Sunday, December 07, 2008

The 3 Stages

I now believe there are 3 stages in a marriage.

Stage 1: The husband is blamed when he does something wrong
Stage 2: The husband is blamed when he does nothing wrong
Stage 3: The husband is blamed when the wife does something wrong

And as of yesterday, I believe my wife and I have successfully entered Stage 3 in our marriage. As Exhibit A, I present this exchange that took place between us Saturday morning.

Wife: Get aluminum foil when you go to the store.
Me: OK
(I go to the store but forget to buy aluminum foil)
Wife (on the phone): Did you get the aluminum foil?
Me: No
Wife: Isn't that what you went to the store for? Go back and buy aluminum foil.
Me: OK
(I get home. Wife sees what I bought)
Wife (angrily): You bought aluminum foil?! You were supposed to buy an aluminum tray.
Me: ?!
Wife: How could you be so dumb? The next time I ask you to buy eggs, are you going to buy eggs?
Me: ??!!

So all those guys who are p*ssed off about being blamed even when they did nothing... you ain't seen nothing yet :)

19 Comments:

At 12:59 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

LOL! balaji thank you for briefing me on the pleasures of marriage!
romba usefulla irukka poruthu!

 
At 4:13 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

there are only two stages of marraige.

1. woman cries over how profoundly oppressed women are
2. woman grits teeth over having to put up with, on top of everything else, inane jokes about what men endure in marraige

i know, i know, this is too serious an answer for a light-hearted post, but it just irritates me to see endless jokes about how men have to put up with women's behavior in marraige when you, i and everybody know that in reality, it's women enduring at best, second-classness and at worst, torture. ESPECIALLY FOR TAMIL WOMEN.

:)
happy & unmarried woman

 
At 5:33 AM, Blogger Munimma said...

of course you heard it wrong, she said tray and you heard foil. Typical man ;-)

 
At 10:01 AM, Blogger Kay said...

BB

Stage 4: The husband takes the blame even before the blunder happens. He preempts it.

Hubby and I are in that stage now. He takes the blame even before anything happens. He says something inane like "Okay, If anything goes wrong, please forgive me. I dont mean it. I am not fit to be your husband. You need a very understanding guy.." He goes on and on and on and totally pisses me off. Very irritating and gets my goat all the time...

Urrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Men.....

Kay

 
At 10:10 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Preempts it? Maybe one can pre-buy a certain number of "pre-empts" and use them up as "incidents" happens...like a calling card :)

 
At 12:42 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Women/ wife jokes are one of the easiest ways for male sexist to get a cheap chuckle.

 
At 12:58 PM, Blogger Srivatsan Sridharan said...

:-)

BB, the post reminds me of Vadivelu dialogue.

*why blood, same blood*

 
At 1:26 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Balaji,

Please write a follow up on your wife's reaction after reading this post :)

 
At 2:29 PM, Blogger mitr_bayarea said...

Balaji-

Hahahaha....well written post, I still think we are in stage 1 and stage 2...but this is hillarious.

 
At 7:12 PM, Blogger D.E.V said...

Good one balaji...now i know why my Mum creates hell for any mistakes my Dad does, while if she makes a error, it is self forgiven...

By the way, is there any other stages after that..probably it would be your children's turn to blame you latter on...:)

 
At 8:24 PM, Blogger Icy Cool said...

Well, According to me and a few of my girl friends there is only one and only stage in marriage. "Man takes the credit and goes on and on praising himself for everything that goes right. But if things go wrong then it is BLAME IT ON THE WIFE. Intha orae oru stage thaanpa enakku theiryum. :D

IcyCool
pataampoochi.blogspot.com

 
At 9:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, I get blamed if the weather is bad?!! The only parallel I have seen is people blaming God for anything and everything that goes wrong in their lives. No wonder the wise ones said husbands are to be looked upon as Gods :)

- not brave enough to put my name here

 
At 11:16 PM, Blogger Balaji said...

mukund, u're welcome :)

anon, yep, too serious for this post. as for the oppressed, second-class, etc. parts, my grandma might agree with u but i'm pretty sure even my wife wouldn't agree with u :)

munimma, that happens too often for me to blog about it. but not this time :)

kay, lol. kinda like anticipatory bail. can see how it can drive u nuts :)

anon, nice idea :)

..., ok :)

srivatsan, lol :)

anon, she did laugh about it when i was narrating this to her cousin's family. so i'm hoping reaction won't be too bad. but edhukku visha pareetchai. i ain't asking her to read it :)

mitr, thanx. glad most of the women readers have a sense of humor :)

skanda, kay has already pointed out atleast 1 stage after these :)

icy, u've been misinformed :)

anon, day is probably not too far off when i get blamed if weather is bad :)

 
At 12:06 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

All these stages can be interchanged that's the peculiarity of Relationships.
A nice post!

 
At 9:30 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

well, i've been married for a year-and-a-half now...i gave some "advice" to a friend of mine who got married recently...i am going to paraphrase and expand on that...

maaple, 'Mozhi' paathe ille? adha vechu sollaren...kalyanam pannarthuku munaala nee Prakashraj-a irundhurukalaam, cool and casual about a lot of things not worrying about how you might sound...kalyanathuku ponnu paakarchey nee Prithviraj-a maaridu...romba dignified and sensitive...kalyanam panni konja naalaiku nee Swarnamalya maadhiri porumaiyaa, elaathukum sirichitte iru...adhuku aparam sandai varrachey Jothika ode line-a nyabagam vechuko: "Enaku Chinese theriyaadhu...Music theriyaadhu...aana, enaku therinja Mozhi unga yaarukum theriyaadhu: Mounam."

"Mounamey Unnidam Andha Mounam Thaane Azhagu...
Paarvaigall Podhume Adhil Vaarthai Pesi Pazhagu..."

Yaen solaren-na unnode past silmishangall-a vechu una kavukkarthuku oru kootame irukum...not malicious but mischievous...adha samaalike un pondaati kitte oru asattu ilipu...zero kozuppu...no soundu...neraiyya silence-u...so, never underestimate the power of silence, machaan!

 
At 12:58 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

bb's version i suspect is kothala thevan's version. We need his wife's (i.e. virumandi's) version to fill in the gaps on what really happened:)

 
At 9:02 PM, Blogger Balaji said...

anon, thanx :)

ram, that was awesome. very clever and creative :)

anon, no gaps, no multiple versions. just 1 truth :)

 
At 1:12 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Awesome post. I'm sure were in adhaiyum thaaNdiya punidhamaana stage of marriage.

In this stage, wife doesn't know why she is scolding the husband. And husband doesn't understand why he is being scolded. In fact it even gets worse sometimes. Husband doesn't realize that he is getting scolded and the wife doesn't realize she is scolding the husband.

Skanda... As far as the kids scolding the parent... Well, they just have one sentence... Appa u don't know anything. But the best thing about this is. Wife gets the same treatment. They are equal opportunity scolders. :)

Krish

 
At 10:17 AM, Blogger Dewdrop said...

Small yet very funny post... Did this really happen?

 

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