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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Does anyone here find that their single friends just don't "get it"?
Wow...like you are so mature now. I'm sure they are all so envious of how mature you've becomesince you've been married a whole 9 months now. I'm sure they all wish they could be like you.
I've only read one other of your posts and you don't sound that grown up to me. btw, "ordinary daily life" here (NYC) doesn't include clubbing much on weeknights. Most of us work.
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I agree that it is more of an issue of you growing up, not an issue of you being married. So you don't want to stay out until dawn? Is that because you are married, or is it more because you are a responsible adult with a job you have to go to the next day? I get what you are saying, but a word of caution.......don't play the "I'm married now, so I am soooo responsible and mature" card, or you will just alienate your single friends. Play the "I'm grown up and have a job" all you want, but I promise if you harp on the fact that you are married, your single friends will slowly disappear.
Also, this post reminds me of something a coworker said to me shortly after I got married. She said something about going camping with her girlfriends, then asked, "Oh wait. You're married now. Can you go camping?" I gave her a snarky answer like, "Oh, no. It was in our marriage vows that we would never go camping again."
I think you just don't like single people.
The issue isn't that you're married and they're not- which totally comes off as smug, btw.
It's that you're living a more mature lifestyle and they're not for whatever reason. Marriage has little to do with it; some of the most independent and responsible people I know are those who aren't married. perhaps because they have only themselves on whom to rely.
Growing up happens at different rates. I suspect "cab-boy" is looking to preserve his childhood and is threatened by peers who aren't. Not a huge problem unless your DH is totally enamoured of this person and you're not.
I think everyone else has pretty much covered it, but this statement made me laugh. If he wanted to stay out and you wanted to go home, then what in the world is so wrong with jumping in a cab and going home without him? I do it often - I just can't stay up late anymore but I certainly don't want to ruin my husband's fun because of it!
Your reasoning for not staying out late and partying is about having to get up and go to work. That has nothing to do with being married.
Do your friends work too? Do they go to work? What is different about that situation between you and them?
It seems to me that you are the one pitting 'married vs. single' ... of course those friendships and relationships will be different but ... it seems like you are looking for them to be different.
I know plenty of married couples who party it up all hours ... lead a very responsible life ... work ... etc. I know plenty of married couples, like myself, who would rather be home and in bed at a normal hour. Same can be said of my single friends.
And ... couples with kids vs. couples without kids ... couples with 2 kids vs. couples with 1 kid ... they all just don't get each other LOL sarcasm.
It sounds to me like you are trying to play a traditional role now that you are married ... sometimes ppl have a habit of putting down other people who live in the roles that we used to hold. People who are single do not need to be shook and told to grow up. Being married does not mean you are grown up. 50%+ marriages end in divorce ;-) Those single friends who didn't get married simply because they wanted to PLAY grown-up just saved a lot of money - very responsible LMAO
Anyway ... your DH's friend suggesting you go home while they stay out ... was that because YOU were coming off as a party dud but your DH seemed to still want to play ... I don't think it is a terrible idea if that was the case. Shrugs ...
Good luck!
Why am I not surprised that this was a post and run?
You sound very judgy in your post here. And, as kuus mentioned, smug. Who cares if they still have roommates? Who cares if they want to party all night long? What difference does it make to you? Live your life and let them live theirs.
This is completely related to marrying an adult that wants the same things in life that you do, and nothing to do with "single vs married". If you didn't want a husband that wants to be out with his friends until 2-3am, you shouldn't have married someone that wants to do that. BS on "peer pressure" and stop treating your DH as if he's a child (unless...exactly how old are you and your DH)?
And OP, based on your judgement, snotty posts here, I'm shocked you still have people that actually want you around at all, not that they just have different ideas on what is fun than you.
WTF does any of this have to do with being married or single? You didn't have a job to go to when you were single? WTF?
No one is ruining your marriage except you and your DH. You can't blame other people for you and your husband's problems. It sounds to me like your DH doesn't want to be settled down (married or otherwise settled).
A quick thought that no one seems to have touched on -
Perhaps the OP simply used the wrong words for what she is feeling. As an example - my husband states that he would rather be a bum at home every weekend than go out to bars until 3 am. Several of our friends (equally mixed between married and not) are still in that mode. They believe that somehow his desire to stay home more is due to us being married, or my influence (as if I could/would make my husband do something he didn't want to do. This comes from comments like : "We need more guys nights, so we'll come kidnap you" His response: " why would you need to do that? Just invite us out...." Hubby says that he no longer feels the need to party every night now that he has a wife at home with him.
Getting to the point - maybe she used the wrong words - that she feels this kind of change in how the husbands friends are treating her/the couple. Of course, in the end, this is hubby's issue - if he doesn't want to stay out- HE needs to address it with his friends. If he is still happy to do so, she should happily stay in, or do a girls' night.
