Friendship

My husband and I have been married for 20 years. And before that we were best friends for about two years. It took us five years to bring children into our family so we had plenty of time to get to know each other and foster a deep friendship. My husband is not a very social person so we don’t ever have big parties or hang out with friends. We usually just enjoy spending time together just the two of us or with our children.

A true friend is kind. They can overlook shortcomings. They can find good in you even if you can’t find it in yourself. The friends that have stuck with me since High School are the ones that like me for me. They don’t try to change me. They have forgiven a LOT of junk that I have done because I am not perfect. Now that I am writing this I realize that most people treat their friends with more respect than they do their spouses. I wouldn’t dream of trying to go in and change everything that my friend is but yet we try to do this with our spouse all the time. In the book “The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work” by Gottman there is a quote that hit me really hard. “Most marital arguments cannot be resolved. Couples spend year after year trying to change each other’s mind-but it cannot be done. This is because most of their disagreements are rooted in fundamental differences of lifestyle, personality, or values. By fighting over these differences, all they succeed in doing is wasting their time and harming their marriage.” A very insignificant example I have been thinking about lately is that my husband loves to drink Diet Dr. Pepper. This has been a source of contention at times. He hides 2 liters of the stuff all over my house because he knows that I don’t want the kids to drink it so I don’t want it in my fridge and I feel that it is a waste of money. So he feels like he needs to hide it from me. I know that this falls into the category of a difference in lifestyle. Growing up his mom took him out to get soda from the gas station like twice a week. Even now when we go to visit her, she still makes sure she has his favorite soda on hand. I feel that drinking that much soda (diet or regular) is not healthy for anyone. After reading this quote I realize that it is rooted deep within him and I probably need to back off. I joke that he has a drinking problem, but I am really glad that it is soda and not alcohol.

Friendship is so important in a marriage because life is hard. Kids are hard, jobs are hard, trials are hard, medical problems are hard, pleasing everyone is hard, church callings are hard and I could go on and on. If you don’t have a strong friendship foundation in your marriage one little tiny trial in life might just crumble your whole life. I believe that if my husband and I weren’t best friends before we got married we wouldn’t have survived the storms of life. We have been through so much together. We have a special needs child who has insanely hard behaviors at times. We have endured infertility, many medical issues, financial troubles, wayward children, extreme exhaustion, and so much more. At the end of the day all my husband and I want is to spend a little time together. We have always been really good at making time for each other. We would much rather be together than be with friends or someone else. Our go to is watching Netflix at night because we are so tired by the time all the kids are in bed.  I remember talking to some friends of mine who aren’t as close to their husbands and it always confuses me when they don’t know exactly where their husband is at that moment or what his plans are for the weekend because I know everything about my husband. When we first got married we fought a lot. It is really hard to get used to living with someone that you aren’t completely used to. We actually fought a lot until about 5 years after adopting our special needs daughter. Her behaviors are so intense at times that all of the things that we thought mattered don’t really matter any more. We still disagree at times (like the Dr. Pepper thing) but we don’t really fight about it. We have made it through all of this because we started out as best friends and have continued to foster that friendship over the years.