Becoming Better Friends

There are “friends” who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24

“It is not a lack of love,” said Friedrich Nietzsche, “but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” We tend to agree. And so do a lot of other social scientists. In fact, world-renowned marriage researcher John Gottman, of the University of Washington, told us one day over lunch: “Happy marriages are based on a deep friendship.”

And get this, Gallup’s research indicates that a couple’s friendship quality could account for 70 percent of overall marital satisfaction. In fact, the emotional intimacy that a married couple shares is said to be five times more important than their physical intimacy.

So how do you become better friends? Barbara Brown Taylor, a professor at Piedmont College in rural Georgia, knows. “My husband, Edward,” she writes, “is devoted to hawks and especially to the golden eagles that are returning to our part of Georgia. Driving down the highway with him can be a test of nerves as he cranes over the steering wheel to peer at the wing feathers of a particularly large bird.” Her husband, like any bird enthusiast, wants to know: is it an eagle or just a turkey vulture? In fact, he has to know, even if it means weaving down the road or running off it from time to time. “My view,” she continues, “is a bit different: ‘Keep your eyes on the road!’ I yell at him. ‘Who cares what it is? I’ll buy you a bird book; I’ll even buy you a bird—just watch where you’re going.’”

A couple of summers ago, Barbara’s and Edward’s schedules kept them apart for two months, and she thought she’d get a break from hawks. “Instead I began to see them everywhere,” she says, “looping through the air, spiraling in rising thermals, hunkered down in the tops of trees. Seeing them, really seeing them for the first time in my life, I understood that I was not seeing them with my own eyes but with Edward’s eyes. He was not there, so I was seeing them for him.”

Barbara couldn’t wait to connect with her husband and tell him of the hawks she’d seen. Her story illustrates perfectly that stepping into your partner’s shoes makes you better friends.^a

To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world.

—Brandi Snyder

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From the book