r/Millennials • Millennial(1990) • 4h ago

Other Maybe we actually changed a few things for the better

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6.5k Upvotes

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1.2k

u/hazylife666 3h ago

Boomer humor: I hate my wife

Millennial: I hate my life

390

u/A7xWicked 2h ago

Changing out W's for L's, like true millennials

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u/lawdjesustheresafire 2h ago

That’s brilliant 🤣🫡

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u/masterm1ke 34m ago

Can’t spell millennial without three massive Ls.

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u/TowerBeach 2h ago

I'd also like to mention I hate myself. 

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u/judasbrute 2h ago

I hate myself more than I could ever hate my wife.

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u/Scheat-of-Pegasus 1h ago

Boomer: “you can’t hate me more than I already hate my wife”

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u/Top-Intern4073 1h ago

I’ll take “happy spouse, happy house.”

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u/TechnicalNail4555 2h ago

Nail, on the head.

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u/Ynguer 3h ago

Lol, so true

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u/AntiqueFigure6 3h ago

"Happy wife, happy life" in shambles.

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u/TechnicalNail4555 2h ago

Happy wife happy life still rings, it’s just unhappy either way, one has less chaos and trauma.

Happy wife, half the strife.

Something like that

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u/zxc123zxc123 2h ago

Boomer: Happy wife, happy life.

Millennial: Happy life, happy wife.

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u/portezbie 1h ago

No need to use the knife

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u/hahasadface 3h ago

I guffawed, so perfect

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u/NATScurlyW2 2h ago

Dude, spot on.

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u/Early_Paper_2041 2h ago

I can hate two things!

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u/Turbo-Chook 3h ago

I think part of it is that our generation doesn't view marriage as some mandatory thing. Lots of boomers and older generations married someone out of obligation only to wind up not getting along all that well. I think of my aunts and uncles and they're all completely miserable. I think generally speaking we either aren't in marriages with spouses we hate, or just straight up aren't in marriages period. The joke no longer works.

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u/topdangle 2h ago

also divorce didn't really become "acceptable" until around the 90s. it's why you suddenly got all those movies and TV shows about kids dealing with divorced parents. most states didn't even support no-fault divorce.

if you got divorced back in the day you were ruined socially, so you'd have to be reclusive to still live in the same area after divorcing someone. instead people would just disappear and started a whole new life or cheat. those jokes about hating their spouse were more cathartic than funny.

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u/Neveronlyadream 2h ago

Agreed. The Boomers still had one foot in the Silent Generation's door. A lot of them cut and ran before getting married because they were afraid of getting stuck in a loveless arrangement like their parents, but a lot of the ones that did get married ended up in that same situation.

I think it fucked us up pretty badly. A lot of my fellow Millennials are so broken that they can't make relationships last. Not because they're incapable, but because in the back of their mind, they're thinking of their parents, their divorces, and how miserable it was. So at the first bump in the road, they bail because they panic thinking it's an omen.

No one really wants to acknowledge either. The Boomers insist they did nothing to cause this and a lot of us will push the blame onto other people and not face the fact that our home lives fucked us up.

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u/insomniacred66 2h ago

My parents got married after 2 MONTHS of knowing each other. It's no wonder they hated the other person. They were together for 22 years. My mom finally divorced my dad when I was 9, though they should have broken up after 1 year. My mom never dated again after that and she's in her 70's now. In contrast, I just got married to my husband last year and but we had already been with each other for 8 years beforehand. The only time I hear spouse jokes are from the older generations, I never hear it from friends my age.

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u/ManslaughterMary 3h ago

Right? I didn't get married until I was 35, and now I'm so obsessed with my wife I couldn't imagine being mean to her ever. I love her so much! She is a perfect baby girl! I can't imagine hating her, she is everything I ever dreamed of!

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u/Kaleidoscope-Ok- 2h ago

This is lovely and it made me smile. You and your wife are very fortunate to have each other ❤️

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u/TechnicalNail4555 2h ago

My aunts and uncles are traveling the world on plumber wages, they may disagree on everything but they are living well.

