To ask: Married ladies, what’s one reality check single women need to hear?

Lesbians have more orgasms.

Haha! Amazing. Thanks Dolly, I needed a laugh. Bet you drink your milk straight from the cow, dontcha?

Nigel? Is that you? Stop waffling - those potatoes aren’t going to peel themselves.

It's very much like before you get married, except you don't have to plan a wedding anymore! Eventually you both get older but hopefully at the same rate.

Jeez I thought that was one of those 1950s newspaper articles... You actually believe all that trad wife shit? Who would want such a fragile-egoed man child that needs mummying? What an ick. Real men like strong women

They don’t you know, Cosmopolitan magazine just tells you that.

My lovely dh is very easy to please - beef wellington just once a week (pastry must be homemade, naturally) and a simple casserole or soufflé will suffice the other 6 evenings.

Also please remember to give him sex or at the very least a BJ whenever he asks - that is your duty as a wife, it’s important to remember a man has conjugal rights and if you don’t perform these simple tasks you’ve only yourself to blame if you find out he’s been balls deep in Sandra from Accounting for the last 6 months when he’s been telling you he’s at golf!

I know for a fact my own dh is definitely at golf as his golfing buddies vouch for him thankfully. And it means nothing that he’s oft not home until 1am - the courses are floodlit nowadays 😊

@Mrsnothingthanks Our photos are high 1980s bows and peach satin puff sleeves handsomely bound in grey velour. Having only one photo might have been a blessing. We were as skint as you and couldn't afford one of the new-fangled wedding videos so my brother recorded it all on an audio cassette for us. Now we're older and richer (bloody boomers) we have made a second copy in case the first cassette fails.

Here are my good tips - marry someone that you enjoy going on holiday with and doing the same things.

only marry someone if you like / can tolerate their parents. Who do you think they’ll turn into as they get older?

always have a job and your own money so you are an equal partner and can walk away if you need to.

only marry someone you fancy and want to have sex with.

marry someone you respect and respects you.

(cue lots of people saying they they haven’t turned into their parents - yes you probably have!)

What a fab OP! This is the MN I like reading/ find helpful etc.

Never been here before?

That there is a reason the happiest people are married men and single women.

Ohhh I thought this was going to be for dire warnings from the married folks to the committed spinsters (such as myself). For example “if you’re single and over 37 then you’ll be alone forever and no man will ever want you” type prophecies of doom 🤣🤣

Totally read the room wrong.

Anyway, as you were…

Best piece of advice I can give; don’t ask yourself can I live with him, ask yourself can I live WITHOUT him.

@SeaAndStars Oh quite. We couldn't afford a wedding photographer at our wedding of 17 guests so we only have one decent photo to admire every day (this part is genuine btw).
I'd also like to say that I enjoy I wearing my wedding dress on a daily basis but I'd only get one boob in it these days 😄

SeaAndStars

🤣🤣🤣

Eternal Beau…now that’s a blast from the past!

Amount, noise or both🤭

You’ll be better off financially than most single women unless you separate and then you’ll be poorer than most women who remained single.

Jeez I thought that was one of those 1950s newspaper articles... You actually believe all that trad wife shit? Who would want such a fragile-egoed man child that needs mummying? What an ick. Real men like strong women.

AIBU to think that behind all the cute photos and wedding hype, there’s a whole layer of marriage that’s rarely spoken about?

YABU. It is genuinely just the cute photos and wedding. DH and I have spent the nearly 40 years of our marriage wearing our wedding clothes. We take it in turns to sweep up the confetti. We have a small sherry and a slice of wedding cake every day for dinner and he makes a speech afterwards.

He drives a Rolls, I sit in the back carrying a posy of freesias and a man comes in twice a week to take misty photos of us. Our family visit wearing hats and ties and in our back room are 25,678 toast racks and 59 full Eternal Beau dinner services. The cat is black for luck.

No hidden layers. It's all just the wedding. Nothing else to speak about.
What were you expecting? Real life with all it's ups and downs and constant change? Surely not.

For me marrying your best friend. The one who you can rely on to wipe away your tears, to hold you up when you can't go on, who makes you laugh. And when you come in is always there to welcome you, and most of all you enjoy their company
I also agree that pre marriage counselling is helpful- so you are on the same page, lay down rules about communicating, and lay some foundations about date nights etc when in early days with young kids.

only problem is when you behave like that, your husband will cheat or dump you for the first interesting and lively woman he meets 😂

And a man who would truly believe they want a Stepford wife-robot would not be interesting to be with anyway, imagine being stuck with someone wish such little self confidence

Sometimes you’ll marry the wrong person for you, and you won’t even realise it until years later.

Don't marry someone because you want to be married, marry them because you want to be married to THEM. Because they make your life all the better for being a part of it. This x10 if you want to have children. If they lazy and selfish before marriage and children, they will be the same after children but it will feel worse for you. I remember hearing my MIL telling my SIL that her selfish DP will step up after marriage and children and I was shocked by the lie. No he fucking won't.

I say don’t get married until you truly know yourself and your boundaries. And make sure you know that man inside out, through good times and bad. Know what he’s like under pressure and frustrated and make sure you still like him in those circumstances. See how he treats shop workers and waitresses.

You need to be friends and respectful to each other even when the going gets tough, which it inevitably does in a marriage sometimes.

And don’t enjoy ‘playing house’ so much that you become the default perfect little domestic drone ‘cause that shit will drain the life out of you and it’s a terrible role model for your future kids.

absolutely!

and frankly, I don't want to waste 6 months of my life with a man chasing me when we are not compatible in bed (or when he's crap in bed, whatever way you want to put it)

@MrsPrendergast I agree that lots of women are unhappily married but stay for financial reasons. Not for me, but I suppose it's about priorities ateotd.