Making your ""Better Half"" your Best Friend
In the movie “Fiddler on the Roof,” Tevye asks his wife, Golde, “Do you love me?” She responds by listing some of the everyday services she performs for him.
Indirectly, she is telling him that married love is intricately related to darning socks, washing clothes, and the countless other ordinary ways in which a husband and wife serve each other.
Golde has a point. Hands-on service that gets a job done is a critical part of marriage. Without it, the sweetest words of love ring hollow. On the other hand, married love is not just a matter of “functional behavior.”
Intimate partnership
Married love is a partnership where two people become “as one flesh.” They freely choose to live in common. They agree, at least in principle, to put each other’s needs and wants above their own—to lay down their lives for each other. In short, the total picture of married love includes positive affections and emotions that go far beyond the functional.
Isn’t it good to see married couples who display this mutual warmth and fondness? When I observe how they enjoy each other’s company, I feel their joy! They relate as friends, though in ways that can vary widely from couple to couple, depending on their personalities and personal style. And while their friendship may not be the most foundational aspect of their marriage, you can see that it give them zest to fulfill the vows they made when they said, “I do.”
Unique friendship
Because it is part of a total communion of life and love, married friendship has a special flavor. It is uniquely intimate. It also has a natural center. What I mean is this. Friends tend to come together around common goals and interests, like sports, music, or travel. But whether or not a husband and wife have shared interests like these, they already share major life goals. They want their family’s good. They want one another’s good—especially the highest good of growing in virtue and love of God. This is a foundation for the deepest of friendships!
Are you and your spouse building on this foundation? Have you discovered the power and the joy of married friendship? Are there things you could do to improve or reinvigorate your friendship? Here are four simple suggestions that I find helpful in my own marriage.
Prioritize spending time together
It takes time to build a friendship. And yet, in this fast-paced world, there never seems to be enough time. Sad as it is, when life gets busy, time with our spouse tends to take a back seat to things like work, kids, personal fitness, recreation, and even television. Studies show that most couples think they don’t spend enough time having fun together, or even discussing important issues concerning marriage and family life. Yet married couples, on average, watch three hours of television per night!
Time is like money. It needs to be managed. So especially if you’re feeling a time crunch, take a moment and list out on paper exactly where your time is going. Then, try to set some priorities—after all, where you spend your time is a statement about your priorities.
Of course, it’s necessary to budget time for work, children, and everything else that goes into living. Still, I’d venture a guess that a careful examination of your time “expenditures” will reveal where you can cut out some less important things and open up some slots for friendship building with your spouse.
Spend these new-found times to sort out and discuss any issues you need to resolve. Do some fun things together—that’s part of married friendship too!
Make every day special
Friends are very creative in finding day-in, day-out little ways to express their fondness for one another. By themselves, these little things are not going to hold a marriage together. This does not mean that they are unimportant. In fact, the little things smooth the way for the big things to be resolved, overcome, or accomplished more easily. Little things are the ingredients that make married friendship extra-special.
Get into the habit of doing some little things to deepen your friendship with your spouse. Never miss one day! Here are some simple suggestions: Open a door. Get him or her a drink of water. Take a walk together. Say, “I love you.” Whenever one of you returns home from somewhere, stop what you’re doing and greet one another. Call just to say hi. Leave an affectionate note. Bring home flowers or a dessert. Kiss your spouse each morning and evening, and then again before you go to bed.
Little things like these connect spouses when they’re apart during the day and reconnect them when they come together at night. They make special moments in a marriage—and they go a long way toward helping spouses relate as best friends.
Listen to one another
During their first year of marriage, Mary talked and John listened. During their second year, John talked and Mary listened. In their third year, they both talked and neither listened. We laugh, but unfortunately, there’s a ring of truth in this joke.
Friendship means having an open ear to each other’s dreams, hopes, and struggles. It means continuing to learn about your spouse through attentive listening. Everyone deserves to be respected and heard. Cutting a person off in midstream, or even before they have started to talk, is rude and wrong. When we do it to our spouse, our best friend, it’s even more insulting. In marriage, we make ourselves vulnerable and transparent to one another; we lift the veil of self-protection. When we mentally shut one another off or make some dismissive non-verbal gestures, then, we are wounding our married friendship. We are also violating one of God’s greatest commands: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Galatians 5:14).
Best friends attentively listen to each other because they love each other. In this sense, communication is more than simply taking turns to express viewpoints and make comments, to convince and influence. It demands loving, respectful attention that includes thoughtful consideration for what is being said, as well as an honest and caring response.
Reclaim the passion!
Friends like being together. Friends who are married to one another want to be together always and to share their dreams, values, and commitment. People get married because they enjoy, appreciate, and esteem each another—and passionately so! Ironically, though, after the wedding these feelings of passion and excitement often evaporate.
How can you sustain this special element of marital friendship—of wanting to be alone with your spouse? Try thinking back to your courtship and early years of marriage. Can you remember the excitement and the joy you felt when you were together? Can you recall looking forward all week to your next date with your beloved? Remember your light-hearted conversation? The way you laughed and held hands? Can you remember the way it used to be?
I’m not suggesting that we try to bring back the times when we were younger and less mature. But memories like this can move us to do some things to rekindle the spark in our marriage. We can plan to go out together for special dates. These don’t have to be expensive. A fun, romantic date can be very cheap, or even free.
Do you and your spouse go out together sometimes? How often? Do you laugh and have fun on those occasions? Do you ever plan ahead for your times out together? Do you get dressed up? Do you look forward to your dates with anticipation? Are you able to leave your problems at home, or do they come along? How easy is it for you to tell your spouse, “I love you,” or “I appreciate you,” or “You’re wonderful”? In marriage, friendship and the fires of romance go hand in hand.
You Can Do It!
It’s no secret that many marriages are in crisis today. The pressures of our fast-paced, “get ahead” lifestyle leave all too many couples short of time and energy for one another. Over time, this kind of neglect can strain and cripple a marriage. Don’t let this happen to you. Take a preventive approach, and make it your goal to be best friends with your spouse.
Married couples who enjoy each other’s friendship infuse their marriage with an “extra” supply of love. This love will draw you to make time for each other and to show forbearance when inevitable mistakes and weaknesses appear (1 Peter 4:8). Your friendship will support you through the trials of life and will lead you to fall in love with your spouse over and over again.
Aristotle said that a friend is “a single soul in two bodies.” Nowhere is this simple phrase more true than in marriage. With God’s help and blessing, you can make it true in yours.
Joe Difato is the publisher of The Word Among Us magazine. He and his wife, Felicia, have six children. Article used with permission from The Word Among Us magazine Marriage and Family Resources.