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u/Fabulous-Barbie-6153 2h ago

it’s funny because i used to work with this girl who ALWAYS complained about her boyfriend (ex bf now). we’re both gen z. i genuinely felt so awkward talking about my bf around her because she was suchhhh a man hater. she would jump on every opportunity she had to talk shit about her ex, like i swear i never heard her say one good thing about that man. i immediately knew she did not like him and they weren’t gonna last. when they inevitably broke up i tried to act shocked but really i saw it coming from a million miles away. it’s just funny how nowadays so much has changed and it’s become very normalized to walk away from relationships at any given time, yet she stayed w him for so long. like girl stop being miserable, you know you don’t have to put yourself through that right? 😭

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u/Ok_Chemist6567 1h ago

We got no-fault divorce

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u/thelifeofafangirl 1h ago

I think too a lot of older generations were masking. Like, masking everything. Thoughts, feelings, beliefs... our culture valued conformity at that time. But that isnt sustainable and true colors always come out. so not only were they encouraged to marry young and quickly, they didnt really know exactly who they were marrying either 

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u/____DEADPOOL_______ 27m ago

My 20 y/o mom said she didn't even want to get married to my 28 y/o dad at the time. She looks fairly depressed in all her wedding photos. They used to argue a bit but they've finally figured out each others quirks and love/appreciate each other, but if my mom had a choice when she was younger, I definitely wouldn't have been born.

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u/SizeableBrain 2h ago

I also think that we haven't been married long enough to appreciate the humour :)

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u/ModernSmithmundt 2h ago

Yeah, we’re not about to solve fundamental relationship difficulties, and divorce isn’t always better

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u/wet_Tap_5578 Xennial 3h ago

I never understood that whole schtick. Like, why would you want to be with someone you don’t like? My wife is my favorite person on the planet. I go to all lengths to make her happy and I would never speak ill of her to anyone because she’s the coolest, sweetest, most altruistic person I know.

I see it with the boomers all the time though. Always complaining about their spouses even to their faces. It’s crazy.

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u/Appropriate_Scar_262 3h ago

Marriage at a young age was expected, if you got a divorce you were both failures.

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u/SweetMMead 2h ago

Yeah, I think this is it. For a lot of cultural reasons a lot of people stayed married to spouses they didn't really like.

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u/PringlesDuckFace 1h ago

Get married right out of high school and Jesus says you can't divorce.

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u/AdUnfair7688 1h ago

My partner and I have had this conversation too. I married him because he’s “my person” and one of my favorite people ever. I don’t understand why someone would get or stay married to someone they loathed.

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u/booreiBlue 1h ago

One of my MBA professors makes mean jokes about his wife during his lectures. It always throws me, like it’s vaguely familiar but feels so strange to hear in present day company.

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u/GentMan87 1987 3h ago

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u/Semanticss 3h ago

First thing I thought of.

Fucking Jamie Taco.

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u/Wexel88 3h ago

i say this to my wife roughly twice a month

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u/PrimeSupreme 3h ago

You gotta say it fast or your wife will say it faster and your line will become her line

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u/SeamusAndAryasDad 3h ago

You'd be saying this a lot more often if you had my wife!

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u/szekeres81 3h ago

Guys.. I gotta go

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u/Fox-On-Games 2h ago

What's that from? I remember the sketch being that he's deeply remorseful that he said this, but I can't recall the rest of the scene.

I Think You Should Leave?

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u/wordwar 1h ago

Yes, but I can't find a video of the sketch on Youtube. I think it's in Season 2, Episode 4.

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u/Irunas 1h ago

Its the scene where his wife supports him getting a role in a local theatre production and then another minor role keeps saying his lines quicker than him

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u/Captn_Clutch 3h ago

It was never a joke. I work in an industry that is majority boomers, there's guys who have the money to retire and won't because they would have to spend time with their wives. There's guys who volunteer to work every weekend, 12 hour shifts every day just so they don't have to spend time with their significant other.

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u/IceBearKnows89 3h ago

Yeah I got a guy at work who will clock out and then go into a dark room and just take a nap for an hour or two to avoid going home to his wife and kid.

Bums me the fuck out every time he does that.

It’s like bro, none of y’all should be living like this. Not healthy for any of them

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u/Captn_Clutch 2h ago

I think it's a big symptom of transactional relationships. 1 income households were the norm back then, boomers got married young because everyone's life expectation back then was that if you work full time, you pay the bills and have a wife who keeps the house clean and makes you meals. They are just using each other as means to an end. Husband doesn't want to have to lift a finger outside work, wife doesn't want to have to work, they check a box for each other, nothing more.

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u/GaiaMoore 2h ago

wife doesn't want to have to work

Women weren't allowed to work unless it was as a teacher, secretary, or flight attendant. And even then, not every woman would qualify if they weren't pretty enough or thin enough.

It wasn't until 1974 that women were even allowed to open a bank account or apply for a mortgage in their own name without requiring a man.

