Friday, March 6, 2009

Advice?

This morning at work I took a phone call from someone I had worked with (and by "worked with" I mean we do the same job at different Universities and have only spoken on the phone, like twice) prior to getting married and changing my name. So we talked about actual work for about 5 minutes, and as we were hanging up, he says "Hey, so you changed your name?". I tell him, yes, I got married.

Silence.

Then he says "oh". Not like "Oh, that's great!" or "Oh, congratulations!". Just "oh".

Silence.

Then he says "How long ago did it happen?"

It? Do you mean my marriage? So I say "We got married 4 months ago". I am trying to be upbeat about this. I mentally prepare myself for unsolicited advice from what I assume is coming from a 45 year old, unmarried man.

Instead, he says "OH GOOD, so you're still on your honeymoon. Make sure it stays that way!". For some reason my newly married status makes him happy. I reply, "We're trying!"

And then he says "Trust me, you want it to stay that way. Kids tend to ruin that. I have three kids, and my home life....." and then he trails off.

I chose to not tell him that we want to have kids rather soon. Instead, I say "Um. So I'll talk to you soon?"

Why do old, unhappy people always have a ton of useless advice for newlyweds? Why should I care that you hate your wife and kids? I won't even get into my own father telling me, during the father/daughter dance during my own wedding, that "there's still time to get out of this".

This, of course, being my marriage. I hadn't even been married for three hours at that point.

Why? Why is everyone always hating on getting married? Or ::gasp:: having kids? I'm dying to know. Please share.

2 comments:

Cheap Wife said...

I say chalk it up to "misery loves company"
Some people are just like that
They are like little black rain clouds floating around and raining on everyone's parade. :-)
Don't let them get to you....feel bad that THEY are so bitter and cynical.
Life is what you make it. If we want to be happily married..WE WILL BE! :-)
I know it's annoying...but chalk to thier own issues

Kate said...

Misery loves company - that's a fact! It was so blatently inapppropriate that it was sort of funny.