Q:

Being a queer woman, the line between friendship and something more can sometimes feel blurry—not necessarily romantically or sexually, but emotionally. I love my wife’s best friend. She’s also a good friend of mine. The three of us met around the same time about seven years ago (my wife and I were already together), and she’s genuinely one of the most wonderful people I know.

She moved overseas about a year ago, so most of the time this isn’t an issue. But whenever she comes back to visit, everything slips back into old patterns.
I think my wife is emotionally infatuated with her best friend. Not in a sexual or romantic way, but in a way that feels… outsized.

My wife has struggled with anxiety, depression, and now postpartum depression. It often feels like her happiness hinges on this friendship. Our friend is a musician, and when she’s in town my wife goes to every single one of her shows without fail, even though she rarely wants to go out otherwise.

I also get the sense that our friend feels some pressure from my wife’s intensity. She doesn’t seem to reciprocate quite the same level of emotional investment, and I sometimes wonder whether she feels responsible for my wife’s happiness.

This isn’t just something I’ve imagined. My best friend brought it up completely unprompted, saying it must be hard watching so much of my wife’s emotional energy go into another relationship. The hardest part is how invisible I can feel when they’re together. It’s never because of our friend—she always includes me and makes me feel welcome. It’s my wife. When she’s with her best friend, it’s like the rest of the world disappears. There have been multiple occasions where I’ve felt forgotten or deprioritised.

One example has always stuck with me. We were at a music festival with a group of friends. My wife, her best friend, and I were watching a band when her friend wanted to go and catch up with some other people she knew. My wife went with her. I told my wife, “Just come back and grab me when you’re done,” because I wanted to keep watching the band but didn’t want to be left alone trying to find everyone later. She never came back. I waited by myself for about an hour, long after the band had finished, assuming they’d return. Eventually I realised they’d simply forgotten me. When I told my wife how hurt I was, she brushed it off by saying she thought our other friends were coming to find me. That completely missed the point. It wasn’t about whether I was technically alone—it was about feeling forgotten by my partner.

What makes this so difficult is that I know my wife loves me. Our marriage is solid, and I genuinely don’t believe there’s any romantic tension between them. But when they’re together, I see a version of my wife that I rarely get to experience myself. She lights up. She laughs. She seems lighter, happier, more alive. It’s beautiful to witness, but it’s also painful when you’re the person who shares the everyday realities of depression with her. It sometimes feels like all of her limited reserves of joy are poured into this other relationship.

I don’t want my wife to have less joy. I don’t want her to have fewer close friendships. I also don’t think it’s healthy to expect your partner to meet every emotional need. But where is the line?

At what point does an emotionally intense friendship start to come at the expense of your primary relationship? Am I being insecure, or is it reasonable to feel hurt when your partner consistently seems to prioritise someone else in these moments? And if this is something worth raising, how do I talk about it without sounding jealous of someone I genuinely love and admire?

A:

The connections we queer women form with each other can be very intense. It’s no joke that queer women tend to love the ‘found family’ trope for a reason.

Being straight with you here (pun intended): I think your relationship would benefit from couples counseling — especially your wife. Not because the issues you’ve written about are extreme or abnormal, but more because they’re in the exact scope of what couples counseling can help with. Namely, there’s a lot of nuance to this dynamic that you find hurtful, but it’s also not yet unsalvageable. I think therapy was made for this kind of scenario.

That being said, I’ll try to shed light on your wife’s behavior and workshop how you might approach her about your feelings.

You mention your wife struggles with anxiety, depression, and postpartum depression. I’m confident stating that these mental health issues shape your wife’s relationships. Daily mental health struggles are especially impactful on the people we’re closest to and most emotionally invested in. The keyword here is ‘shaping’ — her psyche will affect her interpersonal connections, but the results will look very different from person to person. It won’t always be immediately obvious if the shaping is in a good or bad way.

Having a partner with mental health issues can entail withdrawing from you emotionally in search of idealized external relationships. It’s not necessarily that she doesn’t love you or that the external relationship is inherently more joyful. I think the word ‘yearning’ is relevant here, those of us who suffer from it yearn in different ways.

