Post 83–about that 30 year old scotch–there are probably a lot of takers for that!
As for grocery shopping–unless you’ve spent time in them growing up with mom pointing out what’s good/bad in veggies or why one brand may be better than another, or the difference between jam and jelly or soup and broth…what do you expect?
My dh has finally gotten pretty good at the grocery store pick-up because he does it so often on his way home from work. He now writes the list down if there are more than three items and I’d say at least half the time I get calls about just exactly what it was I wanted.
Pizzagirl–that was why the last activity of just “problems” from other couples has served us so well as young people. We sat there and said “Never us–we’d never do that–why would that even be a problem?” and then life happens over the years. And our x solution from years ago morphed into z. But knowing how people made those compromises helped (even with our “never us” attitude).
I specifically remembered one lady saying she did laundry at 2 am because that was the only quiet time in her family where she was alone and could actually think–she could get something done and nobody bothered her for anything (she had a few kids). But of course she was over tired. People nodded not in horror (I was horrified at the time) but in sympathy and offered solutions (including “this too shall pass”) Then a decade or so later after kids–I totally understood that whole conversation and simply knowing that marriages have ups and downs to get through has made a difference to both H and me.
Kind of like gouf78, we went to a pre-marriage Engaged Encounter sponsored by wife-to-be’s local Catholic Archdiocese. They had two separate class rooms with the same questions being asked. We were split from our future spouse, discussed the same questions in our respective classes, then wrote a paragraph about each topic. It covered kids, money, conflict resolution, most of the things couples should have been discussing before engagement. We then got together to trade notebooks and discuss. We still have our notebooks.
For us, it became a bit boring because we had talked about almost everything before and had very similar life goals. Surprisingly, two of the 20-or-so couples saw that they were incompatible, packed their bags and left before it was over.
We have the nearby Love Lab at University of Washington where they research love, commitment and relationships. They analyze couples and predict with remarkable accuracy whether they will stay together. Love means being considerate of the other persons happiness. Unfortunately, many are faking it.
One thing mentioned earlier was the trouble with relationships when the women are mid to late 50s - this I understand completely. My wife spent five years on anti-estrogen drugs and, during that time, was mean as a snake and hard to live with. To her, her emotions were a perfectly reasonable response to my and our kids behaviors. I heard similar stories from a friend whose daughter was on the drugs.
I’d say a boring marriage encounter is the best you can get when it’s so clear you’re on the same page. And comforting in a good way that you’re making a good life match. The “photo” activity my future H and I did–we even took some of the SAME pictures. We both took pix of an anchor for how we viewed the other. The same anchor. And no, we didn’t go together to take pix or even discuss what we were doing on the side.
We didn’t have to go to a class or anything to get married–we knew we were getting married and were compatible. But it was enlightening anyway and we learned something along the way.
Women in mid to late whatever’s and hormones–I was hoping to divorce myself at times! But that is a different subject.
@ hanna, Best wishes.
Re:“He also does the dishes, the vacuuming, and the litter box,”
I do none of these (but I am lucky because my wife let me get away from this.) As a partner, I am definitely “below the standard.”
Luckily, my son is likely not like me. From what I have known about him, he enjoys cooking more than any girl he has been dating before, so he cooks for her more often than she does for him. Whenever a phone call between him and his mom gets longer, more likely than not, they are discussing cooking, and/or grocery shopping. I do not know how my wife “trained” him when he was growing up, but she did a good job. Is it because we have no daughter? During a break, he would often accompany his mom for shopping. At one time he and his mom went shopping (he was dating his first GF at that time), they accidentally ran into his GF and her mom at the mall. Her mom asked him: “Do you frequently go shopping with your mom?” He said yes. (Could this be one of the reasons why this then-GF dumped him several months later, considering him as not “man” enough?) BTW, because he’s dating now, my wife thinks she needs to “back off” a little bit because she thinks his focus should be on his GF now, not on us. She voluntarily gives up many of the weekend calls with him (replace the call with just a brief text.) They did not call each other during the last two weeks. I heard my S described his mom as “being practical” and borderline anti-social to his current GF (e.g., does not want to spend money on “useless” things like flowers, does not enjoy any social events.) And his GF described her mom as someone who occasionally enjoy throwing a big party. (And she said she tried to get away from those parties at her own house whenever she could get away from it (except the social obligation part due to the visits of extended families. This is likely because she does not like to be in a “noisy” environment for too long – all those “guests” are considered as someone invading her living space from her point of view.)
