Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Your Best Friend?

Are you married….currently?

If not how many times are you divorced?

No
Once - current LTR lasting longer than the marriage did 20 years ago.

I get it - often people will claim as such but are they really? Should they be really? Your best friend is more often likely to give you the advice you really need, not hedge advice that might affect your marriage. They also supply outlets for advice and discussion where the outcome doesn't directly affect them the way a marriage does with your spouse.

When you expect your spouse to be your legit best friend - you're putting a TON of expectation upon them. No spouse — no matter how thoughtful, smart, funny — could fill the roles of both partner and best friend. You're expecting the spouse to meet all the social needs you have, many of which are platonic and require a completely different set of boundaries than a marriage AND the needs and requirements in a marriage relationship? That's not fair to them.

Calling the wife your best friend - kinda sells her short too. A wife is more than than a friend. Labeling it as such - devalues that connection.

1. This is my best friend Sue.
2. This is my wife Sue.

Which sentence implies a deeper, more connected relationship? Why would you have #2 and call it #1?

I think I get where you’re coming from but I disagree. My wife knows me better than any best friend does. My wife knows my shortcomings and has seen me at my absolute lowest and worst. My wife has weathered the worst times I’ve ever experienced and she’s walked through fire with me and for me. I have total and absolute trust in her and she in me. I don’t have anything in my life that I’ve done that I couldn’t share with her. Her advice and her respect means more to me than any other human being in this world.

I want to be around my wife more than I want to be around even my best friend. I have fun with my best friend and we have some great laughs but it’s not the same and I prefer sharing the laughter more with my wife than anyone else. The last couple of fly out hunts I’ve done with my best friend were exceptional but something felt absent from the experience. Like Cashisking’s thread the other day I was in God’s country and felt very introspective one day. I sat on top of a ridge overlooking a box canyon breathing in the beauty while watching a black bear play and goof around while I thought about why I felt less than fulfilled in one of the places I should feel most fulfilled. I came to the conclusion that experiencing this was more “empty” because I wasn’t sharing it with the love of my life. I knew how she would love everything about it but that’s a memory that we won’t share and talk about. We’ve traveled the world together and we have those common memories to think back on, talk about, laugh about and even sometimes cry about….together.

My wife and I went up to my best friends summer home in the San Juans for a few days last month and we had a great time with him and his wife. They’re big time world travelers and they have been married for ~10 years longer than us but they’re 15 years older. I know that my best friend would consider his wife to be his best friend too and it takes nothing away from our friendship.

It’s natural that we’d all define friendships differently and that we’d have different expectations of the role of our spouse but when I say that my wife is my best friend I’m not diminishing her in the slightest, on the contrary actually, I’m bestowing the greatest compliment on her and how deeply I respect her, her wisdom and intelligence, her companionship and her simple presence in my life. I’ve never felt that I needed “guy time” because I don’t behave differently when I’m around the guys.

ETA…The only time I’ve been glad that I was around my best friends were the times we found ourselves in bar fights. There were several times when I was glad that I was with my buddies rather than my wife….she doesn’t have the right hook, the killer instinct or the reach that my 6’8” best friend has. 😉

No on both counts.

Mexican fellow you hired to work your place in Iowa?

I love my wife more than anyone on this earth apart from our children. 25 years together, still happy.

But she’s my wife, not my best friend. Different roles/relationships.

1. This is my wife who also happens to be my best friend.

Seems to work for me.

And that's my point. The job for each is different and it's not fair to expect one person to be both.

I agree with you.

I've had my eye on a 29 year old I met in Bucharest last month. She would easily be number two or maybe one depending upon her commitment.

My wife. She is an Angel.

Gave him a kidney 23 years ago today. Does that count?

I'm a chick magnet. I don't have time for best friends.

Yes

You’d win the thread if I had all the votes.

That recovery is ROUGH, from the circles I am familiar with.

Well, it's a guy so.....

Wasn't bad after the first month or so and I didn't end up a junky.
His ex wife will never forgive me and he keeps sending pics of his grandkids so it was worth it.

Nothing bad they warned against manifested. My wife is perfectly healthy, her one native cranks out creatine labs of less .06 , jogged 5 miles 3 times a week up until a torn miniscus. Now just walks, day hikes 10-14 miles on occasion.

Yep.......then my dog

Agree as well.. your best friend is the one you talk smack about your wife with when she’s torqued you off

Holy chit, had to double check the math....

Best bud for the past 48 years, guy I grew up with in N. AZ from the time we were 9 or 10, kicking rocks, chasing jackrabbits, Abert's Squirrels, coyotes, big game, and trout with. Still tight to this day. More of a brother than a friend. Been through some great times and tough times together. Have lived within a mile of each other as kids, together for a bit as adults, and on opposite sides of the world wherever the Army would take us years later, and a state away today. Outside of the wife, the only human I'd trust to without question drop everything and be where I needed him and when I needed him.

Second, a female friend of the past 20 years or so. Just one of them women that "gets it" and a pleasure to hang with and talk to amongst our core group, but her and I were tight, and remain so since I moved away. Great person to spend easy time with, and spent a ton of time with chilling out and having drinks. Wife loves her too. Probably I guess because she doesn't feel threatened. Love her to death, but my friend is far more up LBP's attraction alley than mine! But a great person.

Haven't given anyone else the title of "best" outside of those two all these years. I keep my circle small, but with good peeps.

I don't even know your wife.