Hello. I’m Shana, and I have a husband. He’s Carl.
We haven’t been married very long but we are married nonetheless.
I’m not really a writer, so I’m not really going to make this sound good or write particularly well, but over the past 2 and a half years of marriage I’ve been putting together a mental list of things I’d like my single friends to know. Here goes (all harshness unintended):
1) When your married friends don’t invite you to their wedding, don’t take it as a personal slight. Weddings are expensive and making the decision of who to invite and who to leave off is extremely difficult. They don’t hate you, they just have to draw the line somewhere. Also, if you are bleak, please please please don’t tell them. It only really makes them feel more crap about the decision. If you’re in the position of planning a wedding one day, you’ll see what its like, and you’ll wish you were more understanding and made things more about them than you. They love you, I promise. And they’re probably as upset as you that they can’t have you there.
2) When your married friends get back from honeymoon, don’t give them knowing looks, or slap him on the back in a what-a-man kind of way, or ask “soooo, how was it?”. Or worse: “soooo, how’s the sex?”. Sex is intimate, and personal and a little scary. And it certainly doesn’t involve you. Don’t make us embarrassed, or draw attention to our sex life in a public setting. We don’t want to talk to you about it. We want it to be private, we want to protect it. Its for us, not for you. And also, I’m pretty sure an honest answer might make you far more embarrassed than it makes us.
3) When your married friends leave a social gathering early, please don’t make remarks about how we just want to go have sex. Firstly, if that was the case, well done, you just killed the mood. Secondly, most likely is we’re tired, and we work a lot, and we need sleep. And now going home means we don’t have to leave the person we love for the night, which is awesome. So we really just want to go home. I promise married people don’t only have sex, we do other things too (surprise).
4) Please don’t ask your married friends when they plan on having kids. It’s like asking for a sex-schedule. if we want you to know, we’ll tell you. What if we can’t have kids? What if everything isn’t great? What if we just had a miscarriage or don’t want children at all? How would your question help in those scenarios? It wouldn’t. Also, everyone asks us, so it kinda gets old.
5) Please don’t ask your married friends if they’re pregnant whenever they have gastro, or take a sick day, or look bloated. Don’t look at their fat tummy and make a comment. It’s just fat. We know it’s there. If we have news to tell you, we’ll tell you when we’re ready.
6) We’re married. Which means that we’re going to be affectionate to each other in public. If it’s really overboard, of course you can tell us, we don’t want you to be uncomfortable. But we also don’t want to have to keep completely apart. Because we’re married, and that’s good. Please don’t roll you eyes or make comments when we move to sit next to each other or show our affection.
7) We’re married (I think you’ve got that point by now though), which means some of our priorities and responsibilities have changed. It’s new for us, we’re also trying to get used to it. But that doesn’t mean we don’t want to hang out with our friends. Which reminds me, please don’t refer to your friend’s wife as a “ball and chain”, or a “kill joy” or ask him if he needs “permission” to hang out. We’re not his mommy. And we really do value his friendship with you. We don’t want him to give that up. Ever. We want him to prioritise spending time with you. Just maybe understand that timing is sometimes an issue.
I guess I could continue, but I prbably shouldn’t. Just know this: we love and value your friendship. Maybe you’re closer friends and you have the place to ask these questions, or make these jokes. But maybe not, and maybe doing so will hurt or embarrass us. So just think carefully next time. Let’s not make things awkward.
Ok that’s me
Bye now
[For many other thoughts on all sorts of relationshippy things, head over here]
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Isn’t that just life? We all have different priorities, things that are important to you as an individual, that you are passionate about and we all meet each other on common ground?
Respect others and their lives and then no-one (marrieds) will have to throw someone a bone or the flipside, make you feel like a victim (singles).
it seems that simple hey Hillary and possibly is… but having been on both sides i guess a lot of the time you just aren’t prepared for the dynamic shift that often happens in friendships when someone gets married and there is some figuring it out needed and it looks different with different people… however, some of the things Shana has shared here it is helpful for single people to know and hear i think cos it can be annoying/inappropriate/tiresome and affect the friendships that way… but listening, grace and understanding are always needed…
[…] Meet Shana and Carl and some thoughts Shana had two years into their marriage […]
Very Nice!!! Thank you for the heads up 🙂
Thank you. Good to be informed of these things (bachelor perspective); perspective appreciated.
