Friendship and Marriage

Have you ever been in the middle of an argument with your spouse and wondered how you even got here?  What brought you two together if all you do is argue and nag?  When you first met, I bet there were common interests, goals, and ideas. Over forty years of research by Dr. Gottman he has boiled down the most important aspect of marriage satisfaction as friendship. He says “At the heart of the Seven Principles approach is the simple truth that happy marriages are based on a deep friendship. By this I mean a mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other’s company (pg. 21).”

Why would friendship be so important in marriage? 

My husband and I were neighbors.  He had recently moved back to North Carolina from Texas and I had also moved from Texas to North Carolina in the previous couple of years. His tags on his car were still Texas and one day I asked him about it.  We had a short conversation but found something we had in common.  Another time when he was out walking his dog, I asked if I could go for a walk with him.  We talked for over an hour about the things we liked and disliked.  We found that we had a lot in common in our interests but also numerous differences.  We spent time together and got to know one another.  We were engaged about three months later but waited a year to get married in the temple.  Over that next year I learned a lot about my future husband and how he handles problems and disappointments in life.  I am sure he learned a lot about me as well.  Over the years we have both changed and grown, lost interest in some hobbies and picked up new ones.  We have found hobbies that we enjoy doing together and we try out new things to see what else we might like. Sometimes these changes have caused issues in our marriage and there have been times when we have not liked each other at all but at the end of the day, we know the core of the other person and do our best to remember that. I want more than anything for my husband to want to spend time with me.  I enjoy his company and doing things with him.

Think about your relationships outside of your marriage. We often treat our friends with more kindness and love then we do our spouses.  I have found myself putting on a smiling face for a friend when I had just been treating my husband with contempt. We tend to see the flaws in our friends but accept them for who they are whereas a spouse’s flaws grate on us more.  Maybe this is because we don’t live with our friends or because we want them to be friends with us and we don’t want to lose that friendship.  We should not want to lose our spouses friendship even more?  I know that I need to treat my husband as my best friend and do everything I can for him in this capacity.  I know that with a strengthened and renewed friendship we can have a stronger marriage.