Tag Archives: friendship

Last Man Standing

So today we have a special guest post!  As you know since this is the http://happierhusband.com blog my lovely wife Sally gets a LOT of mentions.  Some of the favorite posts in this area include A Different Kind of Faith22 Years of Failure and the melancholy call to action Before She’s Gone.  Sally has guest posted one other time with the GREAT article What Does She Think? which proved popular all around.   

Today the Hot Girl herself returns.  But first an interesting side note.  As I was already preparing to write a post myself for today something came up which completely threw my schedule off.  When I mentioned it to Sally she said, “I have a post partially written, want to use it?”  I was VERY excited and proud.  Then when I read it I was shocked as it was the EXACT same topic of the post that I had started.  Looks like a God thing.  So enjoy this post from my lovely bride.  Enter Sally:

The other night we were watching an episode of “Last Man Standing” with Tim Allen (whose character on the show is Mike Baxter). In this particular episode, Mike’s wife gets upset because he refuses to call her his best friend. He even goes so far as to say she isn’t his friend at all and that their marriage is more about the ‘binding contract.’ He states that his best friend is a guy who he hasn’t seen in at least 10 years and that is the ‘perfect friendship.’ She is terribly upset by this and goes out to lunch with a neighbor friend. They discuss the situation and the friend says that she and her husband are best friends as all spouses should be. Later the same day, the neighbor’s  husband spends time with Mike, and they have a similar discussion. He tells Mike basically that he hasn’t seen his best friend in over 10 years. Mike questions him saying that his wife claims that they are best friends. The neighbor replies that he just tells her this ‘white lie’ to keep her happy. Is this healthy? I think not.

I am not saying that husbands and wives have to be each other’s best friend, but I do know that honesty is one of the number one things that keep a marriage healthy. If you can’t believe your spouse, how good can your relationship ever be?

An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.” – Proverbs  24:26

People can have best friends who are not their spouse, but the friend should not be held in higher priority in their life than their spouse. Troy and I have people we refer to as our best friends. I have still my best friend from high school, and we have best friends from college who are a couple that we spent most of our time with and still see often. However, none of those friends are better friends to me than my husband. He is the one who I want to see every day and spend every minute with. He is the one who encourages me in every area of life and always does his best to take care of me and make me smile. He is the one I want to help overcome any obstacle that he has in his life. HE is my best friend.

If you are not friends with your spouse, you should be. It makes life a lot easier, especially when you are together every day. Why would you even consider marrying someone who you didn’t feel was your friend?

18 Wives, understand and support your husbands by submitting to them in ways that honor the Master.

Husbands, go all out in love for your wives. Don’t take advantage of them.” – Colossians 3: 18-19 (The Message)

 “Your job is to speak out on the things that make for solid doctrine. Guide older men into lives of temperance, dignity, and wisdom, into healthy faith, love, and endurance. Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness. By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children, be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, be good wives. We don’t want anyone looking down on God’s Message because of their behavior. Also, guide the young men to live disciplined lives.

But mostly, show them all this by doing it yourself, incorruptible in your teaching, your words solid and sane. Then anyone who is dead set against us, when he finds nothing weird or misguided, might eventually come around.” Titus 2:1-8 (The Message)

If your relationship with your spouse isn’t what it used to be or you feel like you have not been friends in a while, spend some time thinking about what you both enjoyed doing together when you first met. Find time to do some of those things together. If you didn’t have common interests or can no longer physically do those activities, start putting forth an effort to find things that he or she likes to do and spend a day or an evening doing them together.  When you take the time to actually spend time doing something that even just one of you enjoys, you will find that you actually can still have a great time together.  Plus, chances are that if you do something with her that she enjoys, she might just decide to spend some time with you doing some of the things you enjoy.
When Troy and I first met, we spent most of our time playing board games alone or with friends. We also spend a lot of time playing ping-pong. We have acquired quite a board game collection over the years and get asked to bring our games to social events. Do we play them a lot together now? Not really. We play the occasional game of ping-pong with each other or Call of Duty on the XBox when the kids come home to visit. What we do for fun now is exercise together, which we never did before. He took up running a couple of years ago and then I decided if he could do it, I could do it (note from Troy, for more details on this check out DIY Relationship Drafting). After 20 years of marriage, we joined a gym and began taking classes and doing other workouts together.

What’s the point? If you put forth an effort, you can find something new that you and your spouse can do together that you both can enjoy. Recently, my brother-in-law who has been married to my sister for over 40 years decided he wanted to do something crafty and relaxing after work. He had watched her crochet all kinds of things for people for years.  So he learned how to knit on a loom. Together they are making winter headbands to help a college student so she can sell them to raise money for her mission trip, and they are having fun doing it! Their finished products are beautiful! Surely any married couple can find something to do together that can grow their bond of friendship.

So is Troy my best friend? ABSOLUTELY! There is no one I’d rather spend my days, nights and weekends with than him. Whether it is workout out, walking the mall or just snuggling and watching a movie together, he is THE one!

Don’t ever let any other friend come between you and your spouse. If your spouse currently isn’t your friend, start being a friend to them. It’ll be one of the best decisions you can make for your marriage!

Have a blessed day!

Sally