Go to the college dorm of a potential date interest, and try to find out (from his roommate/suitemates whether he helps with (at least does his fair share of) cleaning the dorm room - especially the shared common area. This could tell a lot about him.
Frazzled, hope your DH is doing well and that you are taking care of your needs during this time, too.
One thing that has helped us in our marriage is setting and maintaining boundaries in dealing with parents/in-laws. MIL/DIL do not drop in uninvited, I don’t vent about DH to my mom, etc. We stay close to our families, but keep our marriage and finances private.
I happen to know two cases where parents/in-laws believe they have the “rights” to drop in any time they want to, with a very short notice.
One of my colleagues, who was not even married and did not have GF then, was very pissed off when his own parents did this to him (drop in with one or two days of notice.) It seems his relationship is not that great with his own parents so he feels his parents “offended” him by doing this.
My own parents, before they passed away, would be very upset if I visited the family of my inlaw. I had to visit them “in secret” without letting them be aware of it. But they were always suspicious of my visiting them. There is some reason why my wife and I do not want to be involved with any relatives or anyone who is close to them, or even deviate from our own “culture norm.” (We hated several aspects of it so much.) It was just a hopeless situation and there was no way to “communicate” with them. it is their way or no way. I know, it us very dysfunctional for my generation and hopefully it will be different for our next generation (this is why my wife believes S and future DIL should have their own space and we need to keep some “safe distance” from their family life; we do not want to be like our parents.)
@ momofjandl-
That one is a gem, for all the claims about how when you are married the extended family (siblings, parents, relatives) helps cement things together, families of origin are often one of the biggest issues married couples face, whether it is meddling in laws a la “Everyone Loves Raymond”, or lack of boundaries where parents and siblings expect the ‘family’ bond to be more important than the person’s own family. My wife and I looking back realized that right out of college we should have moved far, far away from my family and her mom (who counted for about 10 people on the disaster scale). Maybe I have been talking to the wrong people, but the people I know who have gone through premarital counseling, religious or otherwise, almost never mention counseling about setting boundaries with birth families and what a minefield they can be (and also have heard of especially pastoral counselors telling them that their ‘family ties’, especially their parents, are as or more important than their spousal bond, which is utter crap to me). It is a wonder we survived what we did, my family had no boundaries and assumed that somehow I was ‘theirs’, showing up when they wanted, ‘needing things’ and so forth, that caused real conflict, and my wife’s mother, well, let’s just say she was a combination of Typhoid Mary and Hurricane Sandy when it came to her level of destructiveness…
It is really, really important that couples set those boundaries, you don’t stop loving your birth family when you get married, but they have to take a step back when someone has their own family. In my family it was weird, because that rule applied to my brother and his family, you practically had to schedule crap with them a year in advance, would always seem to be busy or not available if you needed something, but on the other hand I was supposed to have my house as some sort of open space for them, my time didn’t matter, etc…and it really, really did damage, some of which still has not fully healed, even though it has probably been 15 years since I have had any kind of contact with my family.
One of the things I have learned is that as much as life has things that pull you away, whether it is jobs, kids, other interests, things that need to be done, family, you name it, that if the people don’t keep each other in mind, it is very easy to drift away, no matter how much they love one another.
Re: “we should have moved far, far away from my family.”
We could not move farther than what we did. LOL. We actually wonder whether our marriage could be kept intact if we lived too close to my side of family. (It was fine with her side though.)
This reminds me of something. My wife does request the “right” of living in the same city with our S when we are too old to take care of ourselves. We are not that unconditionally “nice” after all.
I realize how lucky I am but I love my in-laws and they are welcome to drop in unannounced any time, We’ll see them at least 3 times this week.
Re: “In my family it was weird, because that rule applied to my brother and his family, you practically had to schedule crap with them a year in advance, would always seem to be busy or not available if you needed something, but on the other hand I was supposed to have my house as some sort of open space for them, my time didn’t matter, etc.”
