Who counts as a significant other?

What It Covers

This episode examines how people define their most important relationships beyond traditional marriage, exploring intense platonic friendships, unconventional partnerships, single-by-choice lifestyles, and the role of dogs as significant companions in modern life.

Key Questions Answered

• •Platonic Life Partners: Journalist Reina Cohen lives with her husband and two close friends by choice, not financial necessity, and is planning to buy property with six friends to raise children communally in what they call "the village."
• •Relationship Customization: Therapist Stephanie Yates Anya Buile helps couples reject standard relationship norms—one couple called off their wedding, moved into separate homes, and improved their relationship by eliminating the pressure of blending families and cohabitating full-time.
• •Single At Heart Research: Social psychologist Bella DePaulo finds that long-term single people maintain more friendships, stay closer to siblings, and provide more community support than married couples, who become more insular after moving in together regardless of having children.
• •Historical Friendship Models: Ancient Rome featured friends describing each other as "half of my soul," while sworn brotherhood ceremonies in China, Jordan, and England formalized platonic bonds with rituals, demonstrating that friendship-centered lives are historically validated, not modern anomalies.