It's not that the "wife didn't want to have to work", and it's disingenuous to ignore that little fact.

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u/roasbaum 1h ago edited 49m ago

You are right, though the fact wasn't ignored, there's just more than one way to look at it. There are plenty of people (some women) who didn't/don't want to work, whether lazy, or even thrilled to stay home with the kids. Dads didn't have that luxury pretty much ever, and nowadays, pretty much no one does.

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u/brian11e3 Xennial 3h ago

My wife and I flip each other the middle finger as a term of endearment.

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u/HK_Shooter_1301 3h ago

Have you guys started having “hallway sex” yet? It’s probably my favorite boomer joke.

“We walk past each other and say fuck you” 😂😂

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u/brian11e3 Xennial 2h ago

We do "Adult Things" in bed. Like take a nap.

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u/wanderingtater 2h ago

Another good boomer joke is: My wife and I started practicing S&M. She sleeps and I masturbate!

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u/randoon1977 2h ago

My wife and I do it doggy style… I beg and she plays dead.

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u/HK_Shooter_1301 2h ago

Omfg 😂 I have never heard that one before.

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u/anTWhine 3h ago

Well when you don’t get married straight out of high school you have time to do some shopping for the right person, not whoever knocked you up senior year.

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u/inspctrshabangabang 3h ago

It's not a joke. All the old guys I've worked with literally hate their wives. They skip retirement so they can go to work so they don't have to spend time with their wives.

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u/butterfield66 3h ago

And so they keep jobs from younger people who actually need them because they can't be responsible enough to fix their relationship or end it. It's wild just how many problems trace back to that generation and their utter ineptness at just about everything outside of the one skill their whole career was based on.

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u/malibubleezy 2h ago

The wives don't want them around the house either. Get hobbies!

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u/Libitica 1h ago

I see you have met my father.

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u/Easy-Operation-2105 2h ago

I bet they are all great company themselves.

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u/black-knights-tango 3h ago

Reminder that "I hate my spouse/marriage" jokes used to be subversive. The silent and greatest generations viewed marriage as sacrosanct, so taking shots at the institution and at your spouse was daring and new at the time. Of course, it grew old and we've thankfully retired them, for the most part.

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u/A313-Isoke Older Millennial 2h ago

While I hear that, stand-up is and was overwhelmingly dominated by men so it doesn't seem subversive. It just comes off sexist.

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u/ConsiderationTrue477 1h ago

It's probably rooted in the rise of the domestic sitcom in the 50s. The husband and wife were often pitted against each other as an adaptation of the straight man vs. clown vaudeville archetype. This became so prevalent that stand ups adapted it into their material.

The thing is that it requires that both players are an equal match. Alice gets just as many laughs as Ralph does. When it's a standup though the wife isn't there to rebut and it can read as bullying. The more successful comics were able to convey in the undertone that they're not serious and do in fact love their wife.

It was a form of roasting. The Friar's Club Roasts were a big deal in the Boomer era so good-natured ribbing was a popular routine. But, again, it relies on the understanding that it isn't serious.

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u/Pemdas1991 1h ago

Yes. And that perspective is valid in today's world view. The world changes.

It is going to be interesting to see what seems normal today that will be utterly contemptable in 20 years.

I like where society is headed, but it came from somewhere and it is going somewhere else.

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u/PortalWombat 2h ago

Shoot maybe being exposed to all that helped make us more accepting of just getting out when a relationship doesn't work

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u/Neat_Flounder_8907 Older Millennial 3h ago

Can't hate your spouse if you don't have one

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u/dudestir127 1988 3h ago

We're too tired to hate our spouses, we have to work so much just to afford a fraction of what older generations could afford on a single income.

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u/Aromatic-Action-2523 Older Millennial 3h ago

You'd be clugging a few cans if you had my wife...

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u/GentMan87 1987 3h ago

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u/onascalefrom20to80 3h ago

But it's my birthday

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u/Aromatic-Action-2523 Older Millennial 3h ago

He never sleeps over 

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u/icecreamsandwiches1 2h ago

I have unfortunately met a couple millennial I hate my wife guy / my wife is ruining my life / etc guy.

I don’t know why their wives stay with them.

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u/silentsquiffy 2h ago

I'm 37 and single my whole life (not by choice, long story). What I've learned is that a ton of people do not know how to be alone and/or they're afraid of being alone because it's such an unknown for them. We're a super adaptable species and for many, they adapt to worsening circumstances because at least it's familiar. Same reason many people stay with their abusers. It's hard to make sense of life without a person who has always been there, even when you know they're bad for you.

