Why You Should Marry a Friend
Photo by Annie Spratt
Leon and I were friends long before we took our marriage vows. We crafted our friendship via letters, long-distance phone calls, the occasional package, and a handful of passport-requiring visits.
Recently, we’ve been reading out loud the letters we wrote each other when we were dating, and it’s been such a delight to reminisce about how our friendship began and how we learned to take care of our hearts from the beginning. Thirty-one years later—actually, thirty-four years because that’s when we first met—our friendship and love continue to grow.
When he proposed, we didn’t step into marriage just because it seemed like a good idea—we made this decision in part because we were friends. We knew each other, and we knew what Jesus was saying to us.
Friendship isn’t just the starting point for marriage; it should also be the starting point of dating and getting to know someone. As you grow in friendship with this person, don’t apply pressure to your heart, because this can keep you from knowing what’s real. Also, don’t apply pressure to their heart, which can make things awkward between you and create expectations that may be outside what God is thinking.
Let friendship be enough, and don’t feel obligated to adopt any other title right away. Just enjoy this person, and be amazed that God fashioned them by hand to play a certain role in His wonderful plans on the earth. This person is important. They’re here for a reason. They have a crucial destiny, and as their friend, you get to be fascinated with who they are. Seek out their uniqueness and what makes them different from everybody else.
Learning to Rejoice in Someone
Intimacy is a deep look into another person’s soul, and only good friends can do intimacy well. Intimacy is possible because they’re emotionally open with one another and reveal their true feelings, thoughts, fears, and desires. When you can see the deepest parts of the other person and accept them unconditionally, with delight, only then are you intimate with that person.
In his book Keep Your Love On, Danny Silk describes how the experience of intimacy is the most satisfying a human can have. Intimacy, he writes, is created between two people who can say, “We can be ourselves together because you can see into me and I can see into you.”
Vulnerability, total acceptance, and delight are essential in creating an intimate relationship.
Proverbs 5:18 says, “May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.” That’s the kind of marriage God is offering you—one filled with rejoicing because you love this person, and they love you, and both of you allow the other to peer into the hidden places of the heart. This peering can happen only with time and solid, trust-filled friendship.
As you hang out with someone and get to know them, ask yourself, “What does rejoicing in this person look like for me?” Ask the Holy Spirit to show you more.
Developing Your Love over Time
The New Testament describes three types of love:
Eros (sexual love)
Phileo (friendship and a companionable love)
Agape (unconditional love)
Although agape love and eros love are key to establishing a marriage, the result is phileo love: an eternal and real commitment in which you can see your spouse not just as a lover and companion—but also as your faithful friend.
A godly marriage is based on your willingness to give your life to protect your friend and help them grow and increase in every area. That’s the kind of passionate love that bonds a couple together and produces a deep friendship that closely resembles the way Jesus loves His bride, the church.
The growth Leon and I see as a couple is possible because of our friendship with one another and with Jesus, our loving Savior.
Why Marrying a Friend Will Benefit You
As intimacy is one of the foundations of marriage, take care to marry a friend.
Not just someone you find attractive. Not somebody who has all the right words or seems to be going places. But a true friend. Someone you enjoy and trust and are willing to sacrifice for.
The Bible says that a friend loves at all times, and that’s what all of us want our marriage to look like—love at all times. Even the hard times. Even the painful times.
A true friend knows how to love you that way, and as the two of you grow in love, the world gets to see the beauty and stability of a godly marriage based on friendship. A marriage that will last, no matter what, because two people are friends.
To read more about friendship dating, get a copy of Becoming the One by Salomé Roat. Click here to learn more. The book is also available in Spanish.
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