The Wonderful Gift of Friendship Within Marriage
The Wonderful Gift of Friendship Within Marriage
By Bradley Bennett
“A friend loves at all times,
and a brother is born for a time of adversity.” ~Proverbs 17:17
There are many gifts woven into the beautiful tapestry of marriage. Among the greatest of them is the wonderful gift of friendship with your spouse.
The covenant of marriage is an amazing experience between two people. But it is made all that much better when spouses have a deep, loving, and thriving friendship at the core.
I’ve found this to be more than true in my marriage. You see, I consider Amanda to be my best friend. I love to spend time with her, laugh with her, and share experiences with her. When something comes up in my life, she’s the first one I want to tell.
In so many ways, our union is amplified by this friendship. It makes the good times that much better and the hard times easier to navigate.
My hope is that you would see why friendship within your marriage is such a gift and eagerly desire it for you and your spouse.
Building A Strong Foundation
Researchers have found that one of the greatest ingredients to a rock-solid marital foundation is friendship.
Professor John Gottman of the Gottman Institute simply says, “Happy marriages are based on a deep friendship.”
According to Gottman, the best marriages are between best friends. The friendship between spouses unlocks certain elements that allow them to have happier, stronger marriages.
Amanda and I have experienced this power of friendship and try to live by a simple principle,
“We are friends first and lovers second.”
You see, physical attraction can come or go with a strong breeze, but a deep friendship endures hurricanes. A deep friendship remains when things get crazy and the feeling of love isn’t as strong.
I like to imagine friendship is like good soil from which a healthy marriage can grow. It provides the nutrients a marriage needs to grow deep, strong, and wide roots. The kind of roots that can sustain health in good weather and provide support in bad.
Here’s how the wonderful gift of friendship can do this in your marriage.
Friendship Keeps Your Physical and Emotional Bonds Strong
It’s no secret that physical bonds will fade after some time. Although this is bound to happen, the gift of friendship sustains the underlying emotional bonds your marriage needs in order to thrive.
When you are friends with your spouse, you enjoy doing things together and you talk more. This is incredibly important. C.S. Lewis once said of friendship:
“It is when we are doing things together that friendship springs up — painting, sailing ships, praying, philosophizing, and fighting shoulder to shoulder. Friends look in the same direction.”
As Lewis says, “Friends look in the same direction”. They are bonded together. And this bond, inside of marriage, increase empathy, energy, tranquility, and joy.
Studies show that this emotional connection is even more important to the health of a marriage than a physical connection. In fact, a healthy emotional bond feeds and fuels physical closeness in a marriage!
Friendship Encourages Openness and Intimacy
One of the ultimate goals of marriage is to be fully intimate with your spouse. To be fully known and at the same time fully loved. In order for this to happen, you have to be open about yourself and feel safe to be vulnerable.
This is really hard to do if you don’t have a friendship with your spouse. Without a deep friendship, you are missing crucial components that build emotional intimacy like:
- Trust
- Feeling Safe
- A Desire To Open Up
The gift of friendship builds these things into your marriage naturally. When you are friends with your spouse you trust them and you feel safe around them. It’s easier to open up and be radically vulnerable. Friendship encourages you to talk about the things that pull you closer together.
Marriages that don’t foster a friendship often fall into the trap of logistical talk. Every conversation is about the logistics of marriage. Every conversation is about when things are scheduled or whether the kids need something. The entire relationship becomes surface level.
When the gift of friendship left unopened in marriage, spouses become business partners instead. The relationship is distant, cold, and emotional intimacy is left to die on the vine.
Friendship Promotes Marital Security
Friendship with your spouse helps you feel secure in your relationship. You trust them on a deeper level and know that you don’t have to compete with anyone for their attention.
Researchers have discovered that one of the most important factors of a healthy marriage is whether spouses react positively to the other seeking their attention. Healthy couples did so at least 88% of the time.
Responding positively to these bids for attention communicate:
- I hear you
- I’m interested
- I understand you (or would like to)
The researchers called reacting positively to these bids as, “Turning Towards” your partner. Having a spouse “Turn Towards” the other when responding to these bids showed that their partner had all of their attention.
Each time you give your attention to your spouse, it reminds them that, next to God, they are your main priority. When you are friends with your spouse, it’s not a chore to give them your attention… It’s a joy!
Spouses that operate with a loving friendship regularly show their spouse they have their attention through texts, calls, and notes. When these bids are accepted positively, it provides peace to both spouses because they feel valued.
Friendship builds trust in your marriage and increases the security you feel.
Eagerly Desire The Wonderful Gift of Friendship
It may seem simple, but being friends with your spouse can transform a lot. Marriage works best as a friendship, not a business partnership.
When your marriage begins to operate from a foundational friendship it can reach much higher than before. The bonds between you and your spouse will strengthen, you’ll be more open and intimate with each other, and you’ll both feel more secure in your marriage.
My hope is that you would eagerly desire to stoke the flames of friendship within your marriage. That you would make the investments needed to open the space for friendship to grow between you and your spouse.
It’s a wonderful gift that’s simply waiting to be unwrapped.