Friends, it is often said, are the family you choose. But sometimes, it goes the other way.
I met my brother-in-law, Rob, more than 20 years ago, when I was dating my now-wife and he was engaged to her sister. We were soon bumping into each other at family gatherings, and despite some slight differences, we bonded over a shared set of interests (’80s alternative music, John le Carré novels, soccer) and the fact that we were both outsiders navigating a family that was not our own.
Once we were official brothers-in-law, those gatherings became more frequent, and Rob’s presence was always an underlying draw, as we’d escape from the house to shoot hoops after Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas lunch. Our bond deepened when he and his wife, Heather, moved from Boston to the Catskills a few years later to open a restaurant, and my wife and I bought a small house nearby. I found myself helping out with their new business most weekends, even pitching in to cook when he was in a jam.
Neither that restaurant, nor that house, proved lasting, but what has endured is our friendship, one that reaches beyond easy familiarity and proximity at holidays. Lately, amid the widespread reports of a loneliness epidemic — particularly among men — I’ve been newly grateful for Rob, and reminded of a somewhat overlooked idea: Among your pool of in-laws you may find a new best friend, hiding in plain sight.
Out of the research that exists about family relationships, in-laws tend to receive scant attention — and brothers-in-law are practically invisible. (One of the few studies I could find — from Denmark — concluded that having a brother-in-law with a criminal record made one slightly more likely to gain a criminal record as well.)
But in-laws are interesting. In a big-picture evolutionary sense, “affines,” as in-laws are called among researchers, don’t seem all that different from blood relations. As one team of anthropologists noted, “people treat affines as biological kin rather than unrelated friends.” One reason is that despite not being genetically linked, they tend to have, like any family member, “a common genetic interest in future generations.”
Gretchen Perry, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Northern British Columbia, said the connection might explain the altruistic bent Rob and I seemed to have toward each other, inside or outside of a restaurant kitchen.
“You’re willing to invest in that person much more than you would with a straight-up friend,” she said. I might also be, she added, “willing to tolerate something he does that is maybe a bit off — more than you would be with a friend.”
Indeed, there does seem to be a different relationship, with a level of ease and connection I don’t find in my other male friendships. Rob and I dream up D.I.Y. projects together (most recently, a small backyard shed) in part, I suspect, to generate reasons to hang out. We’ve shared a bed, for budgetary reasons, on trips (and my snoring certainly tests the bounds of familial tolerance).
On my part, there’s a kind of “big brother” thing going on: I’m five years older, and Rob seems to unlock in me a caring impulse that feels distinct from friendship. When I made a long-planned pilgrimage to Anfield, the home of the soccer club Liverpool F.C., I took him along, picking up much of the cost. That’s not something I’d necessarily do for a friend.
Of course, you don’t have to be related to treat someone like family, experts said. Karen Fingerman, a professor of human development and family sciences at the University of Texas, filled me in on the concept of fictive kin. “This is a phenomenon where people form very deep attachments, what you might think of as family, in terms of what they’re willing to do for each other, with how they feel about each other emotionally, that weren’t initially about family of origin or the formation of a romantic tie,” she said.
And, as we all know, just because you’re family doesn’t mean you’re friends. If my relationship with Rob hadn’t panned out, Dr. Fingerman said, I might spend Thanksgiving thinking, “There’s that jerk that my sister-in-law married, and I’ve got to eat the pumpkin pie that he made.” (Lucky for me, Rob makes a killer pumpkin pie.)
In a sense, an in-law can make for the best of both worlds. Here is someone whom you have already met, and who has already been “vetted” by the larger family. With the initial friendship framework complete, you just need to build on it. You also get an affine who is like a sibling, but with an important distinction: You didn’t grow up together. So while you may lack a shared upbringing, you’re also free from issues like long-simmering sibling rivalry.
It’s friendship, with benefits.
Another thing that gives my relationship with Rob a certain poignancy: I am an only child (though I prefer “sibling-free”). That means we’re not competing for parental attention, nor do I have a sibling who might feel annoyed that I’m paying more attention — or assigning “nepotistic value,” as Dr. Perry said — to my brother-in-law instead.
It all works out because at this point, the “in-law” aspect doesn’t figure much into my thinking. I just call Rob my brother.
