{"id":177979,"date":"2015-12-30T09:44:31","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T09:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=177979"},"modified":"2015-12-30T09:44:31","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T09:44:31","slug":"marrying-your-best-friend-is-a-cliche-but-a-good-one-for-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2015\/12\/marrying-your-best-friend-is-a-cliche-but-a-good-one-for-women\/","title":{"rendered":"Marrying your best friend is a cliche, but a good one for women"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cB<\/span><\/span>eing in love is an amazing thing. Being in love with your best friend is everything.\u201d So claims jewelry retailer Zales in a TV spot for one of their newest products, the \u201cEver Us\u201d ring. Its design features two prominent diamonds, one for your best friend and one for your true love, and \u2013 as Zales puts it \u2013 \u201cfor the one woman in your life who\u2019s both\u201d.<\/p>\n

Upon seeing the infuriatingly cheesy ad, I was surprised that the wedding industrial complex hadn\u2019t latched its perfectly manicured claws on the concept and monetized it sooner. Nearly every time I come across news of an engagement on my social media feeds, it\u2019s accompanied by some hashtag variation of the phrase \u201cI\u2019m so excited to marry my best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likewise, one particular Nietzsche (yes, that Nietzsche) quote about marriage and friendship gets recycled over and over on Pinterest. Before America\u2019s royal couple \u2013 Kim Kardashian and Kanye West \u2013 wed, even Kardashian gushed to the press, \u201cI get to marry my best friend.\u201d Forget searching for your soul mate: marrying your best friend is the new marital ideal.<\/p>\n

The pervasiveness of that sentiment drives me absolutely crazy. \u201cImpossible! You can\u2019t all be marrying your best friends!\u201d I scream internally before silently \u201cliking\u201d someone\u2019s engagement announcement on Facebook. \u201cAnd Kelsey,\u201d I wonder, \u201cis your fiance, a finance bro named Chad who\u2019s wearing flip-flops and doing the \u2018shocker\u2019 in your engagement photo, really even your best friend? What do you even talk about, hmmmm?\u201d<\/p>\n

I love my partner (we\u2019re not married) deeply: we share many of the same interests, he encourages my creative and professional pursuits more than anyone else, he\u2019s the person who I want to and do spend the most free time with, the person I share both good news and bad news with first, and the person I can tell everything to without fear of judgement. All of those qualities traditionally constitute friendship \u2013 and I get to have sex with him.<\/p>\n

Regardless, I cannot bring myself to call him my best friend; it feels terribly cliched and I haven\u2019t used the term \u201cbest friend\u201d to describe anyone in my life, even my closest friends, for years. (Plus I\u2019m pretty sure his best friend is our dog.)<\/p>\n

So why is everyone obsessed with marrying their best friend? Partly it\u2019s because the way we think about heterosexual marriage in America has evolved \u2013 for the better.<\/p>\n

Stephanie Coontz, a historian specializing in marriage and family studies and the author of Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage, says that \u2013 cliche or not \u2013 the trope of marrying one\u2019s best friend is ultimately beneficial, especially for women, who had the most to comparatively gain from the shifting marital ideal.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s, people may have thought they were marrying for love, but the gender divide was more of a chasm. \u201cMy wife, I can\u2019t talk to her, she can\u2019t understand my work, but she\u2019s just such a good mom and she\u2019s such a wonderful cook and a good listener … My husband, he doesn\u2019t get my moods and he really doesn\u2019t understand what the kids need, but he\u2019s such a good provider and he never hits me,\u201d Coontz used as examples of how the typical thinking might have gone back in the day.<\/p>\n

Those strict roles not only had social disadvantages, but were also enforced legally; take the Head and Master laws, which gave husbands all the rights to property within a marriage and persisted until the early 1970s.<\/p>\n

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as more women entered the workforce, an equitable partnership became more desirable. By the 1990s, true friendship had become a goal of marriage, and along with that, Coontz said, \u201cour expectations include much more mutual respect and understanding each other as individuals\u201d.<\/p>\n

She admitted that while people may be adopting a conventional trope as a descriptor, it\u2019s a good sign overall: \u201cThey\u2019ve begun to realize that\u2019s what\u2019s essential to a good marriage in a world where men and women come to marriage with much more experience outside marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of this can be chalked up to Americans getting married at a later average age. When a couple chooses to pair off in their late 20s or into their 30s, Coontz said, \u201cthey\u2019ve got the maturity to learn the difference between the infatuation stage of a relationship and the companionate stage, and to welcome the companionate stage.\u201d And it\u2019s realistic too. \u201cPeople aren\u2019t just seeking someone that they lust after and love \u2013 because you can love somebody that you don\u2019t really have all that much in common with,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

And the terminology isn\u2019t all just lip service \u2013 it has actual benefits. A study published by the National Bureau of Research in December 2014 explored the correlations between marriage and happiness using data from the British Household Panel Survey. The authors discovered that life satisfaction gained from marriage was about double when a person considered their partner to be their best friend.<\/p>\n

Even among those who resist calling their spouse their best friend, it can come down to semantics rather than feelings.<\/p>\n

For instance, Jason, 35, doesn\u2019t consider his wife of four years his best friend because \u201cwhen I say my wife is \u2018my wife,\u2019 I\u2019m saying so many things \u2013 that I love her, that she is the person I spend more time with than anyone else, that we share a life together. Why is the word \u2018wife\u2019 not enough for those things? Why does she also have to be \u2018best friend\u2019? Wife is a very good word! You know what I never had until I married her? A wife! But \u2018best friend\u2019 \u2013 boy, I had tons of those.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah, 27, doesn\u2019t call her fiance of four years her best friend for practical reasons. \u201cI think it\u2019s important to not let one person be your everything,\u201d she told me. \u201cWhile I consider him to have all the traits of a best friend, I don\u2019t consider him that because I want to have a husband and a best friend \u2014 that way I have someone to rely on when the other is being a pain.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there are many who do wholeheartedly adopt the term but don\u2019t feel like expressing as much on social media. Take Marie, 31, who said that her husband of seven years is her best friend but doesn\u2019t necessarily want to broadcast it online. \u201cI think using that phrase is incredibly cliche, and I am anti-cliche in general. I think it dilutes true sentiment and reduces powerful, sacred things in life to dumb generalities,\u201d she explained. \u201cI am very specific in how I feel about John, and I wouldn\u2019t want to describe that in cliches.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of what you want to call your spouse, the marital ideal is collectively shifting to incorporate all the values and ideals we\u2019ve previously ascribed to best friendship. And in terms of cutesy monikers, marrying one\u2019s best friend is definitely easier to stomach, and way more practical, than holding out for one\u2019s soul mate.<\/p>\n

All in all, I\u2019m willing to admit that my annoyance at the term has been misguided. But, for my sake, no matter what you call your partner \u2013 maybe skip the hashtags.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: The Guardian<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBeing in love is an amazing thing. Being in love with your best friend is everything.\u201d So claims jewelry retailer Zales in a TV spot for one of their newest products, the \u201cEver Us\u201d ring. Its design features two prominent diamonds, one for your best friend and one for your true love, and \u2013 as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":157297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[51],"yoast_head":"\nMarrying your best friend is a cliche, but a good one for women - Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. 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