In the end though - it isn't the relationship status of the friends that causes this phenomenon........
I feel the exact same way. I have single friends from my hometown and college still who are still single.
I love keeping in touch with them and hearing about what they're up too. But there is certainly a level of disconnect.. and this was the case even before my hubby and I got engaged. We tend to relate better to all our married friends and family members.
I don't want to sound smug married, but YES!- sometimes, I don't know how to respond to "who you hooked up with last weekend" or "how late you partied" etc.
Actually believe it or not, our situation it totally opposite - my friends are the ones that just don't get it. My husband's best friend hangs out with US all the time and we never have a problem with him being obnoxious - he works too and if he wants to go get wasted he has his cousin to do that with. My best friend and her husband are on the same wavelength as we are - both our husbands get up before the crack of dawn to go to work and they have 2 kids where I have 3 jobs. Now... on the other hand... I was the bar crawler before we got married, not him. So my friends are a little more rowdy.
Pretty much we're at a different stage of our lives than they are. The majority of his friends are either married, in long-term relationships or older. My friends still go clubbing and are all the time trying to get me to stay up/out until the wee hours of the morning. So I do run into them not realizing that I have laundry to do because its not okay with me to wear 3 day old clothes. I had one of my good friends tell me to TELL my husband that hes coming out to the local strip club with us (I didn't want to go myself, just not my thing) because she wanted me to and I wouldn't, then she proceeded to say he must be gay or have something wrong with him if he didn't want to see half naked women.
Winner huh? That conversation went REAL well...
I don't think that the OP was lumping singles and marrieds into different categories. For her, in this point in her life, her single friends are more into partying than her married friends. I get it. It's just how things seem to her in HER situation, not yours. Your situation, your thinking, your friends-they are all different than hers. So when you are calling her close-minded, it is really you that is being close minded. And frankly, calling someone a *** for expressing her opinion is rather bitchy yourself.
And to the OP, I so get it. For my husband and I, at this point in our marriage, most of our single friends are still living at home and have no financial obligations other than vehicles, insurance, and clothing. I do believe that this affects their sense of responsibility. If they were to stay out a little too late one night drinking and lose their job, they would still have a support system from their parents until they found a new job. It wouldn't really be that big of a deal for them, because they don't have near as many financial obligations as our married friends. One friend in particular is nearly 30, still living at home, and acts like a teenager in high school. Life is a game to him, and while my husband and I are years younger in age, we have moved past him in maturity. He actually still hangs out with high school kids, and goes to high school parties. His friend group changes every year as they get older and move on from the party scene, and he is still stuck there. So for us, many of our single friends are not as "grown up" as our married friends.
Every single one of our married friends were party people until they became engaged, or bought a house in preparation for marriage. Then they had more financial obligations, which brought a little extra responsibility because there was a lot more on the line, and not as much extra money. Our married friends still like to hang out and have a good time and have some drinks, but it does seem that when you have your own family, and your own house full of responsibilities, whether you are married or single, if you have a budget, there are far more important things in life than partying all the time.
That being said, we also have single friends who are self-supporting, and very responsible and we also have married friends who still like to go out as often as they can and party all night long. We have no problem with either. Our life situation causes us to not be able to do that, and we recognize that, and we realize that we are not the same as any of our friends. We all have different salaries, different types of living situations, different payments, different responsibilities. And even on the weekends, my husband and I have other things to do that keep us from staying out too late. We have a house to clean and we have dishes to wash, and cars to wash, and EACH OTHER TO SPEND TIME WITH. If we go to bed at 3 am even 2 nights of the week, with our work schedules, and our other obligations on the weekends, we would lose considerable amounts of sleep and our level of communication would be reduced to being grouchy and snappy with each other, and for us personally, that would not work. If that works for you and your husband or SO, then more power to you.
So yes, to the OP, I would say that mainly it is our single friends that don't really understand marriage and the responsibilities included. Even the single people who are not still living at home do not have a spouse or SO living with them so all they have to worry about is themselves. At the end of the day, maintaining the marriage is a full time job in itself and instills a bigger level of responsibility in a person who is truly invested in the marriage, and no I don't really think that people understand that until they are married. In today's mindset though, even married people have divorce to fall back on if something happens they don't like. So in that light, we do have some married friends who don't really "get it" either.
It could go either way, single or married. But OP I get what you meant, and yes, we have friends-married AND single-who are out of the loop and generally not very understanding if we choose to go home at midnight rather than staying until the club/bar close.
I do not think that OP was lumping all people together like that. She was describing HER group of friends, not yours. So if your situation is different than hers, the correct response would be "No, my friend situation is not the same, I am not having the same problems" instead of attacking her for her opinions and her life situations. It is not the same for everyone.
Stop being so over-sensitive and quit bitching at her. She is not the ***, the rest of you are.