Why do people feel the need to mention the D-word?!

LAM524 · June 2013

What do these people think we are suppose to do when they share their "words of wisdom?"

After I got engaged, a married woman at church who is the head of the Family ministry, said "You do realize the divorce rate for 2nd marriages is 80%. I wouldnt do it." Seriously? I just said, "well its a good thing he didnt ask you and asked me!" Two times after that she said, "You're a brave one!" I just said, "Nah...Im a blessed one!" Now when she sees me, pretty regularly, she just smiles and shakes her head!

I don't know what possess people! My favorite is the "miscarriage" stories after you announce your pregnant! Holy heck!

rel1988 · July 2013

wittykitty14 · July 2013

Yeah, I just don't understand why people feel the need to say anything. Stop trying to rain on my parade just because you're pessimistic. You know nothing about my relationship. Grrr people.

@rel1988-Love it!

Ajuliana · July 2013

At my cousin's PPD, every single speech was "There will be downs...so, so many downs...bad days...a few good days, but tons of work to stay together and make it work." I don't even like my cousin, and I started to feel bad for her. Especially when her husband then made a toast and agreed that after only two months it had become a lot of work already to be married to her.

lovesclimbing · July 2013

A few hours before H asked me to marry him, we had been flown into a lake on a small plane and were hiking in the area. The pilot flew back in to get us a few hours later. It was a different pilot and he hadn't met me (my husband works for the company we flew with so H and the pilot knew each other). Anyway, so H introduced us, "This is my girlfriend, lovesclimbing." And the pilot said, "My ex-wife's name is lovesclimbing."

I didn't know what to say. It was just an oddball thing to say. I think I just said, "Oh," because I really didn't know what else to say. "That's nice." "I'm happy for you." "I'm sad for you." "I'm sorry it didn't work out." "Oh, I guess BF and I should break up because since you had such bad luck, no one else should ever marry or date a person named lovesclimbing." (That might not have been the way he meant it, but that's kind of the way it came across.)

GetThePointe77 · July 2013

Probably because we are fairly young, I've heard that one

My favorite rude comment by FAR was, "Well at least you can't have a kid out of wedlock anymore!" (We got engaged in March, getting married in Dec, so by the time this comment was made yes, technically I didn't have nine months to pop out a baby) I WAS BLOWN AWAY. What a random thing to say!

mrstobe2014 · July 2013

wittykitty14 said:

Today, a co-worker of mine asked how close we were to the wedding. Most people in my office know I'm getting married but it's never really discussed, which makes me happy. Anyway, this guy has been divorced twice. He's the one who brought up the wedding, and then said "You know you only have a 50% chance of making it, right?". REALLY?
I just let it go in one ear and out the other, because getting married to FI is probably the only thing in my life that I've ever been 100% sure of. But I'm kind of annoyed. Seriously, who says to somebody who's 3 weeks away from their wedding? He just kept going on and on about it. Luckily my brother was there and was able to diffuse it a bit. I'm sorry that his marriages didn't work out, but I feel like he was just telling me not to bother because I'll just get divorced anyway. He's made a few comments like this all year ("Are you sure you want to get married?"), but today just got to me a little bit.
I don't know. This is more vent-y than anything. I'm just annoyed. Why do people think that it's appropriate to say that? For the sake of this turning into an actual discussion, have you ever gotten any comments like this? How did you respond?

FI and I were in Barnes and Noble and we decided to get a couple books on marriage. Basically how to communicate and be happy blahdy blah blah. Well the guy that was ringing us up decided to say "you know the secret to not getting divorced? It's not getting married." So rude! My response was "anyone counting the quarters in my change doesn't have the right to give me life advice". I was so mad. Who the hell does that?!

I think you should have "accidentally" dropped hot coffee in his lap. Then his balls and his next marriage would have the same stats.

Dreamergirl8812 · July 2013

mrstobe2014 said:

wittykitty14 said:

Today, a co-worker of mine asked how close we were to the wedding. Most people in my office know I'm getting married but it's never really discussed, which makes me happy. Anyway, this guy has been divorced twice. He's the one who brought up the wedding, and then said "You know you only have a 50% chance of making it, right?". REALLY?
I just let it go in one ear and out the other, because getting married to FI is probably the only thing in my life that I've ever been 100% sure of. But I'm kind of annoyed. Seriously, who says to somebody who's 3 weeks away from their wedding? He just kept going on and on about it. Luckily my brother was there and was able to diffuse it a bit. I'm sorry that his marriages didn't work out, but I feel like he was just telling me not to bother because I'll just get divorced anyway. He's made a few comments like this all year ("Are you sure you want to get married?"), but today just got to me a little bit.
I don't know. This is more vent-y than anything. I'm just annoyed. Why do people think that it's appropriate to say that? For the sake of this turning into an actual discussion, have you ever gotten any comments like this? How did you respond?

