Why Friendship Is Better Than Marriage, Even When It's Mean And Messy

Elle

22-05-2025

If stealing from a friend's bathroom isn't a cry for help, I don't know what is. I am a fortysomething woman who, in an act of rage, rummaged through a cabinet and stole a cream from a bathroom. Reader, it wasn't even Aesop.
My memories of the afternoon are hazy. I was at my oldest friend Katie's house. I'd slipped on the rug, and she had looked at me quizzically, as if to say, 'Are you OK?' It must have suddenly occurred to her how drunk I might be, how messy, how lost. And so, in shame, I pointed at the framed artworks on the walls. The art she'd just hung. The art she was proud of and had painstakingly collected all her life. 'All of your art is very… antisocial,' I said. She stared at me. 'And your cultural references are out of date.'
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I stood, missiles launched, waiting for the comeback. Katie didn't react; she stood quietly. And, frustrated by this lack of reaction, I performed my pièce de résistance: in a final, spectacularly teenage flourish, I stole a hand cream from her and then ran home.
My comments about Katie's art had been especially rude, because Katie and I are normally very sweet and loving with each other. We call each other 'darling' in messages. We are very considerate of each other's feelings. It was also bizarre. Antisocial… paintings? There was only one thing that was antisocial in that room, and it was me.
As for Katie being 'out of date' with her cultural references, I can only put that down to my own fear that I, myself, might be becoming irrelevant. But there was an evil logic to these insults. As she later put it: 'It was a very niche burn.' It was specifically tailored to her. It was a little bit true, like all the best insults are, especially when hurled at a friend you know so well – too well, maybe.
But it was what happened in the aftermath of that drunken outburst that has taught me the most about true love; it showed me the nuances of long-term friendship, the depth of the connection between me and my oldest friend, and how mean and messy that relationship can sometimes be. It showed me how, when you hit rock bottom, friends will always be there to pick you up.
Like most unravellings, mine had started sometime before. I had been under tremendous pressures: the weight of providing for a family; burnout from work; the TV industry (from which I earned most of my money) on pause; a husband recovering from cancer, a stroke and a heart operation that had all come in fast succession. I had undiagnosed autism and ADHD, and was on double my usual dose of anti-depressants to manage the anxiety. All this, against a wider backdrop of post-pandemic exhaustion, economic crisis and geopolitical unrest. It was all way too much. I was losing the plot.
Around this time, Katie was relocating from our home town of Manchester to live near me. She was moving in with her new man, and we were excited to be living close to each other. I had good friends around me, but I didn't have any friends in Brighton who I shared a long history with. I was about to appreciate the value of that.
Katie and I were tight in Manchester. We had met through a boyfriend of mine, but when that boyfriend and I broke up, Katie and I stayed close. I'd never met anyone like her. We'd instantly clicked. We both loved literature and sitting up late, drinking wine, discussing books and ideas. She was exciting and inspiring, clever and deep. She became a great advisor on my work. She has long been one of my best and most honest critics. I didn't realise how much I was going to need that for my life, as well as for my work.
When Katie had been in her new house a few weeks, she invited me and my family round for an afternoon barbecue. It was a good party – too good. I downed glass after glass of champagne, and quickly reached the point where I didn't really know what I was saying. Katie is a woman of exacting standards. She dresses immaculately. She speaks carefully and has high expectations. In return, she gives a lot. I realise, in saying this, that the dynamic sounds very parent-child. And even though this is partly true, as in all friendships, the power structure shifts and flips. There have been times, before and since the incident at her house, when I have given Katie what I hope is firm advice. In the best friendships, you take it in turns to be the one who needs and the one who gives. It sounds obvious, but it's worth remembering, especially when you've been the ridiculous needy one.
The morning after the great heist, I woke with a deep sense of doom, along with a rotten hangover. My husband tried to laugh it off, but I knew better, knew Katie better. As the evening came back to me in horrible burning shards of memory, I pieced together a grim picture. I found the hand cream in my bag and shuddered. Who was this person, with this hand cream in her bag? This chaotic mess who treated her friend so disrespectfully? I sat on my sofa and sobbed. I felt, for the first time in my life, like I didn't know who I was – like I was a million miles away from the woman I hoped I would be.
I tried to mop up the mess. I bought flowers and left them on her doorstep. I apologised profusely over text, but she wasn't satisfied with that. And not because she was being rude, but because she knew something bigger was going on. She wanted to talk. We set a time, and I felt like I was about to be dumped.
'Well,' she said calmly. 'That was very out of character.' I had to agree. And suddenly, there was a glimmer of hope – for the friendship, and for me – because the way Katie dealt with what happened was the beginning of my recovery. She didn't just say it was OK, but she didn't say our friendship was over, either. She said: 'Emma, I've seen you like this before.' This was a shocking thing to hear, not least because I wasn't aware of having been like this before. Funny, the things we miss about ourselves, the things we need a friend to see. 'You acted like this when you had post- natal depression in 2017, and also before that, when you were heartbroken in 2013. You had the same look in your eye and said the same sort of dickish things,' she elaborated.
To have someone present you with evidence of your decade- spanning patterns is like receiving a wild branch of kindness, especially when you have been so hurtful towards them. It is a privilege and a gift. Katie said she could see I was stressed out, traumatised and on the verge of being very ill. And she was right. She said she wanted to support me and help me figure it out. I needed to watch the booze on those anti-depressants. I needed to restructure my work life and my financial arrangement with my husband. I realise now that she risked a lot saying those things to me. No one wants to hear they've reverted.
Katie courageously put my madness into context. She picked me up off rock bottom. True friends can do that, and it won't always be in the ways you expect. But trust them, and they will pick you up and get you through. You'll have to do some work yourself, but they'll be there by your side. And so Katie and I moved forward, and life became more doable again. I've always believed that friendship is as valuable, enriching, complex and enduring as any other kind of love, but I hadn't seen it in action to this extent before. It is not unconditional. There is a deal involved – it's like marriage in that way. There can be forgiveness, but there must be bound- aries, set and reset, for that forgiveness to have any meaning.
It is interesting to me now, with all the benefits of hindsight, to see how I chose to implode that day in a safe place, at Katie's house. Or rather, in a place where I knew I would be challenged, held accountable and helped; a place where I would have a mirror held up to me and be forced to look at a rather unpleasant truth. None of this done out of spite or self-righteousness, all of it done out of love. It's the kind of thing a marriage should do, but that marriage doesn't always do. For many modern women, who have had friends for longer than they have had partners, I think friendship is better than marriage – it is more useful and more important in their lives.
It strikes me now that there is also something interesting in the structure of a friendship and in the unspoken expectations within them – until they are spoken, things manifest and a need for affirmation comes out. It's the difference between friendships being 100% permissive – the laissez-faire culture of 'You do you, babe' – that seems liberating on the surface, but might not be the best formula for growth. That kind of looseness feels better suited to the friendships we have when we are younger, where everyone does whatever they want.
The difference as we get older is that we start having higher standards for our friendships, not in an isolated or exclusive way, but in a responsive, supportive way. It's true, and it's love. If we lean into our friendships, we'll find the support we need at the most challenging times in our lives. And let's face it, life is pretty challenging at the moment, the world generally feels tough to be part of, whatever you might be going through as an individual, too.
Katie saved me from a complete breakdown. I appreciated, in real time, the power and value of a good, honest friend. Katie is a love of my life, and I am a love of hers. Thanks to her, I know so much more about what the definition of true and lasting love is. And before you ask, I did return the hand cream.
Emma Jane Unsworth's latest novel 'Slags' (Borough Press) is out now.
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