriend. We were living together, running a house together, and everyone assumed that at some point we'd get married, but no one said anything about “living with your best friend.” Admittedly the people saying this aren't people who know me super-well, but I just don't understand that leap.

My fiancé isn't my best friend. He's pretty great, but we weren't really friends before we dated, and my actual best friend has known me for almost twice as long as he has. She's the one who will tell me that sweater makes me look like a crazy cat lady, whereas my fiancé thinks I'm gorgeous in whatever I wear. (Not that that is a bad thing.) It's just sort of, two sides to the same coin. And, for our situation, I feel like for him to try and be both my partner and my best friend would be counterproductive. There's nothing major that my fiancé knows about me that my bestie doesn't, and vice versa. It's not the information that's different, it's the way it's processed…

My bestie can give me insight into problems that my fiancé can't, necessarily, because he's too close to the situation, and she can give me perspective. If he leaves his socks on the living room floor and my knee-jerk reaction is to freak out, I know that twenty years from now we're not going to point to the great sock-on-the-floor incident of 2013 as the low point in our relationship. But does it still tweak my nerves? Sure. In situations like that I can go to my best friend and say “Ugh, he left his socks on the floor again,” and she'll just shake her head and say “Oh I know, my husband does that and it irritates me too.” And then everyone wins. I feel vindicated because I'm not crazy, my fiancé isn't left going “WTF” because I went all She-Hulk over a pair of socks, and maybe later I go to him and mention it in a calm and rational way — or maybe not.

The point is my best friend is an outlet for this little stuff, sort of a staging area, if you will, for some of my feelings. It's not that my fiancé and I don't talk about our problems — he's a marriage therapist, do you really think he'd let me get away with that?! — it's just that sometimes I need to get my thoughts in order before I bring them up to him. And sometimes once I say something out loud it sounds so stupid that I'm able to just let it go, or realize that I may have been misunderstanding something.

The other thing is that he and I are very much our own people. We're not “two peas in a pod” or “two halves of a whole.” We are frequently found no where near each other geographically, we have hobbies that the other is completely not into, and it's not unusual for me to say “no idea” if someone asks me where he is. I know he's alive and will be home tonight, that's all I feel like I need to know.

In general I reject the idea (we both do) that to be in a relationship or to be married means we have to be joined at the hip 110% of the time. Not that I'm like that with my best friend either, but it goes along with the theme that people seem to think that once you get married, suddenly this one person should be absolutely everything to you. I have lots of important people in my life — I consider it a blessing that I have so very many people I love who are important to me, and I, personally, have no interest in having all of those roles condensed into one person.

So yeah, my fiancé and I are a team — we make our house run as a team, we sometimes plan parties as a team, we make sure we have enough cash to pay bills as a team, and eventually, we'll parent as a team. He's my “significant other,” he's “the dude I'm in love with,” and he's a pretty boss roommate and life-mate, but he's not my “best friend” and I doubt he ever will be.

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