Thread: Compound Living: From Best Friends to Platonic Spouses

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/f...c-spouses.html

Some people are taking their friendships to the next level by saying “I do” to marriages without sex.





First came blood brothers, best friends who would solidify their bond by cutting themselves and swapping a bit of blood. Then came the tiny house besties, friends moving into adjoining tiny homes. (“Bestie Row” in Texas, for example.)

Today some people are taking their friendships a giant step further: They are platonically marrying each other, vowing to never leave each other’s side for better or for worse.

On Nov. 14, 2020 at Greenwood Hall in East Islip, N.Y., Jay Guercio and Krystle Purificato donned wedding gowns, walked down the aisle, exchanged rings and shared their first and only kiss. Ms. Purificato is in the process of changing her last name to Guercio.

“I want her to continue to be my best friend and my life partner,” said Ms. Guercio, a 23-year-old student studying professional communications at Farmingdale State College.

The besties, both queer and open to dating anyone but each other, met in 2011, and decided to get married in September. They sleep in the same bed but their relationship remains platonic.

Ms. Guercio and Ms. Purificato wanted to get married because they wanted to be legally and socially recognized as a family.

“We wanted the world to know we are each other’s go-to person in the world, and to be able to handle legal matters with the other appropriately,” Ms. Guercio said. “We are a couple, a unit and partners for life.”

Ms. Guercio said their marriage is stable, it’s long-lasting and it has no conditions.

There are no statistics about the number of platonic, best-friend marriages, and many people who are in them aren’t open about their situation. But chat boards on Reddit and within smaller asexual and aromantic communities have popped up recently, suggesting this could be a larger portion of the marriage population than numbers portray. (Asexual is defined as having no sexual feelings or desires; aromantic means having no desire for a romantic relationship. Hetero-monogamous is a sexual relationship between a man and a woman.)

“It should be acknowledged that we’ve really normalized heterosexual monogamous romantic relationships to the point of stigmatizing other kinds of relationships,” said Nick Bognar, a marriage and family therapist in Pasadena, Calif. “All of this is to say, I think this probably happens a lot, but people don’t talk about it much because their relationships are invalidated by others when they’re seen as not being part of the norm.”

This is un-French Toast-believable. They would rather destroy the family unit and cause potential damage to their children and do "compound living" with one another than with another man.

30 years ago you'd go out and you'd see two men two women in a double date. Now it's 4 women together sipping wine together. That's two couples.



Then you got Auntie Kim, another single mother, cohabitating with you and y'all are taking care of each other's kids.

I remember one of the arguments against gay marriage was that people would start doing this kind of thing for the tax benefits.

Originally Posted by DolphinPilot

lmao figures the preacher has blue hair and foot tattoos.

Even she looks like she thinks the whole thing is stupid

This is what BLM was pushing on it's website before taking it down. Marxism, plain and simple. Co-pareting is the first step, next step is commune parenting. Brave New World..

Originally Posted by Pumpinmirin

What's the point if you don't get to bang?

For US military, increased base pay, allowance for housing, allowance for food, medical and dental coverage and probably more.

Originally Posted by dabbmw2002

This is what BLM was pushing on it's website before taking it down. Marxism, plain and simple. Co-pareting is the first step, next step is commune parenting. Brave New World..

Yep!

You got your PhD.
You got your dog.
Now you got your girlfriend Kim.

Sounds legitimate. Going to Mary my co worker Axel next week.