A few posts back, I mentioned Rhaina Cohen and an article she wrote about falling in love with a friend, and the resulting confusion arising from this platonic relationship that was much deeper than a friendship and yet less significant or more asexual than a typical relationship. Not quite an affair or a polyamorous pairing, given that the author was engaged and subsequently married her fiancé throughout this friendship, and he was well aware of it and the significance it played. He wasn’t threatened by it, perhaps, although I am speculating here, because the connection was affectionate but devoid of sex or that kind of attraction.
It does beg the question then, though, about emotional affairs, if they can actually exist and what constitutes them. A close emotional bond with someone your partner does not know about? Is that somehow worse than the same bond with a friend they know? Is it the act of hiding the intimacy you share with another that would cross the line rather than the intimacy itself? Is it polyamorous if it meets the description of an emotional affair, yet your primary partner is ok with this? Or is it only polyamorous if it is a sexual connection? So many questions when we start exploring the grey space between friendships and relationships and the ways in which they often overlap.
All these questions piqued my curiosity, as I do have some very close friendships that run adjacent to my marriage, so I went looking for similar content describing these complicated relationships that fall in neither space completely. Which brought me to the book “Big Friendship” by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman. An interesting read about another 2 women who found themselves inexplicably attached to one another in ways that defied the labels we currently use for friendships and blurred the lines between friendships and relationships. While I have often referred to these as “Frelationships” these women have chosen the term big friendship. Perhaps because they wanted to emphasise the platonic nature of their pairing, but using the term big to symbolize the amount of space it took up in their emotional realms? Whereas my terminology focusses more on the relationship aspect of the platonic pairings, with only a hint at the friendship. Maybe this is because it is less important to me to shy away from the implications of homosexual relationships, or maybe it is just because it often feels more like a relationship than a friendship, platonic or otherwise.
Anyway, I digress. Big Friendship is about 2 women who find themselves in the grey space, and spend many years growing this partnership in harmony. Spoiler alert…. They go on to become semi famous with their friendship podcast, and hence known as some sort of ideal role model for women to look up to and strive towards in regards to their own best friendship goals. People envied their closeness, and yet, slowly, over the course of time, distance started creeping in between the women. So while they were publicly projecting the image of the perfect happy friendship, behind the scenes their closeness was actually crumbling.
This gives way to the notion that friendships, particularly these intense friendships that feel bigger than the role they typically got assigned to in life, struggle with ups and downs just the same as any relationship does. There is this pervasive idea in society that friendships are easy, lifelong and harmonious. Not only is this harmful, it is also wildly untrue. What feels truer to me, is that when people start feeling resentments or difficulties in friendships, they just commonly withdraw from the connection and say nothing, or confront one another and go their separate ways. It is considered perfectly acceptable to leave the life of a friend with little to no explanation under the guise of being “busy” and any friend who dares speak on this is automatically wrong and considered high drama.
Why is it, for example, if one person seeks space, and the other seeks connection, that the need for space automatically becomes seen as more important than the need for connection? The needs are opposing, and I can see where the incompatibility is showing, however I struggle to understand why seeking connection is a less important need? In a time where we are experiencing a loneliness epidemic no less? Regardless, the point stands that when a friendship experiences drama, the generally accepted result is to withdraw for a time or forever. Yet, when a romantic relationship experiences drama, it is considered cold to walk away or withdraw and the expectation is wildly different. Romantic relationships are given a higher priority and couples of this nature are expected to do the hard work, have the hard conversations and repair the relationship. So much so, that there are entire clinics that specialize in couples therapy alone.
Why is it that a friendship is not offered the same support? Is it because a person is expected to have many friends, so the pairing should be easily replaced? Is it because we don’t believe in platonic love? Or just don’t value it? I have more questions than answers, so I was delighted to read a book where 2 friends attended couples counselling together and eager to read for myself the outcome of this endeavour. Would they heal the rift? Would counselling just tear more old wounds open? Would it allow them to decide to part ways in more amicable and respectable but finalized terms? You will have to read the book for yourself to find out.
My issue with the concept, was that when I thought of the mere idea of suggesting my friend attend therapy with me, I felt overwhelmingly embarrassed and giggly. Do I find the notion laughable? If so, why? My friend and I could definitely benefit from professional therapeutic intervention. So why does the idea of asking her to do this make me think we would be rolling on the floor in fits of hysterics at the mere suggestion? I think it might be social conditioning at play, or an unwillingness to accept in all seriousness that we are a relationship and we are in trouble.
In theory, I support the concept, however I think deep down the idea of therapy to help us communicate makes me nervous because if we are such close friends, shouldn’t we be able to communicate without help? If we need therapy, does that mean it’s over and we don’t want to accept this? Then again, can’t the same be said for couples? I don’t know the exact specific statistics on the success of couples counselling, but I would be willing to bet more end than survive. Which leads you to wonder if it boils down to a matter of commitment? Those committed to staying together, do. They have the hard conversations, or they don’t, and things change, or they don’t, but in the end, if they both want to stay together, then that is the end result.
Maybe the idea of raising the issue makes me laugh because my friend has an avoidant attachment style, and laughing at inappropriately serious moments is what we do to combat awkwardness. Cue laughing during her appointment at the bank to finalise her home loan approval documents, laughing at traumatic or deeply emotional scenes in movies and plays, and even during our own strained conversations about us and our frelationship. She is the kind of person who would have made me laugh in an exam at school or laugh at a funeral although there is nothing funny about death.
Ultimately, I can’t foresee me realistically suggesting this to a friend, although I support the concept and am a big believer in the power of a psychologist. But if a friend suggested this to me, in all seriousness, I definitely think I would say yes, maybe out of sheer curiosity… But also out of gratitude that our friendship was important enough to them to want to make this sort of investment to save it. That appears to be a friend worth keeping if you ask me. As I wont ask, maybe I am not one after all? Hmmm that’s an uncomfortable thought…. Maybe I should be asking…
Would you ask a friend to attend couples counselling with you? Would you go if a friend asked you? Have you been? Did it work? Leave a comment and let me know!!
❤ Love,
Your Best Friend ForNever
xx
