Do you boast to the world that your husband is your best friend and confidante? If you do, chances are that the world hates you a little bit. Because Monica and Chandler are not real people.

For all those people who have been made to feel miserable about their perfectly normal marriages with perfectly normal husbands, it is necessary to know that their husbands don’t have to be their best friends. In fact, it might just be better that your husband is not your sole confidante.

My husband is not my best friend and never will be. I had a best friend before he came into my life and I have no inclination to replace her. We’re close enough for people to wonder if we’re dating each other. But since we’re both cisgender women interested in men, that never happened. So I found my husband, a man I wanted to share my life with. We talk, we laugh, we rant, we gossip, and we just be with each other. But we don’t talk to each other about everything. For that, he has his friends, and I have mine. That may sound like a messed up marriage but it’s as normal as it can get.

I didn’t marry my best friend, I married a guy who was my friend before I started dating him. We have never claimed that we’re each other’s best friends because not only would that be unfair on our existing best friends, it would also be putting undue pressure on ourselves. I don’t always enjoy a beer while watching a movie I’ve seen 300 times. Similarly, he also doesn’t always enjoy a rum and coke while gorging on amazing seafood. Why, I will never understand. But we each need our space and our people for beers and rums. And it’s a nice change to see a different face every now and then.

My husband and I do everything a regular couple does. We watch television together, share the events of the day, cook, and have sex. It’s a happy existence. But I wouldn’t be able to do all this with my best friend.

Also, it’s a little weird to have sex with your best friend. Who will you talk to about it?

My husband and I don’t have much in common when it comes to music or movies. I’ve spent most of this year watching 3D superhero or animation films, when I’d much rather watch a comedy without the compulsory weird plastic glasses. So I now do that with my friend who also likes a good comedy. We’ll also go for a drink before this movie so the funnies hit hard. What I have learnt from painful experience is that it is not a good idea to drink before a 3D movie. He also doesn’t like the kind of music I like. I’ll prefer music to sing along to while he’ll enjoy the head banging kind.

Regardless of whether or not they’ve vowed to live their lives together, make two such people spend a week together with no other human interaction and the apocalypse will seem like a sweet dream.,

There is no marriage in the world that has only pure, unadulterated love at the centre of it. It may have a significant amount of the L-dose but it also has a little bit of hate, some irritation, and lots of confusion at the heart of it.

There are times in every relationship when your partner is the one responsible for the most amount of grief in your life. You’ll fight over small and big issues, shut each other out completely and use the silent treatment against them. When that happens, and it will, you need another person’s ears. And that’s where your actual best friend comes into the picture. Let’s face it, if your partner was your best friend, they would have to hear some seriously hurtful stuff about themselves which you probably don’t even mean. This is why my husband and my best friend will never occupy the same place in my life. And that may be key to the survival of both relationships.

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