In my experience, anxious/depressed partners can feel like they’re disappointing you. It can compound over time, leading to a belief that they’re incapable of meeting your expectations or being the person you need. They might feel overwhelmed by the shame of relying on you, or showing you the worst parts of themselves. In an effort to avoid these feelings, they may end up becoming avoidant of you. That’s part of the self-perpetuating and destructive nature of bad mental health. The behavior isn’t always conscious or rational, but it’s somehow destructive and self-fulfilling.

They may turn to other relationships that aren’t ‘tainted’ by their mental health struggles. It could be a kind of idealization of a ‘better’ world they can’t create in their present. It’s easier to be joyful and spontaneous with these friends precisely because the weight of long-term living isn’t there.

To me, her best friend’s visits are times that allow your wife to express an idealized version of life in a compartmentalized way. And they end before the distress and hurt within can catch up and sour the moment. The risk of idealizing people and situations is they’re a kind of escapism that usually ends before things go wrong — which confirms the belief that this is perfect. Or that ‘ideal’ person or scenario becomes reality and the distress catches up and twists it all up. I don’t know exactly what your wife gets out of these visits, but I have a feeling they’re filling an unresolved void in her psyche.

Another hypothesis: Spending time with her best friend may affirm your wife’s personhood outside of marriage and parenting. Holding onto individual self-worth when you’ve been in a marriage with kids is difficult. Many parents also struggle with the sense that their own lives and identities get deprioritized as responsibilities take the fore. This can lead to idealizing other realities or needing bursts of escapism. If this is happening, this too is being shaped by her mental health. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make the most of rare time together — I get very clingy for a few days when my long-distance friends visit. There is something up when it’s so intense that other relationships feel completely neglected during the visit.

As ever, thinking about her motivations doesn’t lessen their emotional impact on you. This dynamic is a source of tension in your relationship and is making you unhappy. That alone makes it worth raising.

If my guesses landed in the same postal code as your wife’s actual motivations… approaching her bluntly about it could backfire really badly. I normally favour directness, but saying “I feel like you enjoy and prioritise your best friend over me, oh and also…” could easily be seen as jealous or accusatory. That might lead down a path of defensiveness, shame, and even more avoidance — but worse, since there’s a feeling of hostility in the marriage.

You said you don’t have an issue with your wife’s best friend and you’re not concerned about there being infidelity. That’s a good thing. However, your wife’s friendship might be a foil for the unresolved distress in her mental health. From what I read of you, you don’t want your wife to sacrifice this friendship for you. You just want to see more engagement in your marriage.

If you bring it up with your wife, I’d focus on your feelings in the relationship. Guiding statements that come to my mind are:

  • I feel like I’m not a priority.
  • I feel like spending time with me is not exciting or desirable anymore.
  • I feel insecure about your feelings about me.

These kinds of statements can feel very…therapy-speak. But by being vulnerable with your partner from the get-go, you can preempt some of the defensiveness. You’re not initiating an argument or disagreement about your wife’s other connections. You’re asking for her help to feel more secure and loved.

I would avoid bringing up the best friend unless your wife asks for specific details about why you feel deprioritized. When her name does come up, I’d couch the talk in what you’ve already told me: that you love and respect your wife’s best friend, and you love how happy and joyful they are. You just also want more of that enthusiasm, too.

If your wife is open to more of this caring, you can move on to concrete suggestions. Setting aside designated date nights or adventures. Setting clear boundaries like ‘please check in with me when we’re with other people, and don’t leave without me’. Making time to talk about your respective passions and anxieties to build a connection. That kinda thing.

You’ve been together for a long time and you are a team. That’s critical to being a family. However, nurturing your shared bond is also valuable and I hope she’s on board with that. The mundanity of a settled life may not look like it matches the infatuation of rare novelty. That’s okay. We’re not trying to chase a new relationship honeymoon period here. But I think you’re mature and courageous enough to try and foster new excitement together. Your relationship sounds like it’s built on sound foundations already. I hope it flourishes anew.