My friends can offer advice on major issues, but they’re not as emotionally invested. Because—at the end of the day—it’s not their life, not our life. And when I look at them, no matter how eternally thankful I am for their presence, my heart doesn’t squeeze until it feels like it could explode.
Friendships take effort, sure, but not the same as a partnership. Friendships are relatively easy, but marriages are not. They take work and sacrifice and endurance. It’s staying afloat together when the world is a shitstorm and paddling hard to right yourselves when you capsize. It’s an exertion that deserves an infinitely more distinct title than “friend.”
You can friend someone you don’t even know on Facebook. It doesn’t come close to being in the same category as the layered, messy, beautiful, tangled, hard-earned love I share with the person I married, not even when you slap a “best” on the front of it.
The term “soulmates” doesn’t cut it, either, because it indicates some kind of effortless romance so perfect that it transcends the everyday crap—and we’ve worked for the relationship we have, dammit.
So until someone comes up with a better turn of phrase, I’ll just buy my husband an anniversary card that says something funny, and his laugh will make me laugh, and we’ll share one of the moments that make us who we are: so, so much more than friends.
