My Girlfriend Has a Best Friend...

My girlfriend has a best friend, and it's not me. Her name is Stacy, and she's known her forever. Well, not technically "forever" but they have a history. I'm only going to speak about the best friend component of their relationship or this blog will get too long. *grin* But Janelle told me about Stacy from the very beginning. And I knew that she was her best friend. And I was jealous.

Duh.

I mean, when a girl tells you she loves you, and then tells you that she also has a best friend that she also loves and that there is no way that you will be the best friend, you're going to have some sort of feelings about it, right?

The longer I live the more I realize that we have feelings that are authentic, and then we have those feelings we feel we are suppose to have. Women feel that we are suppose to be worried about other women because they are competition. We feel like we're supposed to feel jealous and so we do. But if you sit with your feelings long enough you realize that there's something else that is there under the surface, and usually it's just a bit of insecurity. As soon as you address that insecurity, you're fine. And so, that is what I did. I asked questions. And I listened. And I set aside the emotional part of me for a minute and looked at things logically. And then I decided I was going to love Stacy almost as much as Janelle did. Because if it hadn't been for Stacy, Janelle and I would not have made it "here."

We are told that our partner is suppose to be our best friend. "I tell my partner everything." "We have no secrets." "We are thick as thieves." Etc. Etc. and so on. Let me tell you something: My mother and my father have been married for 55 years. All you need to do is spend ten minutes with my parents to realize there ain't no way on God's green earth that my parents are best friends. My dad has a best friend. And my mother has two best friends. And those best friends hear all about my parent's idiosyncrasies. They hear all about how crazy each of them are: how my father only takes his ADD medication when he's doing something important and then bounces off walls and acts all forgetful when he's with my mother. And that my mother compulsively cleans the kitchen counter tops and cares too much about the little things like how the curtains hang and if the seams are showing. And their best friends pat them on the shoulder or give them hugs and then tell them how crazy their own spouses are and they have a drink or two. And then sometime in the evening one of the best friend's reminds my parent that they are freaking out over something that really doesn't matter in the long haul. And then my parents come home and are sweeties again and resign themselves to being married for another year or two.

I use to have a diary. I remember in one of my relationships, I kept my diary in the trunk of my car (should have been a hint) because I lived with my boyfriend at the time (another hint) and I knew he would read my diary if I left it out in the open. After a trip to the store one day, Kevin found my diary and proceeded to read it. He came up to my apartment, my diary in hand, and proceeded to ask me questions about everything that I had written. Why was I worried about our relationship (duh)? Why did I feel he didn't listen? Did I really feel that way about his smoking? Why did I say he made my skin crawl? Were the things I wrote in my diary true? Hell yeah they were. Were they an expression of how I felt most of the time? I didn't believe so. But writing it all out and venting about it helped me gather my thoughts and make sense of things. THAT is what a best friend is. And if your spouse is your best friend, who then will be your diary? Who is that person you can say anything to and who will not have their feelings be hurt or take things out of context or get all defensive or even tell you when you're being out of line and that you need to take a moment? 

I don't believe Janelle needs to be my best friend. She is my friend and my partner and my lover and the cupcake of my life. Her attention span for my "venting" is about 2 days shorter than that of my best friend. And there isn't anything wrong with that. My best friend is not vested in the relationship the same way that Janelle is. She can offer solutions and advice that Janelle never will be able to offer because Janelle is too close to the subject at hand. And that best friend allows for us to have the intimacy that we have -- not void of the discussions that couples should have, but void of the extra stuff that happens when we just need to vent for a moment. Janelle can and does tell me everything. And I can and do tell her everything. Almost. But Janelle can not tell me about myself the way that she can vent to her best friend about me. And she needs to have that outlet. Just like I need the outlet.

I want the time that we have together to be more than best friend level. She's my best companion. It will be a gift if I can be the same for her.