The Other Significant Others

Reimagining Life with Friendship at the Center

By: Rhaina Cohen

Narrated by: Rhaina Cohen

Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

"Author Rhaina Cohen’s vocal warmth and commitment to her ideas make this a touching audiobook. Her thinking and humanitarian spirit are well served by a performance that resonates with her broad sociological perspectives, as well as her desire to connect with listeners."—AudioFile

This program is read by the author.

"Rhaina Cohen’s moving, intimate portraits of people in unusually devoted friendships upend our cultural narratives about which relationships matter . . . an arresting work of compassion and insight."—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and co-host of Dear Therapists podcast

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 center of their lives?

In The Other Significant Others, NPR's Rhaina Cohen invites us into the lives of people who have defied convention by choosing a friend as a life partner—these are friends who are home co-owners, co-parents or each other’s caregivers. Their riveting stories unsettle widespread assumptions about relationships, including the idea that sex is a defining feature of partnership and that people who raise kids together should be in a romantic relationship. Platonic partners from different walks of life—spanning age and religion, gender and sexuality and more—reveal how freeing and challenging it can be to embrace a relationship model that society doesn't recognize. And they show that orienting your world around friends isn't limited to daydreams and episodes of The Golden Girls, but 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 of them. She traces how, throughout history, our society hasn’t always fixated on marriage as the greatest source of meaning, or even love. At a time when many Americans are spending large stretches of their lives single, widowed or divorced, or feeling the effects of the "loneliness epidemic," Cohen insists that we recognize the many forms of profound connection that can anchor our lives. A rousing and incisive book, 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

©2024 Rhaina Cohen (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Rhaina Cohen’s moving, intimate portraits of people in unusually devoted friendships upend our cultural narratives about which relationships matter. A perceptive and vivid reporter, she reveals that there are far more pathways to deep connection and fulfillment than we’ve been made to believe. The Other Significant Others is an arresting work of compassion and insight."—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and co-host of Dear Therapists podcast

"In her lovingly written The Other Significant Others, Rhaina Cohen does crucial work by questioning easy social categorization and the hierarchies of recognition and privilege that too often put romantically coupled pairs at the top. The Other Significant Others is energetic, open, considered, and beautifully reported. It thrums with a passion for the subject, and is powered by a historically rich, intellectually serious curiosity about the relationships that provide backbone and ballast to so many of our lives, but which have only recently begun to receive the consideration they are due."—Rebecca Traister, New York Times bestselling author of All the Single Ladies and Good and Mad

"An absorbing overhaul of everything you thought you knew about friendship. The Other Significant Others is a platonic revelation and a revolution."—Marisa Franco, New York Times bestselling author of Platonic

Absolutely phenomenal!

The book provides a fresh perspective on what friendship can be in a way that is deeply compelling and very well written. Also, the way the book is read by the author makes it even better.

Awakening of Relationships

This read helped me define various relationships I have and have had throughout my life path.

Such an important idea -thank you writing this

This book is well written and nicely narrated. This is such an important idea and it’s amazing how little it’s discussed. Thank you for also including asexuality in the discussion. There are so many other ways to have meaningful connections in life and it’s comforting to know I’m not the only one who feels that way!

I want everyone to read this book

I loved this book and want to tell everyone to read and/or listen to it. The stories were inspiring, illuminating, and thought provoking; and, the historical knowledge imparted about friendship and marriage felt revelatory and accessible. More than that, I found the idea of reimagining life with friendship (or just something other than the default of coupledom) at the center very compelling. Considering the challenging and uncertain times we live in as well as the fact that there is no safety net for most of us, regardless of relationship status, makes it even more persuasive. It takes a village...to raise children...and to do so many things...like save the world. Why limit ourselves to the prescribed defaults? In addition to this, it's no secret that we're experiencing an epidemic of loneliness. We have been for some time. The antidote to loneliness is connection, and this book opens up the possibilities in terms of who and how we connect as well as demonstrating the importance and joy of prioritizing connection. All that said, I highly recommend this book and suggest you give it a go. I accessed it via audiobook, which is read by the author, and found it absolutely delightful. 

Lots of research

Loved getting an inside view into these kinds of friendships and understanding the challenges and rewards that can come with them.

An absolute must read

thought provoking and immersive, the stories collected within and the research presented will occupy my mind for a long time to come. recommending this to everyone I know

Grateful to have come across this book

This book came as an answer to the questions and concerns I’ve had about marriage, friendship, parenthood, and community in the US. This book expanded my worldview and presented possibilities I never considered. It has encouraged me to pursue friendship more voraciously and thoughtfully. This book has re-presented parenthood as an option for me as parenthood in the traditional two-parent household appears so unsavory that I’d essentially taken it off the table. My partner and I have been telling everyone we know about this book related podcasts and articles. Grateful for this lifeline.

The various types of friendships are vastly under represented

I love how the author brought to life the often overlooked and undermined friendships that bring color into our universe. My friends and I discuss this book at length at our virtual book club. I wish she highlighted healthy friendship dynamics between heterosexual men and women.

The New Way

So many great concepts and new ways to think about partnerships, relationships, love, intimacy, and frendship. Open your mind and it will change the way you look at all the relationships around you

A brilliant inquiry into prioritizing friendships from a personal, legal, societal, and prospective level.

I am heartened after listening to Rhaina speak to so many examples of how beautiful friendship is and can be, and the desperate need in our society to create models and language of its importance. As someone who is drafting new and unconventional relationships in my own life, I felt deeply affirmed and hopeful throughout this book, hearing nuanced examinations into the ways that friendship could and should be granted at least a similar kind of acknowledgement as parent/child/sibling/or spouse.

As our world continues down a slippery slope of increasing inflation, cultural divides among generations and even family members, it seems that our communities and close relationships play an ever more important role in our well being… and I believe this to be a good thing. I sincerely hope that efforts like this book, which is deftly and beautifully narrated by the author, will begin to lift the veil of what is and isn’t possible for us as humans, to grow, learn and love in ways that astound us… that we can have, do and be so much more with others than we can in sequestered isolation.

If you are considering this book from a of monogamy or non-monogamy viewpoint, the perspectives offered in this book should offer validation to a plethora of relationship styles, but should be noted that it is wholly focused on validating those relationships that do not hold sex as a feature of an intimate bond. I highly recommend delving into listening to this gem of investigative journalism, and to let yourself be moved by stories of love that transcend the obvious and the revered.