being in a serious, long-term relationship doesn't create an odd dynamic when most of your friends are married in the same way that being 100%, completely unattached does.

6/10/2009 5:29:30 PM

^^ i thought you were a law student that lived at home - it sounds like you are in a different stage of life than the married people to me and that's what bdigital is talking about

i completely agree - we didn't plan it like that but when i lived in raleigh and was dating/engaged most of my friends weren't married - we moved to ATL when we got married and the number of single friends we have in ATL isn't anywhere close to the number of married friends we have - haven't gotten to the kid part but i see the trend happening already with our friends starting to have kids

6/10/2009 5:39:12 PM

^^ yea that is what i was thinking. but my married friends are still weird about it.

^ nope. not a law student that lives at home. i live at home now because my mom just died and my dad had 2 severe strokes and can't drive and i had to drop out of law school for the semester!

my married friends are either in grad school as well or just starting jobs. all recent college grads. the only difference is marriage. i guess that is a HUGE difference, but i don't see how it changes friends (right now, at our age). i have friends that date and live together, friends that are just in long term relationships, and friends that are married. so the majority of my friends are attached, just not necessarily in the married sense. none live at home. all financially independent.

that is sort of what i meant by not being in completely different stages. besides marriage, which i guess changes a lot if you feel that vastly different from your other friends who are also beginning new careers, purchasing homes, financially independent, etc. i would understand if i hung around with a lot of single people. but i feel like most of my friends right now will be getting engaged in the next few years as they settle into careers. a few just did it right out of college.

i would understand if i was still in undergrad or if i did live at home (maybe) or if i was single or a lot younger than my married friends. or if they had kids. etc. so what you are saying is that once you get married, you lose touch with your nonmarried friends because marriage puts you at such a vastly different stage in your life that you can no longer hang out with people that aren't married? i really don't get it. that scares me. i know several people said it isn't by design, but it sounds like marriage = losing friends. it seems like that in my group of friends, anyway. i was just trying to understand the dynamic. my married friends kind of seem like they are up on a throne looking down at nonmarried people and thinking because they are married they are so superior or "in a different phase" - what does that even mean?

yea i'm in a different phase of my life than my married friends. i've purchased my own place (which is more than some of my married friends can say), i financed my own education, i'm dealing with the death of a parent, i dropped out of school to care for another. i'd say i'm in a different phase of my life than most people. but so that means i alienate myself from them?

[Edited on June 10, 2009 at 9:27 PM. Reason : .]

6/10/2009 9:16:43 PM

Quote :

" i guess that is a HUGE difference, but i don't see how it changes friends (right now, at our age). "

what are you talking about? i guess the problem is that you aren't married and can't comprehend the difference - come back when married

the 3 stages he mentioned were single / married / kids - you mentioned your married friends are starting to drift from the single people - so the grouping exists in your experience and you are still denying it heh

Quote :

"i live at home now"

Quote :

"if i did live at home"

does not compute

6/10/2009 9:30:30 PM

at this instant, i live at home. i meant if i lived at home on a permanent basis. not due to seriously unfortunate circumstances. so if i live at home for a month to take care of my dad i'm in a different phase? that doesn't make sense and is sort of irrelevant.

did you read my post? i understand that people are drifting away from the single people. but i don't understand why, if we've all hung out for years as couples, because everyone in my group of friends has dated for years, and then one couple gets married, they can no longer hang out. the dynamic has really changed that much?

and i'm trying to understand why married people are "in a different phase" you didn't answer any of my questions. it is just because you are married? why? why can't you hang out with other couples that aren't married? and i'm not talking about people that are like 30 and married and have been married for 5 or 7 years. i'm talking about people who married right out of college who drift away from their other couple friends. why?

you are married! what makes you feel so different from other couples who aren't married? they don't have the same drama or just don't understand marriage? i mean is that really it?

[Edited on June 10, 2009 at 9:58 PM. Reason : .]

6/10/2009 9:48:30 PM

Quote :

"i'm talking about people who married right out of college who drift away from their other couple friends. why?"

This part, I'm not so sure on. When I talked about married people flocking together, maybe I should have said married and other couples. it's more of the completely unattached people that we hang out less and less with. I think a big part of that (at least for me) is most of my single friends still spend most of their free time going out to bars looking for ass. There's not much in it for me to go out with them these days.

