Being Friends with your SO

[Mysterio]

I sort of asked this a long time ago. Being friends with your SO vs not being friends with your SO.

 

Whats the big differnce between the two? I don't think my parents are friends. They don't do major things together. All their activities are serperate. They may go on Vacation together, but for the most part. They live seperate lives.

 

They never laugh at the same things. My dad thinks my mom is too much into her ethnic culture. My Mom thinks my dad is anti social.

 

When I get into my next Romantic Relationship. I wonder if I don't have that friends aspect. What will be missing.

[d0nnivain]

It took a while but my husband is my Best Friend. By that I mean he's the person I want to hang out with the most. He's the one I confide in & trust.

 

When we first started dating he wasn't those things for me. He was somebody I was getting to know; he was also somebody I didn't always understand because his way of doing things was vastly different then what I was used to. The deep level of trust & commitment grew over time.

 

Even when I'm out with the girls he's still the most important. It's not that I don't love my friends & I do enjoy spending time with them. With DH it's more.

 

I thought my parents had a lousy marriage but even in the worst of times I recognized that they were each other's favorite playmate. They were each the person the other had the most fun with, who understood them better than anyone.

 

You can't force either the romance or the friendship in a relationship but when you get both, it's amazing.

[Els]

Definitely friends. Honestly, I don't see how anyone can sustain a LTR past the honeymoon phase (2yrs) without the friendship aspect. If you can't share any topics of interest, don't have a shared sense of humor, don't enjoy ANY similar activities... you're really going to struggle to keep the emotional bond going after that period, regardless of how good the sex is.

[somanymistakes]

Sometimes people enter marriage for a financial/social/business/whatever setup. Not just arranged marriages. It can be a literal tradeoff, especially if both parties have strong gender role ideas and want a partner to fulfill the missing parts.

 

If you look back in history you sometimes see ads seeking marriage in the paper, where it was purely transactional: I have this much money and this big a house, I require a wife to do X, Y, and Z. Love, at least romantic love, wasn't expected to be part of the bargain. As long as they were both upfront about their needs and satisfied with their arrangement, it could work out.

 

Nowadays, though, with the model of romantic love and chasing your dreams so prominent in american culture, it's hard to imagine people staying in those setups for long and not being tempted away.

[central]

Without a deep friendship, there is very little intimacy. That certainly would not work for me, as it seems sad and lonely.

[Mysterio]

When I look at my friends and their partners. Some I see the friends thing. Some I don't. My Parents are not friends at all. No laughing together or intimacy. Its like an arranged marriage. They listen to different music. My Dads an introvert. My Mother an Extravert.

 

In my romantic relationship. I want there to be a lot of affection, but also intimate deep conversation. More like what do you think about this and that. More introspctive about our lives.

 

My friend A lives in the states to my Canada. She was going to get divroced from her husband. She called me to tell me. I and her sister talked her out of it. I believe that if her sister and I were like. Go ahead. I think she may have been divorced. I am her best friend and we call each other brother and sister. So its all good.

 

I don't know if all my friends are friends with their spouse. When I am with them. I don't feel them panging for their spouse.