Health
Should Your Partner Really Be Your Best Friend?
Stephanie Lopez is effusive about her husband’s good qualities. He is a man of character, kindness and integrity, she said. He is a loving father and treats her with respect.
But is he her best friend?
“No!” said Ms. Lopez, who is 43 and lives on Hawaii’s Big Island.
“I don’t have sex with my friends,” she explained. “I don’t pay bills with my friends. And I guarantee you, if I did, it would change the whole dynamic of the relationship.”
The belief that your partner should be your best friend pops up everywhere, whether on social media or in the greeting card aisle. It’s not unusual to seek a romantic partner who fulfills more than the role of spouse, co-parent or lover, said Alexandra Solomon, a clinical psychologist and host of the “Reimagining Love” podcast.
“We want somebody who sees us and gets us,” Dr. Solomon said. “Well, that’s the same darn thing we want in our friendships. We really are craving that same sense of affinity and admiration.”
But is it unreasonable to expect your bedmate to be your best friend, or is it the highest form of intimacy?
A Spouse’s Ever-Changing Role
Jennifer Santiago, 42, and her husband are best friends.
The couple, who began dating in high school, have broken up briefly over the years, taking time apart to get to know themselves and what they want out of life. But their underlying friendship brought them back together every time, said Ms. Santiago, who lives in Orlando.
“There was always an empty void when we took a break,” she said. They realized: “Wow, we really, truly do everything together!”
Historically, that is a relatively new approach to romantic relationships, said Eli J. Finkel, a social psychologist and the author of “The All-Or-Nothing Marriage: How the Best Marriages Work.”
Until the mid-1800s, marriage in the United States mostly revolved around ensuring partners had their basic needs (like food and shelter) met — what Dr. Finkel calls the “pragmatic era.” Between 1850 and 1965, marriage entered the “love-based era” — in which the primary relationship functions were about love and companionship, he said. Since then, we have been in the “self-expressive” era — in which marriage is about not only love, but also personal growth.
“The marital relationship has taken on more and more responsibility for our social and psychological needs,” Dr. Finkel said.
How to Set Realistic Expectations
Is it a good or bad thing that many people now expect their romantic relationships to fulfill so many roles in their lives? Ultimately, that depends on “whether your relationship can deliver,” said Dr. Finkel, who is also a co-host of the “Love Factually” podcast.
He feels “delighted” for people who say they want their romantic partners to also be their best friends. But he suggests they consider: Are there other expectations they can let go of? For instance, he said, it is a lot to expect your partner to be the co-chief executive of the household, to split child care, to be your exclusive sexual companion and to be your best friend.
“I don’t want to sound like a scold,” Dr. Finkel said. “I just want people to be aware that every additional expectation that you’re throwing on top of your relationship comes with opportunity for enhanced closeness — and it comes with additional risk that the relationship will buckle under the weight of those expectations.”
He suggested releasing some of that pressure. Can you lean on other friends for emotional support? Are you OK being emotionally close to your partner, but not necessarily having the spiciest intimate life together?
Dr. Solomon believes that friendship, particularly best friendship, is not a requisite for long-term intimacy. But it doesn’t hurt either, she said.
Liking your partner — which she described as admiring them, finding them funny, caring about their worldview, and having fun simply being together — can “cushion” the other relationship challenges a couple might face, she said.
But Dr. Solomon admitted that while she adores her husband of 26 years, he is not her best friend. “My best friend’s name is Ali, and she lives in Seattle,” she said. “She’s been in that spot since we were 10 years old.”
Ultimately, maintaining a tight romantic bond may come down to managing expectations and clearly discussing them, said Adam Fisher, president of the American Psychological Association’s division for couple and family psychology.
Dr. Fisher had a mentor who described marriage and relationships as best friendship plus sex. While he thinks that is one “very viable” approach to a relationship, he said, it is by no means the only one.
“Couples need some kind of ‘glue’ — commitment, shared values, sex, finances — something,” he said, but it doesn’t need to be friendship.
Ms. Lopez is opting out of the bedmate-as-BFF paradigm.
“I think we put so many expectations and responsibilities on our partners,” she said. “I’m not here to be everything and all things to you.”
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As colorectal cancer (CRC) is now the leading cause of cancer death in adults under 50, a new report reveals some surprising shifts in the incidence of the disease.
Although rates of CRC have been declining among seniors, those 65 and under are facing a rise in diagnoses, according to a report titled Colorectal Cancer Statistics, 2026, from the American Cancer Society.
Adults 65 and younger comprise nearly half (45%) of all new colorectal cancer cases — a significant increase from 27% in 1995, states the report, which was published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
The disease is rising fastest among adults 20 to 49 years old, at a rate of 3% per year.
Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death in adults under 50. (iStock)
Among adults 50 and under, 75% of colorectal cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage. Half of the diagnoses in that age range are made between the ages of 45 and 49. Although that age group is eligible to receive routine screenings, just 37% do so.
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The report also revealed that rectal cancer is on the rise, now accounting for about one-third (32%) of all CRC cases — an increase from 27% in the mid-2000s.
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“After decades of progress, the risk of dying from colorectal cancer is climbing in younger generations of men and women, confirming a real uptick in disease because of something we’re doing or some other exposure,” said Rebecca Siegel, senior scientific director, surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the report, in a press release.
Among adults 50 and under, 75% of colorectal cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage. Half of the diagnoses in that age range are made between the ages of 45 and 49. (iStock)
“We need to redouble research efforts to understand the cause, but also circumvent deaths through earlier detection by educating clinicians and the general public about symptoms and increasing screening in people 45-54 years.”
It is projected that 158,850 new cases of colorectal cancer will be diagnosed this year, and that the disease will cause 55,230 deaths, per the report.
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More than half of CRC cases can be linked to high-risk behaviors, the researchers said. Those include lack of nutrition, high alcohol consumption, smoking, lack of exercise and obesity.
“These findings further underscore that colorectal cancer is worsening among younger generations and highlight the immediate need for eligible adults to begin screening at the recommended age of 45,” said Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer at the American Cancer Society.
When the disease is caught at a local (early) stage, the five-year survival rate is 95%. (iStock)
“The report also shines a light on the crucial importance of continued funding for research to help discover new therapies to treat the disease and advance patient care.”
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When the disease is caught at a local (early) stage, the five-year survival rate is 95%, the report stated.
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A new study suggests that middle-aged men may be more vulnerable to faster biological aging, potentially linked to exposure to “forever chemicals.”
The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Aging, examined how perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, more commonly known as PFAS, could impact aging at the cellular level.
PFAS are synthetic chemicals commonly used in nonstick cookware, food packaging, water-resistant fabrics and other consumer products, the study noted.
Their chemical structure makes them highly resistant to breaking down, allowing them to accumulate in water, soil and the human body.
Chinese researchers analyzed blood samples from 326 adults enrolled in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1999 and 2000.
A new study suggests that middle-aged men could face accelerated biological aging at the cellular level due to exposure to PFAS. (iStock)
The researchers measured levels of 11 PFAS compounds in participants’ blood and used DNA-based “epigenetic clocks” — tools that analyze chemical changes to DNA to estimate biological age — to determine how quickly their bodies were aging at the cellular level, the study stated.
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Two compounds, perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) and perfluorooctanesulfonamide (PFOSA), were detected in 95% of participants.
Higher concentrations of those chemicals were associated with faster biological aging in men of certain age groups, but not in women.
“People should not panic.”
The compounds most strongly linked to accelerated aging were not the PFAS chemicals that typically receive the most public attention, the researchers noted.
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“The associations were strongest in adults aged 50 to 64, particularly in men,” Dr. Xiangwei Li, professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and the study’s corresponding author, told Fox News Digital.
“While this does not establish that PFAS cause aging, it suggests that these widely present ‘forever chemicals’ may be linked to molecular changes related to long-term health and aging.”
The study found that two of the compounds were detected in 95% of participants, and higher levels were linked to faster biological aging in men ages 50–64. (iStock)
Midlife may represent a more sensitive biological period, when the body becomes more vulnerable to age-related stressors, according to the researchers.
Lifestyle factors, such as smoking, may influence biological aging markers, potentially increasing vulnerability to environmental pollutants.
While Li said “people should not panic,” she does recommend looking for reasonable ways to reduce exposure.
That might mean checking local drinking water reports, using certified water filters designed to reduce PFAS, and limiting the use of stain- or grease-resistant products when alternatives are available.
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Meaningful reductions in PFAS exposure will likely depend on broader regulatory action and environmental cleanup efforts, Li added.
The researchers noted that midlife could be a particularly sensitive stage, when the body is more susceptible to stressors associated with aging. (iStock)
Study limitations
The researchers outlined several important limitations of the research, including that the findings show an association, but do not prove that PFAS directly causes accelerated aging.
“The study is cross-sectional, meaning exposure and aging markers were measured at the same time, so we cannot determine causality,” Li told Fox News Digital.
The study was also relatively small, limited to 326 adults age 50 or older, which means the findings may not apply to younger people or broader populations.
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Researchers measured PFAS levels using data collected between 1999 and 2000, and today’s exposure patterns may differ.
Li added that while PFAS is known to persist in the environment and the body, these results should be validated through larger, more recent studies that follow participants over time.
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