This is very familiar to me. I wonder whether this has something to do with the fact that, when children growing up with his/her parents, the parents knew which one is the “easy” one to deal with, i.e., they could push him/her around easily without any consequence, while they need to be more “careful” with some other child. When the “easy-to-push-around” child get married, the parents believe they could be careless with his/her SO by his/her association with the child who is “easy to deal with” by his/her own nature/personality. To put it bluntly, it is almost like in the middle school, the bully always knows which kid is their “target”. The parents know the nature or personality of their children very well. If they do not have the “wisdom” or are not “nice” or even “selfish”/“aggressive”, they know how to deal with each of their children in a different way.
“I see a lot of men at our local Giant Eagle, each holding a list, scratching their head, contemplating reaching for the cell phone.”
If they’re scratching their heads and reaching for cell phones, then likely grocery shopping is not likely “their job”. Frequent market shoppers aren’t grabbing for their cell phones because the person at home knows less than they do. lol
I don’t know what time of day you’re in stores, but typically between 8-5 Mon-Fri, the majority of shoppers are women and retirees.
My H does the litter box, too. Yay!!! 
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he hated grocery shopping when he was living alone, and generally bought the exact same things week after week
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H hated grocery shopping when he was living alone. And, he also just bought the same things over and over again. … a lot of cheese, nuts, and other stuff that didn’t require “prep”. He doesn’t mind it so much now…he’ll happily go along with me, and he will pick up a few things on the way home by himself…but the list better not be too long or include unfamiliar things… 
My friend’s H recently came home from a big supermarket, with the list she had given him, declaring, “the store doesn’t carry yoghurt”. lol…sure. ha ha.
@ mcat2-
I am pretty sure you are correct on that, though in my case it was a little more complex. The real root of the problem came from my dad, he never separated from his birth family properly (among other things, he was the oldest child, by almost 10 years from his two brothers, so ended up kind of helping raise them), and our own lives growing up were unhealthily tangled up with his birth family, so the die was cast there, too…but I am an easygoing person, easy to push around, plus my brother is a difficult person, always was, but my sister also took advantage, though in her case if I asked for help it would be there. One of the reasons I am estranged from my siblings and birth family as a whole is I simply put down boundaries, or tried to, things I needed to do to protect my own little family, and I paid the price for it, but I am so, so glad I did, because my son has none of the crap either my wife or I had to deal with with our own families, and it saved our marriage, we either would have ended up blown apart, or more likely, would have ended up as two people who loved each other but shared our lives in the misery of putting up with each other, rather than enjoying each other. I will add that it took me a number of years with a good therapist to work things out and get past the crap that programmed into me, often using fear tactics on my family’s part, I had to do things that at best were difficult and worse felt like I was gonna die, but it was all more than worth it:)
One advantage to marrying someone who was your friend is that you might know details of their life before marriage that might be withheld from a love interest. As a friend it might be easier to accept past relationships, improprieties, and youthful indiscretions than when they are introduced into an intimate relationship. I think it can be easier to have conversations about what you like and dislike, ambitions, goals etc. as well as knowing how someone acts towards others when they are not attempting to impress or attract you. It might make the getting to know you part of the relationship somewhat less mysterious but at least you will have fewer surprises after you are married.
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One advantage to marrying someone who was your friend is that you might know details of their life before marriage that might be withheld from a love interest.
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This is a very good point.
In the best of worlds ,a good marriage puts the spouse first, the kids second, in-laws third.
It is very important to protect your own family unit. Listen to outside sources though.
Knowing what kind of relationship your potential spouse has with his/her parents might make a difference. My ex once moved and didn’t even tell his parents for more than a month. This was way, WAY before cell phones, internet, etc. and they literally had no way to find him. We weren’t married yet but I handed him the phone one day and said, “Call your parents or I will call information and do it myself.” I know there are people who are estranged from their parents or siblings and knowing why could impact whether to move forward with a relationship. I should have asked. My ex had a lot of deeply internalized issues with both parents and really odd ideas about family and love-these ultimately brought down our marriage. Had I taken the non-communication between him and his parents seriously at the time, I could have avoided some real heartbreak. Even his friends were more concerned with where he was than his folks, and he talked to them before he told his parents.
"My friend’s H recently came home from a big supermarket, with the list she had given him, declaring, “the store doesn’t carry yoghurt”. lol…sure.
That’s hilarious! Did he actually believe it himself?