Should your spouse be your best friend? 3 married people answer

<p>"Marry your best friend." How many times have you heard that? Quite often, I suppose, but are people really best friends with their spouses?</p>, <span>Should your spouse be your best friend?istockphoto</span>, <h2>Would you be fine if your spouse had a best friend of the same or opposite gender? Is it demanding too much of your spouse to be your all-in-all? Can you separate friendship from a married relationship?</h2>, <p>We spoke to some married couples about this on today which is World Friendship Day, and here’s what they had to say:</p>, <h2>Fikayo, 30</h2>, <p>"If I married my best friend, I would be tagged as a lesbian. He is my husband, and we are best of friends; note the semantics.</p>, <p>"You have to think about it, your best friend might not be someone you are attracted to or even compatible with if the person is of the opposite sex. Plus, you probably had best friends at different phases of your life; would you go back to those days and marry those people? I don’t believe you need to marry your best friend."</p>, <h2>Jide, 45</h2>, <p>"For the ideals of marriage—according to the Christian faith, for a marriage to work, your spouse should be the closest human to you and above every other human. Your spouse is the only person you're allowed and expected to be totally open to, in every way possible.</p>, <p>"The primary importance of a marital relationship lies in your spouse being your life partner. There are levels of emotional closeness and intimacy that should not be shared with a "best friend," irrespective of gender. This approach serves the best interests of your marriage and spousal connection.</p>, <p>"However, "see finish" usually negatively affects the marriage relationship. When you've seen someone finish, up and down, sideways and byways, and you know their weaknesses, warts and all, which only marriage usually brings out, resentment borne out of unmet expectations (whether those expectations were realistic to start with or not) usually chisels away at the friendship. The couple would i