The Plunge Blog

A reader writes in the forums:

"I was just informed this weekend that I need to get a wedding-day gift for my fiancee.

"This was news to me, and I thought I was pretty well-informed about such things. Of course, this leads to a flurry of new questions.

"How long has this "tradition" been around, and is it another product of the wedding industry? What is the ballpark figure for spending on such a gift?

A reader writes:

"Okay I want a bachelor party......and my girl doesn't care if I have one. I was thinking of going to the strip club with the fellas having a couple of drinks, going home and playing cards/X-box 360/ Bones (dominoes).....the works ya know?

"But my girl has a problem with the strip club.....and strippers period. I see it as since this is basically my last moment of freedom and we both know I aint going to do something I shouldn't......like "sleep" with the stripper, I don't see the problem. Can I get some honest opinions on this please?"

Let's take a step back.  Let's break down your perspective, and then her perspective.

A female reader writes:

"i found this site and i think its WONDERFUL. i love reading things from the man's point of view, but now i need a LOT of help.

"My fiance and i started dating almost 2 years ago and we would have sex a few times a week-perfect for me. then after 2 months of dating he left for a deployment (he's in the navy) and after that, it was like once a month-IF that..im only 21, and at that time when the sex was slowing i was only 19. he's a few years older than me but he told me that he's never really been into sex-even in his high school years.

"But then at times it feels like its a chore for him. iv tried all sorts of things and no success really, he just tells me that he has a tummy ache, head ache or some other form of ailment.

A reader writes:

"First of all, love your website. Yep, I'm a chick, I hate wedding porn. I find it obnoxious. I love how honest this website is.

"I have a question. It's about my fiancé...I'm torn. Maybe it's just a dream of mine but I'd like to think he can have as much fun at the wedding as I can. Maybe not in the planning process, but at least AT the wedding. I'm trying my damnedest to keep his spirit involved even if he is not necessarily planning things.

A reader writes:

"Yes, I'm a woman (gasp!) and you didn't scare me away. Nice try.

"It's like this: Neither my fiance or myself really care about the wedding or wedding planning. We both care about marrying each other and that's it. I know I want some kind of wedding, but planning is like pulling teeth. I don't give a fu#k what kind of flowers are in my bridesmaids' bouquets and 80% of me wishes I could just wear jeans.

"Problem: Both of our families are INSISTENT that we have a "real wedding". His grandmother would most likely have a heart attack if we didn't (his father eloped... twice). I like the woman. She's cool. I don't want her to die. We're going traditional on payment (wedding - my parents, booze and rehearsal dinner - his parents), but yeah, both families are insisting on a "real" wedding, and my parents honestly aren't that thrilled about the marriage to begin with.

In the Plunge Forums, a reader writes:

"I'm the guy that was never popular in high school, doesn't have many friends, and was never given the time of day until college started.  I'm 21 years old now, as is my fiancée. 

"She was the girl that everybody wanted all through high school etc...She brings up her past sexual experiences multiple times a week. Each time I ask her not to, as I would just rather not know what she did in her past as it makes me a bit jealous. 

Plunge reader Ryanh007 posts in the forums:

"You meet girl.  You fall in love with girl.  You want to marry girl.  What do you do if your family doesn't like her?  This isn't the irrational "Nobody is good enough for my boy" dislike, its the irrational "Her family isn't as good as ours, she works at walmart, she isn't the best looking girl in town" dislike, plus other arguments that wouldn't hold their weight.

What do you do when your family is too stuck up to see your bride to be the way you see her?  They have valid points, but you aren't as stuck up as them."

_______

In most areas of life, my talents are modest. I'm not a particularly great athlete, chess player, or flutist. I can't whistle.

One thing that at The Plunge that we're quite excellent at, however, is pissing people off.

Latest example? In our piece The 10 Dumbest Reasons to Get Married, we wrote the following:

"Dumb Reason #5. She's hot. This doesn't mean you need to marry ugly. It means that physical attraction is a necessary, but not sufficient, criteria for marriage. You need to really, really, really need to know this girl before you pledge the rest of your life. Sex appeal isn't forever. With apologies to Helen Mirren, no one's hot at 60."

A reader writes:

"I am engaged to a very wonderful woman. An issue came up though involving her childhood friend/first boyfriend.

"The two of them grew up together. They were best friends for many years and they dated each other for a short amount of time (3 months I believe). She met me when she moved out here for college and has talked to the guy 3 times total in the last 2 years or so.

"When we got engaged she began spouting ideas for the wedding. Most of them were wonderful and reasonable, but she wanted this ex-boyfriend to be the organist at our wedding. That made me very uncomfortable and I expressed this to her.

A reader writes:

"Me an my fiancé are getting married. My daughter, who is 15, wants to make a toast at the reception... I can't find any wedding toast [for kids].

"Do you have any suggestions for her to use? Because he is the only dad she has. He raised her and she calls him Dad.

"Please help."

A (female) reader writes:

"Okay.  So, I know this is a guy website, but the chick websites are being stubbornly unhelpful with this question.  And, though it feels awkward as heck to ask, I'm getting desperate.

My guy and I have been together for nearly five years, and we haven't.. well, we haven't had sex.  He's done it before, but he's been absolutely wonderful about respecting my desire to wait till we're married.  I want to show him on our wedding night (in a few months) how much I appreciate this.  I don't want to ask him, because I want it to be a surprise (the wonderfully stuffed chick websites keep telling me that the wedding night should involve rose petals and candles, along with scented massage oils, but I can't help thinking that that isn't the way my guy would want to end his half-decade celibacy)

Okay, so the title's a touch misleading. (Yes, he did sleep with the best friend, but no, at the time, he wasn't dating his fiancée.)

