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Pearson said there’s a critical difference between a best friend and a spouse. Peter Pearson and Ellyn Bader are founders of the Couples Institute in Menlo Park, Calif., and the authors of “Tell Me No Lies.” They’ve also been married for more than 30 years. There’s yet another problem with calling your husband or wife your best friend. What we should probably be saying is ‘secure spouse.’” “Because not every spouse provides that,” he said, “and we’re indicating we don’t take it for granted. Why are we suddenly using the expression “best friend,” when that doesn’t seem to fit at all? But don’t we already have a word, “spouse,” that fits this description? I said. Levine summarizes this feeling with the (somewhat awkward) acronym Carrp your partner is consistent, available, responsive, reliable and predictable. They’re there for me in such a profound way that it allows me to have courage to create, to explore, to imagine.’”ĭr. Being close to my partner is very rewarding. “What people basically mean is, ‘I’m in a secure relationship. Second, the term “friendship” is “an underwhelming representation of what’s going on,” he said. First, couples still need what he calls “maintenance sex,” because it re-establishes physical closeness and renews attachment. Levine says, that leads us to describe our spouses as “friends.” But that language is not quite right, he says. That’s what allows me to be an individual again and self-actualize.” Instead of complaining, we should view this new phase as an achievement: “O.K., now I have this person I’m attached to. “If you’re going to be crazy about the other person all the time, how are you going to raise kids? How are you going to be able to work?”
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While many bemoan this loss of titillation, Dr. Over time, of course, this physical connection wanes. Sexual attraction brings down all the barriers, lets you get close to a new person in a physical way that you don’t get close to your family.” “Nature came up with a trick: It’s called attraction. “The problem as you grow older is, how do you let somebody close who’s basically a total stranger?” he said. In our early decades, those on the highest rungs are usually our parents or other family members.
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Levine explained that everyone has what he calls a hierarchy of attachment, meaning if something bad happens to us, we have a ranking of the people we call. It’s a bonus.”Īmir Levine is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist at Columbia University, and the co-author of “Attached.” A student of social relations, Dr. It’s just bigger for those who consider their spouse their closest friend. “The benefits of marriage are strong even for those who are littered with outside friends. Is feeling this way about your spouse necessary for a good marriage? I asked. In general, married people expressed higher satisfaction, he said, and were better able to manage the dip in well-being that most people experience in middle age, as they face work stress, caring for aging parents and other pressures. Between 19, the British Household Panel Survey asked 30,000 people to quantify their life satisfaction. Helliwell and a colleague discovered that a long-running study in Britain had data that may illuminate this question. That’s how we got to the idea that marriage is a kind of ‘super-friendship.’”ĭr. “But while the effects of real friends on your well-being is important for everybody,” he said, “they are less so for married people than for singles. As he researched social connections a few years ago, he found that everyone derives benefits from online friends and real-life friends, but the only friends that boost our life satisfaction are real friends. John Helliwell is a professor at the Vancouver School of Economics and the editor of the World Happiness Report. There is some research into this question. So which is it? Is considering your spouse your closest friend a sign of hard-earned intimacy, attachment and trust, or is it a sign you’ve become so enmeshed in the day-to-day logistics of managing your lives that you’ve given up sexual attraction, passion and erotic play? Has marriage become little more than benefits with friendship?