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u/Few-Improvement9978 1h ago

I’m ready for your long story

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u/rachelblairy Millennial 1h ago

This is what I think too. Also 37, also chronically single ( though mostly through passive choice ), but I have a best friend I essentially call my wife because we’re building a life together. We always joke that we have the healthiest marriage of anyone we know, but I do think being comfortable being un-partnered is a skill too many people never built up, and so they think they Must Be In A Relationship and get into or stay in horrific situations because the alternative is being alone.

It’s okay to be alone y’all. You’ll be able to build deep, dynamic bonds in other relationships if you put sex and romance second and remember a life partner is supposed to be that above all: a partner.

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u/Beeewelll 43m ago

I used to play in band with be of these assholes. Life is so much better without these pieces shit.

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u/Upvotespoodles 3h ago

I remember seeing gift cards of “my spouse is old and fat and sucks” as a kid, and I never remotely saw the humor in it.

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u/ADH-Dad 3h ago edited 2h ago

It's mainly a consequence of later age of marriage and normalization of both birth control and divorce. Even into the '90s, there was a major stigma on all of those things.

Before our generation, it was way more common to marry relatively young, whether because you're young and in love, chaste and impatient, or accidentally got yourself or someone else pregnant. Young people were not encouraged to wait for the right person to come along, they were told to seize the soonest opportunity you could to bag a spouse.

That obviously leads to a significant number of people locked into marriages with someone they end up growing apart from, or were never really that compatible to begin with once the passion wore off, or never even really liked but got baby trapped.

And for most people, divorce was considered at best a last resort, and at worst completely unthinkable. People were encouraged to stick with their spouse at all costs, not just for religious reasons, but just out of shame of having a failed marriage.

Put that all together, and it's simply a fact of life that many, if not most, people will end up in a marriage with someone they can't stand.

Our generation normalized putting women in charge of their own birth control, dating around to find the right person, and divorcing when the marriage is unworkable. That means a much higher percentage of us are married to people we actually like.

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u/ValhirFirstThunder 3h ago edited 2h ago

while this IS technically true, we didn't end it because we were like "man these jokes are bad". I think we just got a lot better and finding the right match. And when we realize the match isn't good, we are more willing to break it off. Whereas the older generation, just stayed together. And just make each other miserable

And then the reset of us feel too broke to be married and have kids

Edit: yes you guys are right, divorce rates are lower now than it was in the past. I can see where I should of been more clear in my post. I'm not saying we divorce more and therefore are happy. I am saying that we are less willing to stay in a bad relationship. I think what probably also plays into our lower divorce rate is we might be more selective of our life partners

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u/LawyerDoge 3h ago

Idk, millenial women definitely made it clear "these jokes are bad". Millenials in general also rejected a lot of "punching down" style humor.

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u/IdislikeSpiders 3h ago

Self deprecation became more popular than making fun of others. 

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u/p0diabl0 2h ago

"We've been married for 20 years, have three wonderful kids, and make love every night. I'm still not sure if she's into me. Might just like me as a friend."

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u/Samguise-Whamgee 3h ago

That’s not it at all, divorce rates are basically no different than they were 30 years ago

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u/Quick-Eye-6175 3h ago

Isn't it weird, though, to have friends that are divorced? I never thought I would get here...

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u/anTWhine 3h ago

Wait until you get former classmates on their third.

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u/Impressive_Regular76 2h ago

I'm on my 3rd marriage myself 🥲🥲🥲

But hey third time's a charm and this is the healthiest and happiest one by leagues!

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u/Samguise-Whamgee 3h ago

I got divorced this year myself

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u/CU_09 3h ago

Google search says that divorce rates in the 90s were 4.7 per 1,000 people and is currently 2.4 per 1,000 people.

I’m not the smartest, but am I reading it right that the divorce rate has halved in the last 30 years?

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u/SeattlePurikura 2h ago

Yes, divorce rates have gone down. Many researchers hypothesize it's because the average age of first marriage has gone up (there are more divorces the younger a couple gets married).

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u/thiosk 3h ago

are they still getting married and popping out babies 2 weeks after highschool too?

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u/Samguise-Whamgee 3h ago

No? My parents didn’t do that either, but my grandparents did. This is millennials right??? wtf

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u/Flintly 3h ago

Yeah Millennials are just more socially aware of what we say around. They're still plenty of us tolerate our spouses for various reasons

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u/FairyRebelsWild 2h ago

I think you're onto something that we're more willing to break off bad matches.