FI and I were in Barnes and Noble and we decided to get a couple books on marriage. Basically how to communicate and be happy blahdy blah blah. Well the guy that was ringing us up decided to say "you know the secret to not getting divorced? It's not getting married." So rude! My response was "anyone counting the quarters in my change doesn't have the right to give me life advice". I was so mad. Who the hell does that?!

I think you should have "accidentally" dropped hot coffee in his lap. Then his balls and his next marriage would have the same stats.

That guy deserved a snarky remark but that's kind of a fucked up thing to say to anyone.

mrstobe2014 · July 2013

StageManager14 said:

mrstobe2014 said:

wittykitty14 said:

Today, a co-worker of mine asked how close we were to the wedding. Most people in my office know I'm getting married but it's never really discussed, which makes me happy. Anyway, this guy has been divorced twice. He's the one who brought up the wedding, and then said "You know you only have a 50% chance of making it, right?". REALLY?
I just let it go in one ear and out the other, because getting married to FI is probably the only thing in my life that I've ever been 100% sure of. But I'm kind of annoyed. Seriously, who says to somebody who's 3 weeks away from their wedding? He just kept going on and on about it. Luckily my brother was there and was able to diffuse it a bit. I'm sorry that his marriages didn't work out, but I feel like he was just telling me not to bother because I'll just get divorced anyway. He's made a few comments like this all year ("Are you sure you want to get married?"), but today just got to me a little bit.
I don't know. This is more vent-y than anything. I'm just annoyed. Why do people think that it's appropriate to say that? For the sake of this turning into an actual discussion, have you ever gotten any comments like this? How did you respond?

FI and I were in Barnes and Noble and we decided to get a couple books on marriage. Basically how to communicate and be happy blahdy blah blah. Well the guy that was ringing us up decided to say "you know the secret to not getting divorced? It's not getting married." So rude! My response was "anyone counting the quarters in my change doesn't have the right to give me life advice". I was so mad. Who the hell does that?!

I think you should have "accidentally" dropped hot coffee in his lap. Then his balls and his next marriage would have the same stats.

That guy deserved a snarky remark but that's kind of a fucked up thing to say to anyone
It's not "kind of" fucked up, it's grade A bitch snobbery. So if it had been your doctor that said that to you, it would have been fine, @mrstobe2014?

Hey, not defending myself. I didn't say I was proud to tell him that. Didn't say it was my best moment in life. But I was pissed off. Getting flack about the chances you'll end up divorced isn't fun, Especially in the beginning of your engagement. It definitely wasn't his place to make that comment. He works in customer service. I worked in customer service and I knew my boundaries. If my Dr were to say something like that to me, I obviously wouldn't say the exact same thing but I would have probably had a bitchy reaction none the less. C'mon now, I'm getting married. I don't want hear about divorce. Shouldn't that be common sense?

wittykitty14 · July 2013

Of course it's common sense. But it's something that's severely lacking these days. Being polite and gracious is also lacking. I was annoyed when this guy has said stuff to me, but it's not my place to correct him. He outranks me in a pretty massive way (think military here). This guy also (just barely) outranks my brother, so I had pretty good reasons to keep my mouth shut. The bean-dip technique is one of the best things I've learned from TK

hordol · July 2013

rel1988 said:

When I got engaged one of my friends literally told me "I'm happy for you but you've only been together a year. We've been together over 4. You shouldv'e waited because it should have been me first."

I've had friends say stuff like this, too. I think it's so irritating and narcissistic to think that other people should put the brakes on their engagements/marriages just because for some reason or another you and your SO can't seem to figure out engagement for yourselves. If you want to wait x years to get engaged, that's all fine and dandy but don't start telling people that haven't been together as long as you that you need to get married before they do. It's idiotic (as you can tell, this is a big pet peeve of mine. I've had two close friends say stuff like this when I got engaged, but all I want to do is scream "THEN GET MARRIED, NO ONE IS STOPPING YOU" lol.)

gpeeples · July 2013

When I put in my request off for my wedding, my boss told me there's no point in having a wedding, and we might as well just go to the courthouse since "young people usually get divorced within a few years anyway." For the record, I'm 25... but honestly, even if I was 16, I don't think she had the place to comment on it. I think she was just grumpy about having to give me a Saturday off.

kerbohl · July 2013

My FI is extremely dubious of all statistics, and it is starting to rub off on me. The 50% divorce rate is too poorly studied and cannot be held up by evidence because they haven't effectively studied all the factors. They should look at divorce rates for people in different countries or even provinces (or for you Americans, states) because this could be a major factor. Religion, lifestyle, age, education, background, previous divorces, number of immediate family divorced . . . When you break all of this down, I guarantee you that the odds for certain individuals for divorcing will be much lower.

