I didn't marry my best friend

I always hear, see, and read, "I'm married to my best friend."  It's all over wedding stuff, like it is a given that that's what's happening - you're marrying your best friend. If your spouse  is your best friend, that is wonderful - I'm not bagging on you in the slightest so don't get your knickers in a knot. I do think in some respects it's become cliche - people feel like they're supposed to say it. Enter moi. I decided it was time to come out of the closet - there are marriages in which the wife does not consider the husband her best friend, and the husband does not consider the wife his best friend. Marriages like mine.

MFD and I have been friends since we were 13 years old, which is 23 years now. We've been together for 11 years. We have literally grown up together. He has always been and continues to be a very good friend of mine, but MFD is not my best friend and he never will be. He's my husband. I think that title bears enough weight by itself. My best friends? They were the people standing behind me in the bridal party line.

I do not want to tie the same person into the role of husband and best friend for a whole host of reasons, one being what if something happened? Then I'd lose both my husband and my best friend in one fell swoop? And myself and my mind in the process, obviously. I got married with the intention of it being forever. Forever is a long time, and if something happens to him before me, leaning on some close friends isn't going to cut it. I will need my best friends for that.

I also need my best friends to

• See movies like The Notebook or Bridesmaids
• Discuss the 50 Shades Phenomenon 
• Consult on female body issues
• Agree to take care of my chin hair if I should become comatose
• Take my facebook page down immediately if I die so it doesn't become a morbid visiting place
• Sound off to someone without them wanting to fix it
• Sit next to in pedicure chairs
• Drink wine and let loose with in the afternoon
• Let my mean girl out to roam around without fear of judgement
• Just be unguarded with people who see me for me and not me as a wife 
• Tell me when the dress looks bad
• Bitch to when my husband is driving me fucking nuts and know they're not going to hold it against him when I get over whatever it is

Let's face it...some things are just better done or discussed with your girlfriends. Especially those WTF is it with men in general situations.

My best friends have comforted me through many things, talked me down from many ledges, had so many serious and frivolous conversations with me, made me laugh until I snort, and just been a source of a criminal amount of fun and tomfoolery in my life. They are the sisters of my heart. I don't always need to explain how I feel to them because they just know.

Sure, MFD makes me laugh, and we have fun, and he's there for me. He is the most important person in my life, but he is not the be all and end all. I don't think that makes our relationship any weaker. Sometimes I feel like there's a WHAT? He's your spouse but not your best friend too? stigma, and to that I say that this is a choice for me. As my life goes on, I will continue to cultivate my relationship with my husband, and my relationship with my friends. Both roles are critical and integral to my happiness.

I don't want one person to be my everything unless that person is myself. At the end of the day, I stand on my own. On the rough days, I'll be propped up by my husband on one side and my best friends on the other. It's what works best for me, and I wouldn't have it any other way.