6/11/2009 1:05:59 AM

^ yea i totally understand that which is what i was trying to convey. in my group of friends it seems like the married people went off and were like "we are married, we are different" and now we rarely see them. but i know people that this doesn't happen to. and it just doesn't seem to make sense to me.

i get the couple thing because that is what has happened to me too and i'm not married (obviously). and spending time at the bar looking for ass obviously doesn't interest me either, or the other friends we hang out with.

i think the "different phase" is the phrase i don't like because when it gets said, i never really understand what is meant by it. i think as your life and marriage progresses you probably will end up hanging out with more and more married (or LT couples). and the kids part totally makes sense because that IS a phase where it is helpful to a) hang out with people that understand what you're going through and b) have other kids for your kids to play with.

and for the most part the single, married, kids steps make sense but i definitely think there are some gray areas in there.

i don't know how old everyone in here is - but do you think the dynamic (friendship wise) changes again later in life. like maybe when friend couples split up/get divorced and then you are left with a "single" friend again?

life is strange. how long have you been married? ^

6/11/2009 11:20:49 AM

I'm 30, and next month, i'll have been married for 4 years.

I think the friendship dynamic does change a lot. I definitely miss the informality and impulsiveness of college friends-- you just drop by whenever, hang out till whenever, no plans, no problem.

i can't even really explain why/how its different. the kid thing is obvious, but it had changed a lot even before we had kids. maybe working long hours for several years just wears you down socially.. i don't know.

6/11/2009 12:56:17 PM

Quote :

"It's getting to the point where us single bucks are a little bit socially marginalized. I never foresaw that being married might actually be conducive to having an active social life!"

bro it is funny you say this. all my friends from school are married but when i moved to charleston and christina was still in charlotte i only hung out with single guys. now all of them are still single and i am the odd one out. they all are 30-34 and say the exact same thing you do about the social implications of their age and being single. most have given up hope of marriage and have decided bachelor life is ok with them. so i guess my little girl will have lots of uncles which is ok with me. i still dont understand why they gave up. i suppose i am a romantic and think there is a mate for everyone.

6/11/2009 3:35:49 PM

in 5 weeks i will have been married for one year. it has been a really rough year in a lot of ways, but i really think that all the shit we've been through since this time last summer has made us a much stronger couple than we ever were before. we moved down to tallahassee several months ago, which is where he went to college, and a lot of the people we hang out with here are his old college friends, who are for the most part still unattached. sometimes it's fun hanging out with them, and sometimes (for me) it's kind of a pain in the ass, because quite a few of them are still preoccupied with the finding of ass above all else, and obviously i'm not. 2 out of the 4 married couples we know here are his friends' parents, and to be honest, sometimes have an easier time hanging out with them than i do with the single people. that having been said, back when i was single, there were a select few couples who were cool enough that i could hang out with them regularly without feeling like an extra wheel. anyway, point is, overall, being married is pretty awesome. he is working out of town a lot right now, so i only get to see him on weekends, but when he's here, we take turns cooking, i do his laundry, we play with the dog, he fixes stuff, we bicker about dumb shit and then get over it, and we don't answer the phone or the door when we don't have any pants on, and i love it.

6/23/2009 3:32:20 AM

tomorrow, i will have been married for precisely one week.


good so far.

6/23/2009 1:57:02 PM

^ nice!!

6/23/2009 2:33:47 PM

Celebrated 4 years on the 18th

6/23/2009 3:27:59 PM

I've been married 9 months this past weekend and everything is wonderful. If what you say is true and the first year of marriage and the current year of marriage are the worst, then I am set for life !!

I think that it helps that we started living together 3 years ago in a 500 sq foot apt and have now upgraded to an over 2000 sq foot house.

I also like the fact that we're on bowling league and kickball league together.

Marriage rox my sox.

And then he does sweet things like scrape the ice off my window when I leave for work later than him, etc and I do sweet things for him as well.

6/24/2009 8:56:36 AM

how you do marrieds react when you find out one of your married friends is facing cheating? im curious to know how this switches the dynamic. usually guys are more hands off, "its not my problem, not my business" and ignore it while girls are much more emotional about it and feel the need to tell the other party.

has anyone had to go through this?

6/24/2009 10:56:26 AM

Who are Liz Taylor and Larry King?

6/24/2009 1:00:29 PM

^^ It has happened with a couple that we both know, but we don't know them THAT well and the cheating is not confirmed...

We generally have a "don't ask, don't tell" attitude. I don't feel like it is our place to get involved until it affects us personally, and I feel confident that my wife would echo this sentiment. Now, if it was a person cheating on their spouse with another member of the "friends circle's" spouse, it might be a little different.

