Marriage in Action

Young kids always have best mates! Best friends are a necessity to success at school, and often remain strong for anything up to a couple of hours to decades! Best friends are easily interchangeable, they can be used against each other, the threat of being dropped if something doesn't go the way it should being quite common.

If you don't play football with me you won't be my best fried anymore. I want Mary to be my best fried because she can stay at my house!

In fact if partners to the crime of marriage were like 'best friends' marriage would not be so bad after all!

From the heady days of romance, quickly through the unimportant wedding day and subsequent grace period and zooming through the period of sustainability a new station is arrived at. A new and possibly exciting point of the marriage is reached and one that is after all the part that tends to bear the most fruit!

Being able to communicate is essential in this step of any marriage, using animal like 'moos' and 'neighs' and sighing heavily as if the world is on top of the shoulders do not constitute the necessary ingredients required to bake this cake. It is ultimately necessary to be able to talk in a civilised manner, one that allows for error and attack without the other party going into a sulk or throwing a punch.

Initially it is hard to picture a partner as a friend; he or she is after all the thorn in the rose bush, but why not? They will always be around, they probably know each other better than anybody else including the annoying in-laws and they have the necessary power to help as friends should without expecting instant payment or return. A friend after-all is somebody to turn to in times of need, a shoulder to cry on and a punch bag (literally speaking) when one is required. A friend gives freely and openly and any secrets issued will be kept secure and safe without fear of being spread around the neighbourhood like the black plague!

The difference between being a partner and a friend is immense. Partners tend as a rule to restrict and to control the actions of the other member, they lay down laws and make judgements on what the other might do or be doing. Friends on the other hand allow for mistakes, they loosen the noose of marriage to the extent that both parties can start to live their own lives as they want to without impedance, immediate judgement and criticism! By living partially separate lives that basically meet up again each evening there is suddenly something to talk about and to share, stories to be regaled and anecdotes to be told!

As in most friendships one party will invariably take the role of captain, the other that of crewmember. In other ways one might be stronger intellectually, the other as thick as a plank of wood. But the idea behind a friendship is to utilise the skills of both parties to produce a formidable and winning combination. The individual participants to a marriage can therefore benefit from each other to boost their weak points; to make a winning team were all is openly shared.

In the formulation of a friendship between partners it is advisable not to seek help to produce such. It is inadvisable to assume that a guidance councillor is capable of pinning down the necessary points required for friendships to work as every friendship will vary greatly from couple to couple. The only way for a couple to turn from barely communicative enemies to friends is to allow it to happen naturally and to do so with an open and positive manner. In fact, if life at home is conducted in an open and amicable manner friendship will undoubtedly sneak up from behind. One day just two people, the next best mates!

Sadly it must be mentioned that friendships through marriage are not easily interchangeable! A partner cannot threaten his/her spouse with exchange with the neighbours and new ones don't grow on trees. The idea behind this type of friendship is that for better or for worse it is there to stay, unless of course one decides to resort to the divorce lawyer standing eagerly behind the curtains, but hopefully what the friendship brings is far greater than the sum of all the other parts!