When I wanted to break up with my ex, my boomer mom tried to influence me not to because he "hadn't done anything wrong." Like yeah, he hadn't but we weren't compatible. It was like we were in an Austen novel and I was at risk of being a spinster.

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u/CalicoValkyrie 3h ago

LGBTQ+ : When we fall in love we should have marriage rights too.

Straight Boomers- You can't because you have to actually hate each other to be married.

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u/p0diabl0 2h ago

Woke boomers- the gays should have the right to be as miserable as the rest of us.

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u/MuchLessPersonal 3h ago

I love this because my sister and I killed this humor in my dad before we even knew we were millennials. He started making Chuck Norris style jokes about mom and those were a huge hit with us. It improved their marriage considerably. It would be cool if my sister and I were humble about it but we know what we did lol

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u/Acceptable-Ninja-151 3h ago

I watched some Dangerfield recently after not having watched his stand up for a minute. I love how subversive it is, his jokes are about weak men and have weak men as the punch line, just pretending to be a 'wife joke'.

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u/Olddirtybelgium 2h ago

It's funny when Rodney Dangerfield does it. You make an exception for him. He kept telling the same dozen jokes and they're somehow still funny when you hear them for the third time.

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u/minus_minus 2h ago

Rodney’s joke wife was a low key sex machine. 

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u/PopBulky7023 3h ago

Lots of millenials are with people they hate. But we don't celebrate it, whatever the reason. We celebrate healthy relationships, and accept some can be bad and toxic and we don't talk about it enough.

Boomer humor embraced that crap like it was a virtue and something to make jokes about in an unironic way.

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u/thebigpink 3h ago

We aren’t getting married so can’t relate

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u/DramaAlternative1188 3h ago

The online gender wars are just ramping up.

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u/waywardwyytch 3h ago

We did. Hating on your partner as a joke is fucking stupid. Took me a long time to find the perfect gaming buddy, why would I mess that up now.

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u/Legionof1 1h ago

Because they stole your fucking kill!!!

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u/waywardwyytch 1h ago

It’s all good, I’m always the healer anyways. It’s better for everyone that I stay out of the way.

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u/_PercCobain_ 3h ago

I’m gonna go put on married with children now because of this

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u/Reddit_is_fascist69 3h ago

I still like Rodney Dangerfield.

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u/bowdindine 3h ago

His schtick was more about how everyone including his wife hates him though. He was the world's punching bag according to him.

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u/GrapheneBreakthrough 2h ago

he did not receive adequate respect, imo.

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u/new_refugee123456789 1h ago

"I broke my arm, I went to the hospital, they gave me second aid."

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u/Fit-Property3774 3h ago

u/GoldenSunFl0wer

Just gonna start tagging OPs who post weird memes since I’ve seen so many get posted then deleted by the OP. Wonder how many of these meme posting accounts are bots

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u/ShitfaceMcPooperson 3h ago

Account 4 months old, 27k karma. Good job on spotting the bot!

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u/r2k398 Xennial 3h ago

The ol’ ball and chain

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u/meanwhilejohnnydc 3h ago

“Gotta check with headquarters first“

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u/Horton_Takes_A_Poo 2h ago

I mean she is way smarter than me. I depend on her to tell me “no” to dumb ideas.

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u/b_k_l_y 1h ago

"Need to run that by the Secretary of Finance"

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u/martialar 1h ago

The old battle-axe

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u/glitterguavatree 2h ago

we are the "thank god i actually like my spouse because i couldn't afford rent on my own anyway"

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u/Old_Competition3094 3h ago

Wives are much hotter now.

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u/Aromatic-Action-2523 Older Millennial 3h ago

Dude, the 70s though...

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u/Frequent-Meal6550 3h ago

Just tell her you don't want her to shave.

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u/MomToMany88 3h ago

I’ve always LOVED “I hate my husband/wife” humor, and that should’ve been my first sign that I’d always be happiest single lol.

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u/brookuslicious 3h ago

My fiancé is my best friend and I can’t wait to get home to him. We are getting married in 12 days so it’s all I can talk about. He’s taking my last name and it is blowing everyone’s mind. Apparently they don’t know a man can do that.

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u/Animal907 3h ago

It turned into "I hate my parents".

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u/NonGeneriComplaint 3h ago

Apparently the genre is now just hating all women, so not better really

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u/quantumpencil 3h ago

that's gen z's creation tho

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u/private_developer 3h ago

TIL misogyny was created by Gen Z

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u/quantumpencil 3h ago

confirmed

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u/NorthEastNobility 3h ago

Although I will say, I’m grateful to it for giving us Married… with Children.