In the situation above, a guy that we know through another couple and hang out with a couple of times per year is allegedly cheating on his wife. The wife is feeling alienated from her marriage and she recently went out with "the girls" and had a great time. Guys bought her drinks and made her feel attractive, but it went no further than that. I think that is about the limit of what should happen. Being cheated on does not give one a free pass at strange.

If you think one of your friends is cheating on the other, don't rat him or her out, but try to make the betrayed party feel better about themselves and comfort them as best you can.

After typing all of that, I feel like I didn't really answer the question, but maybe I didn't understand it all that well.

6/25/2009 10:35:28 AM

Quote :

"Being cheated on does not give one a free pass at strange. "

Maybe not, but divorcing your spouse for cheating on you does.

6/25/2009 11:17:08 PM

I agree.

6/26/2009 12:18:42 AM

I'm probably in the minority here, but I wouldn't divorce my wife if she cheated on me, assuming she was genuinely sorry about it. In fact, if she slipped up and cheated on me, and it was like a one time thing, and she did feel really horrible about it, I'd rather her not even tell me. It doesn't do me any good to know. I think when people proactively confess something like that, they're doing it to absolve themselves of the guilt more so than to "do what's right" or whatever. I'd rather her suffer through the guilt.

I'm fairly sure I stand alone with an opinion like that.

also, glad the wife doesn't read TWW.

6/26/2009 1:06:08 AM

Ignorance is bliss is all too true

6/27/2009 12:26:06 PM

Quote :

"I'm fairly sure I stand alone with an opinion like that. "

You don't.

6/27/2009 2:28:46 PM

2nded

6/27/2009 9:23:10 PM

heh I should have read this thread a couple of weeks ago.

A girl I am passing friends with here is having serious third wheel syndrome. Whenever the topic of relationships even remotely comes up she gets super pissy and defensive. It's to the point that people actively avoid the topic around her, which is just silly. I guess she's starting to realize being the bitchy, independent girl won't bring her happiness in the long run.

6/29/2009 1:21:35 AM

Quote :

"I'm probably in the minority here, but I wouldn't divorce my wife if she cheated on me, assuming she was genuinely sorry about it. In fact, if she slipped up and cheated on me, and it was like a one time thing, and she did feel really horrible about it, I'd rather her not even tell me. It doesn't do me any good to know. I think when people proactively confess something like that, they're doing it to absolve themselves of the guilt more so than to "do what's right" or whatever. I'd rather her suffer through the guilt. I'm fairly sure I stand alone with an opinion like that."

i think i feel the same way. an affair, a hidden relationship, any of that and i'm so gone. that shit is just so wrong and disrepectful it makes me sick to my stomach.

a one time mistake they genuinely feel shitty about, i would rather not know. however, if i ever found out down in line, i think i would go off the fucking rocker. so they'd have to be damn sure i'd never find out and of course, he'd have to never see her again.

of course, none of us really knows what we'd do in these types of situations until we're faced with them.

6/29/2009 8:20:20 PM

^ It's easy to call something a deal breaker before you're in the situation. Monogamy's still really important right, but you have to be open to forgiveness and understanding if you're going to be in it for a long time.

Though I have to wonder: how much of that is because I don't like moving?

6/29/2009 10:28:56 PM

yeah, it's tough to say what you'd do without having been in the situation

but i'm pretty sure that i would be outta there.

7/2/2009 5:53:10 PM

So, I'm getting married June 25th, 2010.
I'll let you know then if life changes drastically after the ceremony.

7/6/2009 4:59:20 PM

the cover of the latest issue of time is "unfaithfully yours"

depressing shit out there-- keep giving us your positive stories about marriage! i still believe it in

7/6/2009 6:16:41 PM

I was just happy to see MJ wasn't the focus.

7/6/2009 11:02:36 PM

Quote :

"I'll let you know then if life changes drastically after the ceremony."

it won't.

Quote :

"Wait 5-10 years and get back to us."

QFT


.

[Edited on July 18, 2009 at 1:59 AM. Reason : ]

7/18/2009 1:58:47 AM

pro- my wife gets up with the baby every time
con- after august 24th when she goes back to work i will have to get up some

7/18/2009 10:07:50 AM

haha that sounds familiar. the first 3 months i was completely off the hook. then she went back to work and i became the alpha and omega of baby care for the next year.

7/19/2009 11:07:48 AM

dude that is what i am worried about. i love my daughter but i dont like dirty diapers, crying, and being woken up in the middle of the night. she is so awesome i think i can get over it!

