Marrying Your Best Friend

I used to think that I wanted my spouse to first be my best friend. Building on a solid friendship seemed like a good plan towards eventually building a deeper, closer, more intimate, trusting, romantic connection with someone. While it's still true, I want my spouse to be my best friend, I don't know if I want him to first be my best friend. Perhaps friendship and romantic relationship come at the same time.

Getting to know someone as a friend first somewhat lessens the pressure of him/her having to "prove" himself/herself in a relationship, and both parties can be more authentic. Going on informal dates and enjoying each others' company, learning about each other organically, getting more comfortable with someone naturally rather than forcing the issue, and not feeling like you're on mission to find out the inner workings of someone's brain perhaps could be helpful.

Many moons ago, I dated someone, broke up with him, and because he wasn't really ready to let it rest, we ended up picking things back up a little while later. At first we were dating more informally, and I learned so much more about him during that time period. He shared things with me that he probably never would have had we been formally working towards marriage. I also didn't feel like those things mattered as much, because I wasn't making a judgement about his marriage potential after every time we went out or talked.

The way the shidduch system works though, for the most part, is that our dating is very focused. Each date means something. The date number itself is a benchmark. We're working towards marriage, so everything gets carefully weighed and assessed. There's less room for relationships, connecting with someone, taking things slow. The emotional consequences are also greater when said relationship doesn't work out. The stakes are higher.

This is perhaps why building this relationship while building a friendship is ideal. We don't really have room to build (or have) intergender relationships within most frum circles. If we're cultivating a relationship with someone of the opposite gender it works best if it's for marriage purposes. Focused dating makes sense. Our system has so many flaws, but we have yet to come up with a better way to do this.

Marry your best friend, but because s/he is your best friend and your sweetheart.