Be one another’s best friend! This is wise and helpful marriage advice. Your spouse should be your best friend. You should share the joys and struggles of life together. You should spend time together, talk about everything, and share common interests.
But this advice can also get us guys into trouble. We foolishly think that being best friends with our wive should look and be like being best friends with our guy buddies. So we do harmful actions when we try to apply the same principles of friendship onto our wives. Here are a few examples of how husbands don’t need to treat their wive like she is a close guy friend.
First, don’t tease and pick at her the way you tease and pick at your guy friends. With guys, growing up and through our adult years, we like to tease one another. We like to give each other a hard time. This involves poking fun about their looks, their actions, or something they said. We may call them names or let them have it when they do something dumb. Many a young husband has done the same to his wife. This can go on for years, but it can greatly harm the marriage. Don’t run your wife down in the name of just “picking on you” (Eph. 4:29). You need to be kind, encouraging, and sweet to her (Eph. 5:25-33). You must be her biggest cheerleader. Ridiculing her or poking fun of her looks, her actions, or words in public is never appropriate.
Second, know that win/lose arguments mean you both lose. With guy friends, men like to have win/lose arguments. We can argue and debate about some of the silliest and least important stuff. We try to recruit people to our side. We search Google to prove we are right. We want to win! We debate and argue just for the fun. It does nothing to the friendship, in fact it is often a part of the fun. But don’t take this same thought to your marriage. In marriage, if you are constantly finding and creating win/lose scenarios, you are asking for trouble. Avoid debating and arguing over trivial matters as much as possible. Seek to match one another in agreement. In marriage you need each others support, trust, and loyalty.
We need to nurture and grow our friendship in marriage. We were created to be one another’s companion (Gen. 2:18-25). But understand that friendship within marriage is going to look and be different that friendships you have had with friends in life. Men, remember she is not your guy friend! Don’t treat her the same, she needs your friendship in a different way. She needs your heart, words, love, and time.