Thanks Barry, glad it was helpful!
Hey Brett, thanks for posting this. I kinda agree with most of these things and they are really good things to consider, as the pressure gets put on a lot of newlyweds for what the next big thing is, which shouldn’t be there to begin with.
My biggest concern though that I see a lot is, I have had many newly married friends who just shut themselves in and no one sees them for a long time in the community of friends.
As you mentioned in the intro blog, friendships get hurt and sometimes destroyed.
I get that the couple is getting to know the boundaries of each other and how much time they should spend with each other, but it is a concerning thing I see. This is a viewpoint from a bachelor hey 😉
Thanks Ivan, if you want to put your thoughts/concerns in a post i can add it to the first half of this series [what single people want married people to know] and trying to find that balance is one of the tougher things when newly wed and different couples deal with it differently – thankx for your thoughts. brettfish@hotmail.com
All harshness intended. I have been married for almost 10 years and to be honest, you make it sound like married people are boring, and lack a sense of humor… And are better than everyone else… And that we are in this club where we are elite and experience things that single people could never possibly understand. Don’t treat single people like they are stupid… Respect them and they will so their best to respect you.
1. Don’t expect unmarried people to see things from your perspective. This is not realistic, not in this scenario and not in life. People, married or single, will always see things from their own perspective… This is not a married vs single thing.. It’s life… Accept it and do your best to improve your communication skills in order to help them see things from your perspective… But before you do that, empathize with their point of view and love them for it.
2. Clearly your comment about the sex is from a woman’s perspective… Guys have a pretty open forum about joking about sex… Especially if it’s the first time a guy is having sex.. We will joke about it and we will have fun joking about it, in a fun, non vulgar kind of way. Guys are very playful with one another it’s how we bond, it’s how we love one another – married or not married, this is how it is. Accept it and encourage it.
3. Finally… The worse thing ever is when people get married and they change completely. Getting married doesn’t put you in the upper class… Dont change, don’t let your partner change you and don’t allow your partner to change just because they got married. Iron sharpens iron, but be real, be the people you were before you get married and before you start dating… Add your life experiences but remain humble and the people you have always been.
Nothing else to add here. Take this with love… Realize that most single people are also searching for love, don’t rub your happiness in peoples face, but don’t tread on egg shells around them, be real and be yourself… But understand that you have a gift that most single people want, which is to find someone to love for the rest of their lives… We are not better or different to them, we are just lucky enough to have found our person before they have… And I hope and pray that they find theirs very soon… And Ps. Single people are not the only ones getting upset when the aren’t invited to weddings.
Thanks for taking time to comment, although the fact that you do so intentionally anonymously [and created an account just to do so?], i find really unhelpful because it smacks of not owning your words. Swoop in, throw some statements around and sneak out again with none the wiser. I honestly prefer conversation and engagement and i imagine there was a way to be honest while still being who you are without needing to hide. i think there is some validity in some of the stuff you have said but just as you accuse Shana of generalising, you do the same when you say how all guys are. Ja, i don’t know what else to say on that because i am trying to create a space where people can feel safe about being themselves and so it feels to some extent that i should not give space to nameless people the same consideration, but i will this time. Shana’s post was clearly things from her perspective [which is why i try and get a bunch of different voices on each topic so that i can get a more rounded view than just one] – while we are not expecting unmarried people to see things completely from our perspective, it helps to share our perspective so they can have a better idea at understanding. While it is generally not a great thing when you get married and change completely i find this to be a ridiculous statement – ‘Dont change, don’t let your partner change you and don’t allow your partner to change just because they got married’ – if two people changing context so radically don’t change in any way then something is probably seriously wrong – there is movement that is going to happen – don’t let that make you become a totally different person [unless you need that because of who you were before] but also there needs to be movement from both sides towards each other as you learn to live together and so change is likely and expected – and in most cases your dynamic with your friends has got to change in some way because they become lesser of a priority now that you are a married person [or should, if you’re not too busy joking with them about sex all the time to notice]
‘Take this with love’ is really difficult because we don’t know who you are. Next time, please come as a real person cos we like those here…
I agree with a lot of what anonymous has to say, especially –
“you make it sound like married people are … better than everyone else… And that we are in this club where we are elite and experience things that single people could never possibly understand.”
