We Ruined The Friendship: A Story of True Like
- Lindsay
- Jun 2
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 3
Today, Seth and I celebrate twenty years of marriage, which feels both impossibly long and strangely fast.
Before I go any further, I want to acknowledge that relationship stories can be complicated to read depending on personal experiences. Some people are celebrating alongside you. Others are grieving the end of a relationship, rebuilding one after betrayal, navigating loneliness, or living a life that looks very different than the one they imagined. Because of that, I tried to be thoughtful about how I wrote this.
This isn’t a post about a perfect, fairytale marriage. I don’t want to offer a polished highlight reel or pretend we’ve got it all figured out. We don’t. This is just a compilation of several reflections I’ve combined about our personal story…our friendship, partnership, teamwork, and what I’ve learned from twenty years of evolving and growing with another imperfect human.
This isn’t a love story.
It’s a “like” story about two swim buddies who decided to “ruin the friendship.”
Several years ago, someone shared an observation about Seth and I that stuck with me. She said, “Seth and Lindsay don’t just love each other. They actually still like each other!”
It was a glimpse of our relationship through someone else's eyes. It was honest and insightful. Unsolicited observations like that are rare, which is perhaps why the comment has stayed with me for so many years. It also stayed with me because she brought up a valid point: Love and like aren’t always the same thing.
Love is rooted in commitment, history, loyalty, and concern for another person’s well-being. Love can exist even when a relationship is struggling. You can love someone and not particularly enjoy being around them. You can love someone and still feel drained by them. You can love someone and still feel very alone.
Liking someone is different. Liking is built on emotional safety, ease, mutual respect, genuinely enjoying the person’s presence. Liking is spending time together not because you feel like you should or have to, but because you want to.
Seth and I really liked each other before we loved each other. We were good friends. Our relationship began as a friendship in August of 1999 that lasted over four years before it became romantic. But there was a spark there from the very beginning. The only reason I know this for sure is because apparently everyone else saw it first. I lost count of the number of people who told us we should just date, or who would jokingly ask if we were together yet, confidently predicting that we would end up married eventually. We tried to deny it. Or, at least, I did.
For me, I was terrified to lose what we had. Seth has always completely accepted me for who I am, even then. I’ve never experienced a safer space than the one I do with him. He’s the most trustworthy person I know. He’s never been one to tell me what I want to hear. Hanging out with him felt (and still does) so easy. We were the kind of friends who could sit in comfortable silence. The kind that could go months without seeing or talking to each other and then pick up right where we left off. He would randomly call and ask if I wanted to go cruise. He had a Pontiac Firebird and he would take the t-tops off. I loved, and still love, wind therapy. We would just listen to music and cruise. This is something we still do:)
Friendships like that are rare and special. Crossing the line from friendship into something more felt risky. I wasn’t afraid of getting my heart broken. I was afraid of losing one of my favorite people. There’s a Taylor Swift song called “Ruin The Friendship,” and every time I hear it, I smile because it reminds me of young us.
“Staying friends is safe, doesn't mean you should.
My advice is always ruin the friendship.
Better that than regret it for all time.
Should've kissed you anyway.”
I did it! I kissed him anyway. Right there on his front lawn and I’ll never forget it. In my memory, it plays like the kiss in The Notebook. Super dramatic and passionate, two people finally giving in to what had been building for months. In reality, it was probably a little more awkward and a lot less photogenic. But that’s the thing about real love, it rarely looks as polished as it does in the movies or on social media.
Taking that risk was the best decision of my life. Twenty years later, I can confidently say we absolutely did not ruin the friendship. We built a marriage on top of it. What started as friendship eventually became something even deeper and eventually we grew into swim buddies.
I’ve always been fascinated by the extensive mental and physical training of elite military units like the Navy SEALs. In one of Admiral William McRaven’s books he talks about how every person in training is assigned a “swim buddy.” The relationship extends far beyond the water. Your swim buddy is the person you are tethered to in the dark. If your oxygen runs out, they share theirs. You check their parachute before you jump into enemy territory together. They watch “your six” to keep you safe. You never leave them behind. No matter how brutal the conditions become, you are responsible for helping each other make it through.
Swim buddies aren't just for military training or marriage. We all need them. And I don’t mean the people who only tell us what we want to hear, or the ones who disappear the second life stops being fun. I mean the rare people who will tell you when you're being irrational, stubborn, difficult. The people who will sit silently beside us in grief. The people who are genuinely, selflessly happy about your wins. The people who check your parachute before you jump.
Some people find that unconditional safety in a spouse. Others find it in a best friend, a sibling, a parent, a coworker, or a tiny, trusted circle. The point isn’t who your swim buddy is. The point is simply having one. We all need someone we can trust implicitly to support us, and sometimes straight up carry us, through the hard times.
I started referring to Seth as my swim buddy. I also tell him he’s Michael and I’m Scottie (sometimes Rodman😆😅). He’s Maverick and I’m Goose. He’s Batman and I’m Robin. He tells me that sometimes I’m Michael, Maverick, and Batman, but I didn’t ask him to specify what percent of the time. I’ll just run with it. Something I admire and envy (a healthy envy) about Seth is he is naturally better at leading teams. I still consider myself a leader just in a different way. I lead from the bench which is still an important role. Part of what makes us a successful team is knowing our strengths and areas of improvement. He continues to remind me that that MJ and Pippen together is what made him so successful😊.
I used to believe in the concept of soulmates, but have changed my mind. I think the idea of a soulmate implies that a relationship is magically effortless. The truth is that successful relationships demand intentional effort. They require you to become deeply comfortable with being uncomfortable. They are built on difficult conversations and lots of compromise.
When I think about our years together, I don’t just think about the highlights. I think about all the ordinary moments nobody else sees…our daily conversations, the support, the encouragement, the honesty, the forgiveness, the patience, the inside jokes. I think about our walks together, workouts, country cruising, running errands, cooking together, weekly date nights (more like mid-late afternoon dates), weekly breakfast dates, and how much fun we have just being at home especially Friday nights in our comfies. Those moments don’t make for dramatic social media posts, but they’re where our relationship is actually built.
We’ve learned and have grown so much in twenty years. There’s still so much learning and growing, but I do know this much is true:
I love Seth deeply. But more than that, I do really really like him. I like the way his brain works. I like how he treats people. I like how he treats me. I like falling asleep with him. I like waking up next to him. I like our check in texts and calls throughout the day. I like how he’s always looking out for me. I like how he makes me laugh. I genuinely enjoy his presence.
I like, love, and am proud of the life we’ve built together, on our own terms, without conforming to anyone else's expectations of what a marriage "should" look like.
To Seth: Thank you for being my best friend, anchor, my person, co-pilot, partner, teammate, workout buddy and the ultimate swim buddy. Thank you for being my real life Jordan, Maverick and Batman…and sometimes Pippen, Goose, and Robin😉. You’re my hero. I love AND like you so much! Happy Anniversary!
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