A reader writes:

"I met my fiancée in college. We were great friends but she was in a relationship for the first 2 years I knew her. She knew I was interested but she loved the guy at the time. Anyway (this was almost 4 years ago now) she set me up with her best friend just for a night of fun. We got drunk and had sex.

"Well, long story short, she (my fiancée) broke up with her boyfriend and we ended up together. Now, since we've been together that night 4 years ago with her best friend has always caused tension with her even though we frequently hang out with the friend and her current boyfriend.

A reader writes:

"My fiancée told me she didn't care about strippers but didn't want them touching me. I took it to mean she'd just be annoyed because that's how I'd feel if she had male strippers rubbing up on her. I'd be annoyed. So I thought I was doing good when I was honest and told her i'd gotten a lap dance from the stripper my best man hired. Now she's not annoyed. She's devastated. She feels betrayed, thinks I'm somehow "unclean" and is just so hurt that I'd do such a thing.

I'm blown away. I thought it was par for the course. Accepted tradition. An annoyance for the bride at best. I've learned the hard way that this assumption was a huge mistake. AND now my good friends and best man (who is really a great guy) have lost all of her respect. She doesn't want them at the wedding! WTF!

I've gone from anger for her not communicating this possible outcome with me to a slobbery crying apologetic fool. It's really hard for me to relate to her. The stripper thing is so meaningless to me. But my fiancée can't relate to that. So how do I convince her that she can trust me? We're getting married in a week. I'm freaking out..."

_________

Clearly there's only one solution: you need to hire a male stripper, get her good and drunk, and have her girlfriends cajole her into getting a lap dance.  Even Steven, done and done.

Sadly, however, we're not in a lousy Ashton Kutcher comedy. So we'll deal with reality. Nothing can really be gained by finger-pointing, so let's start by pointing some fingers.

Where you're in the wrong: Sorry dude. When she says, "I don't want them touching you," there's almost no credible way you can interpret that as, "I don't love the idea of them touching you, and if it happens, I'll be annoyed, but no biggie!!!" She carved out the rules of engagement, and those rules were clearly NO TOUCHING. If you didn't like those rules (and who would?) the time to negotiate was before the bachelor party, not after. She laid down the law. You broke it.

Where she's in the wrong: Let's get some perspective. You didn't have sex with this stripper. You didn't kiss this stripper. Hell, you didn't even want a lap dance from this stripper, you merely went with the flow when your best man forked over some twenties. And, frankly, that's what happens in strip clubs at bachelor parties. Your sin is one of misunderstanding, not malice. From the tone of your email, it sounds like you really, really, really thought that basic run-o'-the-mill lap dances were on the table.  To use some Supreme Court Justice nomination jargon, your presumption is not "out of the mainstream."  Is she in the right?  From a technical sense, maybe a little. But she relinquished her moral high ground by overreacting.

So if you want to get all 4rd grade and bicker about who's right, who's wrong, that's where you start the arguments. But in the words of Mark McGuire, "We're not here to talk about the past, we're here to talk about the future."

You're getting married in a week. So focus on one thing: Damage Control.

Here's your 5-Step plan:

From a reader:

"I have a question for you guys. I love my fiancée more then anything, but I am having one issue. I have a serious jealousy issue with her past. When I get mad at her I cant help but think of all the other guys she's been with and how she must have liked being with them more then me. I know it sounds childish and stupid, but I can't seem to make myself get past it. How do I not let this become an issue so big it ruins my upcoming marriage?"

_______

There's an old legend about the ancient Greeks. When an athlete triumphed in a sporting event, to congratulate him, the fans would hoist him on their shoulders and yell, "Die Now! Die Now!"

The athlete was at his peak. The apex of his life. "Die Now" meant that he would never, ever be as happy as he was this moment; so to avoid the inevitable letdown, he should just go ahead and kill himself.

As perhaps you've noticed, this tradition has fallen out of favor. At weddings, when we shower the bride and groom with rice, we (usually) don't scream out "Die Now! Die Now!"

No, we at The Plunge do not endorse newlywed euthanasia. And to clarify, we do not think that the wedding will be the apex of your life. You will have other triumphs. You will grow even happier and happier with your wife. Your children will bring you bankruptcy joy.

Still... the Greeks had their finger on something. After the wedding, some guys will feel a letdown, a funk, a hard-to-pinpoint sense of gloom. You can't articulate it. You can't talk about it with your buddies, and you probably can't talk about it with your wife.

Sometimes it helps just to isolate and clarify your stress. Chances are, it stems from one of these 10 funk factors.

Also, in deference to your state of mind, we'll be a little less snarky than usual. We'll be delicate. (Because you're acting like a pansy.)

Funk Factor 1: You're no longer the star.

Truth time. Yes, we've both sworn an aversion to wedding planning. We mock it, you avoid it. Shhhhh... We promise we won't tell anyone...but we know that you secretly enjoyed it. Or at least parts of it. You were the leading man in a lavish play that had a cast of 200. You were doted on, flattered, honored with gifts. And now? The gig's up, the costumes are boxed in the closet, the audience has moved on to the next wedding.

Solution: Good news. This effect is temporary. Life will soon return to normal, and with it, your perspective and humor.

Funk Factor 2: You have idle hands.

For better or worse, the wedding sucked up a lot of time. And now you suddenly have your evenings free. Yes, you mocked it and yes, you were annoyed by much of it, but even on the bad days it was what you did. Without all the stress of planning-or putting up with your fiancée's planning-you could find yourself bored. And boredom leads to depression.

Solution: Take up a new hobby with your wife. Tennis lessons, wine tasting, key parties, whatever. You had a life before. You'll have a life again.

For the additional funk factors and solutions, see the full article Happily Ever After(?): Dealing with Post-Wedding Stress.