Can Guys and Girls Have Deep Friendships? DUCK DYNASTY Star Weighs In
By Movieguide® Contributor
Sadie Robertson Huff and her friends Kaylea and Madison Coates discussed how to keep guy-girl relationships from becoming too intimate.
Kaylea and Madison were friends for years before they started dating and eventually getting married. Though they had a deep friendship, they kept certain boundaries in place to protect themselves from forming an inappropriate bond.
“We would go to dinner together on a Saturday night and just eat dinner. We would, like, go to Jackson, Mississippi a of couple hours away, we would go hang out, go shopping and then come home, like, we never held hands, there was nothing romantic about our relationship,” Kaylea said. “We would talk about life, our struggles, our ministry life things that we were facing, and it was just like a really deep friendship.”
After years of this sort of friendship, however, Kaylea began to become extremely attached to Madison, and even though they had decided they weren’t going to date, Kaylea found herself turning down other guys because she wanted to be available for him.
“Then I’m like, I think I want more here. Like, I could see myself marrying this person,” she said. “One of my best friends told me before, marry the person that you could see yourself going to the grocery store with, like the everyday mundane things.”
“I’m like, well, that’s what we’re doing. Like, we’re going to the grocery store, we’re just hanging out, and so I think there was like a point in those three years where I was just kind of like frustrated with our relationship,” Kaylea continued.
Rather than ruminate on these feelings and let them brew, Kaylea confronted them and brought them forward to Madison. After talking, it became clear that they had crossed emotional boundaries that Madison was oblivious to but Kaylea was hyperaware of.
“There was the evident physical boundaries, which was not just not touching each other but we never went to each other’s house at night alone, so that was that, but the side that you don’t really see is the emotional boundaries,” Madison said. “I didn’t really see or know [them] because I wasn’t in that head space.”
“So I’m just chugging along having my friend with me, we both work at the church and everything, and I’m not even thinking [about the emotional side] because I’m not feeling that,” he continued. “So, I feel like a lot of it is to have the open communication of like, ‘Hey, this might not be affecting you, but this is affecting me.”
“Our college pastors at the time were encouraging me to talk to Madison to kind of see where he was at,” Kaylea added. “So I remember one time we went for a walk around the church, and I was like, ‘Do you think that our relationship is healthy?’ I was like, ‘Do you feel like we need some emotional boundaries? Because I kind of feel like maybe this isn’t healthy for us to be so close if we’re not going to be in a relationship.’”
Though Madison and Kaylea remained single for a while longer after that conversation, it allowed them to continue to have a strong friendship without crossing the line and entering into territory they should not have unless they were dating.
Throughout the conversation that was the main point that was evident, they and Huff both believe that men and women both can and should have deep relationships with each other, but they need to set up proper boundaries so that things do not go too far. Though the pair eventually ended up getting married, they do believe these sorts of relationships are sustainable if both sides are committed to them.
After getting married, the Coateses opened a coffee shop in Louisiana, and they’ve used it to support those who serve in ministry.
Kaylea is also part of Huff’s worship music collective, LO Worship. Earlier this summer, the band released “Mirror,” a song that addresses body image.
“I know our lives are SO much more significant than what we look like… our physical beauty is fleeting, but if we are so insecure that all we want to do is hide, how can we fully live what God has for us?” Huff posted about the song. “I hope you find freedom past your insecurity as you realize who you were created by and what you were created for!!”
Movieguide® previously reported:
Sadie Robertson Huff revealed the heart behind her new song “Mirror” which helps listeners combat the lie that their body is unwanted.
“When we sat down to write that day, I said, ‘Let’s try to write out testimony, but in a way that leads other people to their testimony!’ I was not planning on writing based on my own experience that day. I thought I would help tell everyone else’s story — until someone mentioned writing on body image,” Huff said.
“As we started talking about what girls need to hear, I sat there quietly, thinking, ‘That’s actually what I needed to hear,’” she continued. “I opened up to my friends that day about how hard my teenage years were regarding body image and how much that held me back. I remember that, as I was being seen by many, all I wanted to do was hide. I was telling everyone to live original but struggling to do so myself.”
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