“Realize that most single people are also searching for love, don’t rub your happiness in peoples face, but don’t tread on egg shells around them, be real and be yourself… But understand that you have a gift that most single people want, which is to find someone to love for the rest of their lives… We are not better or different to them, we are just lucky enough to have found our person before they have… And I hope and pray that they find theirs very soon… And Ps. Single people are not the only ones getting upset when the aren’t invited to weddings.”
The tone is somewhat condescending in the post. Maybe that is just being honest and real.
This article also felt like it could be directed to the world at large as opposed to just singles.
Thankx for your thoughts, Mary. The fact that more than one person thinks so [and maybe more who have not responded] means there may be some validity to it so worth listening to for sure [and thankx for including your name, unless you ARE anonn y mouse cos then that would just be weird… or really clever… or something]
BUT this i will say – i have learnt the hardest way [well, not with bamboo under my fingernails cos that probably would have been harder!] that TONE CAN NOT BE COMMUNICATED EFFECTIVELY ONLINE – which is why it is usually good to have arguments or fights face to face – we read tone into things and so if you are in a bad mood and read something it is likely to sound different to you than if you had just won the lottery and read it…
so, not saying you are not wrong – it is easy to convey some form of tone with some words – “you are a moron” is hard to read pleasantly, but just to be aware that sometimes we can read something differently to how it was intended simply because of the tone we imagine the person to have through our reading of something…
I feel like these articles [singles to marrieds which we did first and now marrieds to singles] are actually for the whole audience and so hoping boh sides will learn from both stories but it is helpful to have a question or statement to frame the conversation with and – right or wrong- i chose the questions i did to illustrate that… but point taken and much appreciated – i also think people learn a lot from these kinds of conversations and engagements in the comments and so always hope that a post will extend to a conversation and that more people will get involved so that we can all learn a lot more from the whole process and not just the original post, so love it when people push back and disagree and create these kind of spaces because differing opinions helps us all hopefully to make up our own mind about the thing…
Hey, I totally respect and understand all of Shana’s points – maybe it’s just ’cause I’m a little older so a lot of my friends are marrried/ in serious relationships, but I haven’t had many awkward moments (yet) with unmarried people treating married people weirdly. BUT I have heard other people doing it to each other, particularly the “ball and chain” vibe, which is just lame. And must be annoying if it’s said to you. I love being married!
I wonder if maybe the reason Anonymouse and Mary are concerned about the post is that married people are sometimes put on a bit of a pedestal anyway, and therefore it’s not really ‘redressing’ anything to show a married person’s perspective on what offends them? Marriage is great (I think 🙂 but it is a) not for everyone and b) does not automatically make you a better person – which is of course not what Shana is saying, but I think maybe there’s a feeling that the less-societally-privileged (in this case single peeps) have more of a right/ need to say how they are offended?
So in the same vein, it would be weird/ unnecessary to have a ‘what I want my black friends to know’ post from a white person, because it is too normative – we hear that perspective all the time.
So I’m not at all saying Shana’s thoughts are unnecessary or meant condescendingly or anything like that, or that a post on marriage is a bad thing, but maybe it is just a strange fit in your series, and that’s what the ‘Mouse is responding to?
i hear you Andrea and i think taking your point of view is why i have singles a chance to say some stuff first but don’t think it’s balanced or fair or good to leave it at that – i think i have another person writing me a piece but no other marrieds have come forward yet cos usually from a bunch of posts/ideas we will get a nice balance which happened when the single people shared – some ranted, some encouraged, some questioned – ending up being great as a whole so am hoping this will fluff out a little more… same as running the race series – there HAS to be a space for some white voices but definitely not first place – but to have a balanced conversation we do need to get everyone’s voice or a much wider spectrum at least…
Totally see what you mean – getting some balance by showing both sides.
Think the response of some people like Mary and Anonymouse also shows that marriage is something that people really have strong feelings about – whether people are married, whether they’re not, how they act when they’re married, how singles and marrieds interact etc… and sometimes involves a lot of hurt as well because of people’s past experiences. You are definitely getting people talking/ thinking about the important things in life – and I love your approach of getting a whole range of people to talk!
Absolutely. It’s great when there is a chance to create a platform or space and people actually jump in and use it – hoping for more engagement on the race stuff and think it will come as we get to some more sensitive topics perhaps…
[…] Meet Shana and Carl and some thoughts Shana had two years into their marriage […]