So far, thankfully, no one has said to my face anything about divorce, but poor FI has had to deal with man-bashing every time he is in the same place with his mother's divorced friends. Because that's what a man about to be married wants to hear . . .

Jen4948 · July 2013

Yeah, it's really obnoxious. I guess there are just some people out there who need to pour rain on everyone else's parade, or who can't put their own problems with marriage aside to be happy for people who are going to do it.

I'd tell such people, "FH and I are looking forward to being with each other. I'm sorry if that prospect doesn't work for you. However, we're not open to negative talk."

And find supportive people to discuss your wedding with.

Majide · July 2013

After word got around about a couple I work with getting engaged, people started "betting" on how long their marriage would last. I thought it was behind their backs, but apparently no - it was including them in the conversation.

When they went out of town for the wedding, people were talking about whether or not they were actually going to do it.

As a joke, someone printed one of those Game Over signs with the kinda stickfigure man and wife and put it in a frame on the groom's desk while they were gone. He left it there, and a year later, it is still on his desk. They all joke openly about their marriage. I just don't get it....

I find it sad to make a joke of their marriage. But at the same time, I know the couple - I honestly cannot figure out why on earth they would marry each other. But I guess misery loves company, so their bad attitudes attracted each other somehow.

Now my fiance and I are weeks away from our wedding (we both work together), and nobody is making jokes or insults about it at all... Thank goodness!

Best of all - we got an email from a former co-worker who wished us the best and said he doesn't understand why so many people are so negative about marriage. He said it was the best thing ever, and that it's awesome. It's so good to hear something positive about marriage - it seems like I'm surrounded by people who are very negative about it.

cmmurphy89 · July 2013

I got this a lot before we were married. We dated for 5 years and announced out intent to get married after like 6 months of dating, but waited until I was close to graduating to get engaged. I worked with 4 men, who had either had bitter divorces or still had pessimistic views of marriage even though they had been married for several years, and claimed they planned on being with their wives forever.

I just told them FI and I did not believe in divorce, and that would not be getting married planning for a divorce.

wittykitty14 · July 2013

LingerLonger1 said:

Every time this post pops back up at the top of the board I have to laugh about the fact that OP can't even type out the word divorce, like it's some sort of dirty word. "The D- Word." LOL!

Haha, yeah. I have no problem saying it-DIVORCE, there. I don't know exactly why I put D-word, but looking back, it's making me laugh.

I can't wait to run into this guy when I go back to work tomorrow and see what he says about my recent nuptials. He was so awkward around me the week before the wedding, it was kind of hilarious.

ErinMQue · September 2013

I was surprised by the number of people who made these types of comments to be before the wedding too!

The most shocking of them was from one of my co-workers who had only been married for a little less than a year but was already going through a divorce........She approached me and started asking me about various details of the wedding (how are things going? are you stress yet? ect.) and than abruptly she asked:

"So, you know there is a chance that it might not work out right?".

I looked at her slightly confused with a raised eyebrow in disbelief that she was actually referencing what I thought she was.

Before I could say anything she interjected again: "I mean you know its a possibility right?"

"Well, yeah I suppose it is always a possibility" I said with hesitation.

"Ok, good. As long as your aware of that before you get married"

I walked away confused and offended that she even thought it was appropriate to bring this up.

Majelin86 · September 2013

I hear you...a woman on my baseball team is in the middle of a divorce and keeps telling me not to get married! Like really??

FiancB · September 2013

Misery loves company and I guess more than anything they want to turn the conversation back on them so they can whine some more.

I hate the stat too. Even if it were accurate, people act like divorce is a thing that just happens and they have no control over it. My ex was kind of like this- before breaking up he liked to quote that a lot, like it never occurred to him that there's any choice involved.

So far so good over here. I hate even any joking about it though. Like signs saying "last chance to run!" or whatever. Puke.

selenathegreat · September 2013

Ugh. I got this so often at work. So inappropriate. Do I go up to pregnant ladies and tell them statistics on kids who hate their parents or who die horribly or something? No, but I'm sure some people do...sigh. Luckily all the "marriage is a horrible mistake" comments came from acquaintances and not friends or family...

Why do people feel the need to mention the D-word?!

Re: Why do people feel the need to mention the D-word?!

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