Lasting Marriage Means Keeping Our Friendship Alive
To make a relationship last: couples must become better friends, learn to manage conflict, and create ways to support each other’s hopes and dreams.
Marriage Is Being Best Friends
Nothing is better than having a spouse who is both your lover and your best friend.
Friedrich Nietzsche has said, “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” And this couldn’t be more true; after all, the strongest relationships seem to be those that are built on friendship.
Marriage, like any friendship, begins with areas of commonality, but the stresses of normal everyday life – children, work, finances, illness, caring for elderly parents – can tax the relationship and cause it to grow apart. Traditional marriage counseling is one way to deepen your friendship, but you can also engage in some simple practices.
No, this doesn’t necessarily mean that your husband will enjoy going shopping and getting mani/pedis with you or that you have to enjoy watching football in order to be friends with him. What this does mean is that your romantic bond contains many of the wonderful traits that everlasting friendships do.
The two of you share common interests but also know how to discuss and get past your differences. You know what pushes each others’ buttons as well as what makes one another smile.
Just like the greatest friendships, your relationship is full of trust, respect, honest communication, loyalty, adventure, acceptance and unconditional love.
You can tell each other anything—even your deepest desires and dreams. Not only can you share your inner world with each other, make each other laugh, you also know how to cheer each other up during a stressful week or having to handle the ups and downs in life; this includes knowing when to offer an ear to listen when they want to talk or to give space when they don’t. It’s all a balance.
But most of all, you enhance each other’s lives. The laughter you share, the problems you endure and the tears you wipe away not only strengthen your bond, but also give you both motivation to become better and better which will bring you closer and closer.
There’s no question that this kind of love built upon friendship is capable of standing against all odds. It’s the kind of love that could last a lifetime.
