Friends with Benefits

Most of you are foolish, you do not see beyond today. The rest of you lack understanding, you just don’t get it. When you marry someone you don’t marry them so that you can have a ‘happy ever after’ lifelong romance. You marry to have a lifelong companion, someone to share your life with basi.

What we are looking for when we say we want a marriage partner in all actual sense is that friend who will be with us for the rest of our lives, sharing our highs and our lows. We are asking for company and friendship but on a long-term basis.

Like all relationships, the marriage friendship also has its own rules. In order for you to have a lifelong friend sharing all their intimate details with you you must be willing to reveal all too and treat and regard that person better than any other friend. Those are the rules but it is still simply a friendship.

But most of us expect a future filled with romance, lots of laughs, and few sorrows from the person we marry or intend to marry. We only fool ourselves. The romance might be there for the first five years but then slowly and gradually it fizzles out and you are just two people who know each other, share experiences, share wealth, and share problems. You are just friends.

The questions you should be asking yourself then in regards to the one you love are: Is this the friend I want with me every single day for the rest of my life? Will I get tired of this friend and require a new one as time goes by or this is the sort of person I can be friends with for an eternity? Do we get along or fight all the time? Is this a caring friend(good) or a selfish friend(bad)?

It is inevitable that love will change, you will still love each other but will no longer be in love with each other. If we keep it simple our marriage will not suffer when love dies as you have seen others do. You must think of your marriage as a simple but more serious and the most important of friendships you will have. So when you fight, when you disappoint each other or when you get tired of each other it won’t be a big deal. Which friends don’t fight, disappoint each other or get tired of each other?

While you think of marriage as a simple friendship this thing you must remember: All friendships have rules, a friendships value or worth is only there when you meet each other’s rules as well as the rules that come with that type of friendship.  On that is the future of the friendship determined. You must follow the rules and you will keep your friend forever. You act stupid, break rules and treat your friend bad then you will no longer have a friend but an enemy who knows your darkest secrets.

The more time friends spend together the closer they get. A one-week-old friendship is different to that of one month and even that of 10 years. The friendship with the person you marry will be even more involving. You will share secrets, hopes, dreams, good times, bad ones, poverty and wealth. In short you will share everything. Such kind of commitment to a friendship requires trust. Trust is only earned and never lightly given. You must prove yourself to be faithful to the trust your friend has shown you by sharing their 90% with you. But also realise that even after 10 years most of us still expect a friend to disappoint us without a second thought.

Whether you share kisses, sex, children or wealth with the person you marry always remember that at the end of the day the person is just a friend but with benefits.

To those who don’t know the rules to the marriage friendship, they are written all over the bible: ‘Love your neighbour as you would yourself. Do unto others as you would have done to you. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Trust in the Lord your God with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. As long as it is up to you live at peace with all people.’

Marriage does not have to be a burden. ‘Life is better with company’ they say. God created companions for each of us, friends human like us not superhuman with super powers.

Finding a friend you can spend the rest of your life with is not easy. Some friends are not what they say they are to us, behind our backs they backstab us. But of all our friends we find that one friend that remains faithful all the time. We can trust them to come through for us and when they fail we know they tried their best. We take pleasure in their company, talking, laughing, joking, having fun. And when sad times come we comfort each other and support each other as best as we can.

Find you a friend like that and share with them your life. And when you move in together do not stop being friends. Talk, laugh, joke, do things together, comfort and support each other. Times change, seasons come and seasons go. In good times and the bad give thanks to your God for that is his will for you.

At least once every six months every human being faces a hard time of mental, physical, financial or emotional pain. When that time of trouble comes you will be glad you kept a friend close by.

It is written: ‘Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble (Ecclesiastes 4:9).’