Should I Marry My Best Friend?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. You know they say “marry your friend”, yeah? I even talked about that a while ago. But people also say marry your best friend. I mean look at the quote above! “Happiness is being married to your best friend”. Ahhh, what does that mean??? How do you define a “best friend”? The dictionary couldn’t tell me. And I have tons of questions:
- What makes a person your best friend?
- What if you don’t have a best friend, who do you then marry?
- How long does it take to make a best friend?
- What if your best friend wants to marry someone else, what do you do? (e.g. The movie “My Best Friend’s Wedding”, which I absolutely loved and I’ll say it again, I wanted him to marry Julia Roberts’ character!!! *sigh*).
I believe friendship is the FOUNDATION of marriage but how deep/long does the friendship have to be before you tie the knot? They say you can never know all there is to know about a person before you marry them – but hopefully by God’s grace, you’ll know enough. So at what point do you say you are enough of friends to take it to the next level?
I always say there is no formula for finding love and that’s why you meet couples that met and married within six months to a year of meeting each other! That is, from the first time they EVER met to the day they got married was about a year! It wasn’t that they were childhood friends who drifted apart and found each other later. No, they didn’t know each other and in some cases they had no mutual friends. They just met and after one year, they were married. SCARY!!! I mean, how do you know a person enough within that short amount of time to decide to marry them? Hey but I guess it’s not the quantity (how long you’ve known each other) but quality of the friendship that matters, right? So, what helps you make that decision? Is it a gut feeling thing? Do you just know that you know that you know that you know that this is the person? Or do you take a chance and decide that you know enough at that time and you will develop a stronger friendship as you go along?
This brings up even more questions! Lol. And please, I wanna know what you guys think.
- How important is it that the person you marry is your best friend? Can you just marry your friend? Is the title necessary? Does it just complicate things?
- Are there cases when your best friend should remain just that? That is, is it by force to marry your best friend??
- If you don’t marry your best friend, is it ok to have a best friend of the opposite gender after you get married?
- Must your spouse be or become your best friend before/after marriage?
Again, I strongly believe that friendship – TRUE friendship – should be the foundation of marriage and I guess your spouse can rise up to the challenge of becoming your best friend over time but are we getting too hung up on titles? Should we just marry our friend and get on with it?
What say ye?
Yea, that title of ‘best friend’ just complicates things…what exactly does it mean? Besides are we in high school…or primary school sef? A friend is a friend. I had a ‘best friend’ in grade school, she’s still a very close friend but I’ve since dispersed of the superlatives and live by endearments like ‘close friend’, ‘dear friend’, ‘good friend’. Only you both would know what level of friendship exists between yourselves. Putting a superlative word like ‘best’ suggests the next friend at the same level is lesser than the former. What happens when you have an irreparable falling out? The next friend moves up? Abegi…its too complicated to keep up.
ReplyDeleteMarry your friend. Period. IT IS by force to marry your friend. Would you marry someone you can't talk to, gist with or together laugh at the silliest things? Look up the noun definition of friend. I can’t imagine being married to someone exclusive of the definition. It’s a no brainer. Your spouse should be your friend, BEFORE marriage. In the ideal world you should become even closer after marriage.
Moving along. So is it ok to have a “close friend” of the opposite gender after marriage? That’s a tough one but I’ll say outright no. If you both are true friends, your friendship would not end but evolve after marriage with each person respecting the presence of a spouse. Meaning…you may not see or talk as often as before. Or even share as much as before, but you would remain friends. That’s a true friend.
@Dee your comennt is even more complicated. Simple question requires simple answer, but your last paragraph seems to be alright sha.
ReplyDeleteYes I think you should marry your best friend, because your "best friend " is a person who is compatible with you in almost all areas. Remember we human beings are not perfect, so marry that someone who understands your every move, when you laugh, cry, frown, happy etc. When you marry your best friend and you get to that critical stage in marriage, when it looks like everything is collapsing, it is that foundation of deep friendship not love that will sustain the marriage, because sometimes love fade, it is an illusion to believe that every thing will continue to be rosy as when you first met. But strong friendship last forever.
ReplyDeleteI personally think that you should marry your friend simply because the person may not be your best friend before marriage. It is important however that you mary yopur friend and even more imperative that after marriage you both work at becoming best friends.
ReplyDelete