Does being 'friends with benefits' actually ever work? Photo / 123RF
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Hi,
I’ve been in a “friends with benefits” situation with a mate of mine for about six months now and we’re both happy with the arrangement. The rest of our friend group, however, keep raising concerns about it, saying it will only end up in disaster and will split our friend group up. I don’t want to ruin our friendship but I also don’t want to stop. Is there a way we can make the friends with benefits set-up work? Cheers - Rory
Dear Rory,
It’s lovely that you belong to such a close and caring group of friends, and it’s also great that you have a “friends with benefits” arrangement that is working for you.
The short answer is “yes” you can make a FWB set-up work. The longer answer is that, like all relationships, there are no guarantees it will work. How honest you are with yourselves and each other will hugely influence how the relationship plays out.
Playing devil’s advocate, we’re curious whether your friends would be just as concerned if you had started a serious relationship with each other. That would also pose risks to your friendship group – potentially greater ones. Just because a relationship has a different form does not mean it has to end in drama. It may be valuable for you to raise questions about the assumptions your friends are operating under.
Do they think that conventional, committed relationships are somehow “safer”? If so, explore with them why they believe that. It’s not factually accurate. Aside from romantic or sexual relationships, “bust-ups” can occur in friendship groups for many reasons and can cause tensions requiring skillful navigation (many people lost friends over the vaccine mandates or even the recent election).
We are now in a space socially where, thankfully, there are many more forms of relationships open for people to explore. Non-traditional relationship forms often invite higher awareness, communication and direct agreement about their parameters because assumptions are not so easily made. This can be an advantage over the often misaligned assumptions that prevail in many conventional relationships. Nic began his book with a whole chapter on this because it’s such a problem in long-term committed hetero relationships.
Focusing on your FWB relationship, if you’ve made it work for six months, you’re probably doing some things right already. So, forgive us if we’re telling you things you already know. A key is ensuring you both operate from the same set of expectations and guidelines.
To maximise your chances of things going well, have upfront conversations about things like exclusivity (it would be easy to assume that FWB would never mean “exclusive”, but it’s best never to assume and always discuss). You must be clear about boundaries about sexual health and expectations around your availability for emotional support. How and when do we contact each other to arrange a meet-up? How much or little do you like the other to hang around after sex? Do you ever spend a night together? Who will you let know about your arrangement? Guidelines for PDAs (public displays of affection) – especially with your anxious friends!
As with any relationship, it’s not enough to talk about these things upfront. Having ongoing “check-ins” about how things are going will increase the chances of things running smoothly and even ending smoothly when the time comes. It is essential that as your arrangement is casual, you are both frequently checking in with yourself regarding your ability to accept dropping the FWB arrangements at any time.
In particular, if one or both of you are open to dating others seeking a more committed relationship, it would be friendly to keep each other updated on any moves in that direction in other parts of your love life.
All of this presupposes that you are sufficiently self-aware and accurately track your emotions and thoughts about your FWB partner. It is important to keep a close watch on changing thoughts and feelings about the relationship. It can be argued that casual sex with a friend is more likely to end in emotional entanglement, as we usually already like and care about our friends, increasing the risk of slipping into deeper feelings for each other.
If you are getting more attached and could not cope with dropping the arrangement without quite a bit of upset, it is time to get real that this is no longer operating casually for you. Our unconscious is very powerful, so you both must reflect deeply that you are not saying it is only casual while harbouring any secret hopes that it might evolve into something else. This could be a recipe for pain for both of you and drama for the friendship group. Take good care of yourselves and each other, and encourage intermittent deep-dive reflections like this.
Of course, your feelings can change in the other direction – it is also crucial to say something if you start feeling obliged or trapped by the arrangement. Resentment is just as likely to damage your friendship as jealousy.
On the other hand, others will argue that they know their friend exceptionally well, and the one thing they are very, very sure about is that they would never consider their friend to be serious relationship material. In another sense, this can give more surety that things are highly unlikely to evolve into one of you wanting the relationship to become something more.
As soon as there are hints that it is getting complicated and not working well for either of you emotionally, socially or sexually, stop and talk and make adjustments. That might include considering ending the arrangements sooner rather than later to protect the valued friendship group and each other from hurt.
Reassure your friendship group that this is how you are handling things and intend to act. Then, gently ask them to settle their concerns and trust that you also care about the friendship group and each other and don’t want to blow anything apart.
Nothing in life is guaranteed, but if you and your FWB are doing your best to be honest and checking in often, then you’re doing all you can to have things go and potentially end smoothly.
• Verity & Nic are psychologists and family therapists who have specialised in relationship and sex therapy for more than 25 years. They have been working on their own relationship for more than 40 years and have two adult children.
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