The Other Significant Others

Why do we assume romantic relationships are more important than friendships? What do we lose when we expect a spouse to meet all our needs? And what can we learn about commitment, love, and family from people who put deep friendship at the centre of their lives?

In The Other Significant Others, NPR's Rhaina Cohen invites us into the lives of people—spanning age and religion, gender and sexuality, and more—who have defied convention by choosing a friend as a life partner. Their riveting stories unsettle widespread assumptions about relationships and reveal how freeing and challenging it can be to embrace a relationship model that society doesn't recognise. They show that orienting your world around friends isn't limited to daydreams and episodes of The Golden Girls, but is actually possible in real life.

Based on years of original reporting and striking social science research, Cohen argues that we undermine romantic relationships by expecting too much of them, while we diminish friendships by expecting too little. At a time when many Americans are spending large stretches of their lives single, widowed, divorced, or feeling the effects of the "loneliness epidemic," The Other Significant Others challenges us to ask what we want from our relationships—not just what we're supposed to want—and transforms how we define a fulfilling life.