7/19/2009 3:04:22 PM

man, i got up with my daughter at least half the time from day-1.

7/19/2009 5:49:56 PM

bro you are all that is man.

7/19/2009 8:56:27 PM

Quote :

"dude that is what i am worried about. i love my daughter but i dont like dirty diapers, crying, and being woken up in the middle of the night. she is so awesome i think i can get over it!"

both my wife and i didnt get up in the middle of the night. the baby slept in the middle of the bed and wifey could pull out a boobie with out even waking up completely.

not safe if either person rolls around in their sleep but we dont.

7/19/2009 11:00:56 PM

Quote :

"dude that is what i am worried about. i love my daughter but i dont like dirty diapers, crying, and being woken up in the middle of the night. she is so awesome i think i can get over it!"

ah you'll be fine, you get used to it quickly. I was lucky, about the 5 month mark Amy has slept 12 hours straight every night unless she's sick or something. Most mornings, I have to wake her up to get her ready for daycare.

7/20/2009 9:22:02 AM

Quote :

"man, i got up with my daughter at least half the time from day-1."

same here. sean was a very low maint. baby. very lucky.

i still have baby ears. any crying or kid disturbance wakes me in seconds. i can ignore all other sounds.

7/20/2009 6:19:13 PM

oh yeah, i'm the same way. I used to sleep easily in my loudass fraternity house in college. I have fallen asleep standing up at OCS, and slept in freezing temperatures in nothing but a windbreaker and a foil "blanket" at SERE school. I've slept like a baby in my room right under the catapult on the U.S.S. Reagan. I've slept like a baby in my can right beside the runway in Iraq with jets taking off in afterburner all night.

The other morning, my daughter walked by my room, and I was instantly awake.



Funny story about getting up with babies...at the first court hearing I had for visitation and stuff, my ex tried to claim that I shouldn't have visitation because (among other things) my daughter had a medical issue where she'd stop breathing the middle of the night (funny, she never TOOK HER TO THE DOCTOR ABOUT THIS). She bought a movement monitor that sounded an alarm if it didn't detect any slight movement for like 10-30 seconds or something. In the end, the judge said "Fine, send the monitor along with her on visitation."

She always found other ways to circumvent me having visitation at the time, so it never was an issue, but I always thought that it was a little telling that the alarm would go off at night, and I'd go SPRINTING to my daughter's room, whereas my ex would just LAY THERE and say "ohh, she's probably just in the corner of the crib where it isn't sensing her movement."

7/20/2009 8:34:34 PM

Quote :

"the 3 stages he mentioned were single / married / kids divorced"

How did I miss this thread? Building a house together has built our relationship much much closer. Had some rough spots in the process, but overall we are closer now.

[Edited on July 21, 2009 at 8:16 AM. Reason : .]

7/21/2009 8:04:16 AM

if your wife is cool you get to do something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0

7/23/2009 9:15:53 AM

Our friends are all single except one couple and we still hang out with them when we can. I see my wife's friends a lot more than my own because I live 75 miles from all of them, and whenever we visit Raleigh our time is usually taken up by family events. Between my parents and her dad and grandparents, we're always going to lunch or dinner and we're too damn tired in the evening to get together with my friends. If we weren't so cash-strapped I'd check us into a hotel in Raleigh and just hang out with my friends without telling my family we're in town.

I'd say one of the biggest pros of marriage is always having your best friend around to talk to and enjoy things with, even as simple as dinner and evening TV, plus you have a practically guaranteed date for any event so you're never the dateless loser at parties or New Year's Eve.

7/30/2009 4:28:47 PM

today was our first anniversary!

9/27/2009 8:44:32 PM

Not exclusive to married life, but it's things like this why we're married:
- he loads up my ipod for me (I fucking HATE doing this, and my computer slows way the hell down when I try to...so I update my ipod 2 or 3 times a year, max.)
- When I crawl into bed and he's asleep, he tickles my back the way I beg him to when we watch TV
- built-in petsitter
- someone to finish the yardwork after I get stung in the face
- bed warmer FTW

10/13/2009 12:32:13 PM

congrats smath74 on reaching a year! I would have said it earlier if I had read this thread at that time!

10/14/2009 2:54:20 AM

this thread makes me happy

11/13/2009 2:53:02 PM

Quote :

"the cover of the latest issue of time is "unfaithfully yours" depressing shit out there-- keep giving us your positive stories about marriage! i still believe it in"

i just read this article while i was at my parents the other day. my wife is stuck with me so it is awesome!

11/16/2009 7:52:33 PM