Should your spouse be your best friend? There are certainly many benefits to building friendship within your marriage.
Many couples will be quick to say that if you aren’t marrying your best friend, you shouldn’t be getting married. As it turns out, science backs these claims by revealing the many benefits of marrying someone you have build a deep emotional and physical connection with.
Research done by the Vancouver School of Economics found that happiness levels are higher in married couples who considered their spouse to be their best friends. The amount in question was double what the average couple’s reported rate of marital satisfaction.
Couples who are friends experience higher relationship satisfaction, a deeper sexual bond, and strong emotional intimacy. Here are 8 benefits to building a marital friendship for enhanced emotional and physical intimacy.
Create a More Satisfying Sex Life
On one study about happily married couples, marital satisfaction was increasingly associated with sexual satisfaction by participants. This means that the more sexual satisfaction there is in a relationship, the happier the couple will be.
Creating emotional intimacy in marriage as well as a deep bond of friendship can do wonders for your sex life.
A study done at Kinsey Institute at Indiana University about sex and orgasm in hookups vs relationships found that women were twice as likely to have an orgasm with the same partner than if they were hooking up.
Sex with someone you love and have a deep friendship with can also open your sex life up to a wide array of choices. You can make love, get down and dirty, and try new things together without feeling silly.
Having emotion behind physical intimacy can enhance the sex life of both men and women and make it a more meaningful experience.
Enhances Marital Communication
Communication is essential for a healthy marriage. You and your spouse need to know how to voice your opinions and concerns to one another. This is what will keep your relationship strong.
Married couples who have built a deep friendship have learned to read each other’s tone and body language. This helps them better identify when their spouse needs to talk or has something on their mind. Couples who are also friends also feel more comfortable coming to one another with problems.
You Learn More About Each Other
Some partners would prefer not to hear about their spouse’s past relationships. This may be a smart idea if one spouse is particularly jealous or insecure. But knowing about your spouse’s past romantic history can also be a great insight into their behavior.
Couples who have developed a deep friendship aren’t afraid to talk about anything. This means there will be less surprised popping up about who dated who and why they broke up. This can be great information to have in terms of learning how to communicate with your partner.
Teaches Married Couples to Fight Fair
Not all couples fight to solve a problem. Many couples fight to relieve stress and react to their partner’s emotional expressions out of pure anger. They use a disagreement as an opportunity to berate one another, name-call, and tear each other down.
As a married couple with emotional and physical intimacy under your belts, you know better than that.
Fighting fair means learning how to listen when your spouse is talking. It’s about giving each other your undivided attention. When you get frustrated, you remain patient and go out of your way to avoid saying something you may regret.
Couples who fight fair want to solve the problem at hand, not resort to a screaming match.
There is a Deep Bond of Trust
Best friends are always there for each other. They are trustworthy and reliable. These are also great qualities for a married couple.
By staying true to your word and being a dependable partner, you have proven your loyalty to your spouse. You have established a deep bond of trust with each other and created meaningful emotional intimacy in marriage.
Trust is great for enhancing your sex life. When you truly trust your partner, you will be more open to trying new things without fear of judgment.
You Feel Free to Be Yourself
When you are friends with your spouse you are more likely to feel at ease with one another. As friends, you’re able to sit back and relax without worrying too much about your appearance or putting on a show for your spouse.
Feeling free to be yourself is also great for your sex life. Studies suggest that women who are in loving, committed relationships feel more uninhibited in the bedroom and are more open to trying new things sexually.
You Deepen Your Bond Through Laughter
Building memories and creating inside jokes with your spouse is a great way to boost marital happiness. These are positive experiences you can look back on that have calming effects on you both as you get older. Reminiscing about good times can also be good for memory and other cognitive functions.
One study researched 71 couples and the role that shared laughter played in their relationship. The study found that couples who laughed together were more likely to report higher relationship satisfaction rates, rated their bond as being close, and had more social support from their sweetheart.
The bottom line? Having a shared sense of humor and creating adorable inside jokes is beneficial to your relationship.
You are Happier
According to the study mentioned in the introduction to this article, couples who have a deep friendship are happier together. Not only are these findings amazing, they are also long-term, so says the researchers. You can see yourself growing old together. You have an amazing, connected sex life, and you know how to have fun together.
Is there anything better than a deep friendship in a marriage? There is no doubt that emotional intimacy in marriage will create a better sex life and a closer bond with your spouse. You can work on building intimacy by having a regular date night, showing respect for your partner, and building trust together.
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This post has been republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto