#219: Should Your Partner Be Your Best Friend? with Rhaina Cohen

Mary’s Cup of Tea: the Self-Love Podcast for Women

It’s common for wedding vows to mention how one’s partner is their “best friend.” But what does that say about our best friends who we’re not married to? And does this put too much pressure on one person to be everything for you?

Back in 2020, journalist Rhaina Cohen wrote an article for the Atlantic titled “What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?” Not only did this piece go viral, it also paved the way Rhaina Cohen’s book, the Other Significant Others about reimagining the role of friendships in our lives.

Today Rhaina joins us to discuss…
- how/ why prioritizing platonic friendships actually makes your romantic relationship better
- the historical role that friends and marriages used to play and how that’s changed over time
- tips for taking your friendships from surface-level to depth

Relationships come in many different forms. Some are platonic, some are romantic, some blur the lines of both. As we grapple with what’s been declared as a loneliness epidemic, we must revere all types of relationships and give them the attention they deserve.

Follow Rhaina on Instagram: @rhainacohen
Get Rhaina’s book, The Other Significant Others:

Rhaina Cohen is a long-form journalist, author of the bestselling book The Other Significant Others, and producer and editor for NPR’s Embedded. Outside of NPR, she’s written for various publications, including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and The New Republic. Rhaina Cohen has a B.A. in American Studies from Northwestern University and an MPhil in Comparative Social Policy from Oxford, where she was a Marshall Scholar and did research in Denmark and Iceland on paternity leave policies. She has given talks at NASA and at universities in the U.S., U.K., and Ireland and lucky for you, on the Mary’s Cup of Tea Podcast!

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Mentioned In This Episode...
The Moth conversation cards
Atlantic article “What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?”