AIBU, or is the sentence..

[ItsTricky]

'I've been married to my husband (or wife) for 26 years'

Ridiculous?

Of course you're married to your husband. Who else would you be married to?

I hear this a lot and it always annoys me

Annoys me too!

It sounds better than I've been married to this bloke (or broad) for 26 years

You could argue that putting AIBU in your thread title is ridiculous because you are in the AIBU topic and thus of course you are asking whether you are being unreasonable or not...

Redundant or repetitive rather than ridiculous?

Pedantic

I really can't get annoyed by something silly like that. You must always be annoyed!

I get what you're saying though, they could just say 'I've been married for 26 years' but meh.

Local radio are doing a phone in about long term relationships. Nearly every caller has married their husband or wife. It is driving me bonkers.

My annoyance threshold is usually set much higher. I have two teenagers.

Tempted to call in.

YANBU

And I know I'm going to sound awful now but whenever anyone refers to their 'late Husband' or 'late Wife', it always sounds like they're going to turn up in a minute...huffing and puffing and full of apologies

Obviously I've always kept that thought to myself in RL!

A discourse analyst might say they are showing that it's important who they married, so it's not about the experience of marriage per se, it's the experience of marriage to THIS man Jerry that I married. IYSWIM.

The information of 'husband' or 'wife' is not otiose. The sentence

"I have been married to my husband for 26 years"

imparts the information that the speaker has been married for 26 years to the same person.

If you said "I've been married for 26 years" that could mean 5 years to husband 1, 14 years to husband 2 and 7 years to your current husband. It also does not impart the information that you are still married.

If you didn't want to say husband/wife, you would have to say "I have been married to the same male person for 26 years and we are still married", which is longer and more clumsy.

YABU

'My husband and I have been married for 26 years'

Much better.

Well, if the marriage was only 5 months or so long, you could be female and married to your wife.

YABU. Some woman married the Eiffel Tower.

In that case, people would be interested to know the lady had married The Eiffel Tower instead of the bog standard husband or wife.

I would be happy to hear 'I've been married to The Eiffel Tower for 26 years'. That makes sense. Apart from the obvious.

YABU. Apart from the fact that there are many, many more things in the world to be annoyed about, it could be that the person is in a same-sex marriage and is letting you know.

Nope.

Even in the case of being married to someone of the same sex it sounds wrong.

You know what irritates me? When my mother asks if I'd like an 'egg omelette'. What other sodding type is there?!

"My husband and I have been married for 26 years" does not provide all the information that "I have been married to my husband for 26 years" does.

In the first, you might have been married to X for 25 years and your husband for 1, and they might have been married to Y for 25 years and you for 1.

So YABU. It's important that you have been married to a particular person for the duration, and not simply being in the state of married.

Obviously "I have been married to Fred for 26 years" would be preferable, but in situations where other people don't know Fred, or you don't want to reveal Fred's name, saying "my husband" is reasonable.

Oh, and I see Thistledew has already made that point... A great mind.

SistersOfMercy Cheese, there are Cheese Omelettes.

I very much hope that the lady and the Eiffel Tower had a satisfactory, equal, sharing and close relationship, and that the ET didn't flirt with other towers when it had had too much of the vino.

And given it's shape, I am hopeful for her that the sex was great!

And the main ingredient of a cheese omelette? Aside from the cheese? How do you propose on making an omelette without the egg?

SistersofPercy It's an accuracy thing again, "would you like an Omelette", "Yes please, cheese and ham would be great".

By asking if you'd like an "Egg Omelette", you remove the chance to have to give your cheese and ham away.

Many people with civil partnerships refer to themselves as "married" anyway so you may want to specify the gender. Also agree with others, you are emphasising the importance of the other person – "I've been married for 26 years" sounds a bit self-centred to me, like it doesn't really matter who to.

Still annoys me irrationally. She also says waffle to rhyme with raffle which makes my teeth itch.

egg omelette

reminds me of the time my DH rang a takeaway and I just wanted omelette. I could hear him repeating himself over and over "an egg omelette!" "with egg!" I was dying