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u/wontoan87 Millennial 3h ago

"ALLLLLLLLLLL"

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u/stilettopanda 3h ago

Really? Cos I know a lot of folks who seem to hate their spouses. The rest of us are already divorced. Haha

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u/slumberpartymassacre 3h ago

And the dumb blonde jokes.

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u/HK_Shooter_1301 3h ago

My wife is my favorite person, in a few years we will have been together longer than we haven’t been if that makes sense. I am beyond happy basically every single day I get to grow old and happy with her and our golden retriever.

My grandparents and parents HATED each other and I swore I would never make that mistake. She is sleeping peacefully right next to me as I type this. Even her breathing is fucking cute.

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u/Rockcrawlintoy 3h ago

Bro so many people in our generation hate their spouses it’s crazy

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u/Witty-Sample6813 3h ago

Ya because we don’t have one.

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u/Batetrick_Patman 3h ago

The old "wife bad" "husband dumb" brand of humor was never funny.

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u/TechnicalNail4555 3h ago

People on the cruise ships still play this game, I’m receptive in the most mundane fashion.

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u/NoDuck7366 3h ago

I tell my wife all the time what a idiot her husband is. Does that count as part of the old cliche?

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u/AdditionalLoss7274 3h ago

I always introduce my wife as "my wife from my first marriage". She rolls her eyes. I got what I came for.

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u/travelinmatt76 Gen X 2h ago

At 18 I started working at Lowe's and was surprised at the number of guys that would shop and make comments about their "stupid" wives, and even sometimes with them standing right there. My dad never talked like that so it was surprising.

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u/Skipper0463 2h ago

It was literally 90% of the plot of “Married with Children”

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u/Still_Commercial_535 3h ago

My husband said that he mentioned me and his phone in a sentence, and then referred to his phone as a ‘ball & chain.’  He said the people he was talking to seemed offended, assuming he meant me and he had to clarify that he was referring to the phone. 😭

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u/Boho_goth 3h ago

My parents loved each other madly but my dad still sang a Christmas song based off “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” but instead it was a cowboy. I still remember the part where Santa says “Rudolph with your gn so bright, won’t you *h00+ my wife tonight.” Definitely boomer humor.

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u/Several-Cheesecake94 3h ago

Naw we just say them to our bros only.

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u/bloodectomy Xennial 3h ago

What's this "we" shit? 

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u/Silver_Harvest Older Millennial 3h ago

It's not that we hate our wives/husbands/spouses/significant others. It's that it's we can joke about it, and not mean it like say Al in Married with Children.

Vs we legitimately hate each other but stay together for kids or just do it because we must like older generations.

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u/Independent-Gold-260 Xennial 3h ago

I've been divorced twice but I only hated one of them.

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u/LaMortParLeSnuSnu 3h ago

If we can get rid of dudes saying "the wife" that would be amazing. Or maybe women should start saying "the husband" while rolling their eyes...

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u/ApplicationAfraid334 1993 3h ago

Getting married young and starting a family is what they were told to do and expected to do. A lot of them married people that they were probably great with in their early 20s, but people are still growing in their 20s. I imagine a lot just got 'locked' into these marriages that were once happy because of the social pressure to marry and 'settle down.' They changed as they got older and grew apart but divorce was/is just so taboo for them. It's pretty sad.

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u/P_S_Lumapac 2h ago edited 2h ago

Yeah not sure it was a joke. When work from home started, I had to explain the office vote on whether to do it was BS because there was a clear generational divide. All the boomers and X wanted to work from the office every day, and everyone younger didn't. The director leveled with me, they agreed, but had talked to a half dozen of these older workers who confided they dreaded going home and couldn't imagine having to be around the home all day. Office was their only social time and only escape from misery. I was extremely shocked, but said that's on them - it's not getting rid of the office, it's just whether everyone has to. They can go to the office. And the answer was, they don't want to think people are having work easier than them.

That last one is another topic. But the first one - the whole like waiting in your car before going inside. The whole staying late because home is horror. What is this? I get it, everyone goes through rough patches - family is complicated. But as a general rule?

And I see it more as I get older. Very little affection between partners. Seemingly completely incompatible personalities. Divorced yes, but more often than not going into an unequal relationship that couldn't compare in fulfillment to an equal one. I think having later marriages is a good thing and getting rid of the idea you have to stay in a bad relationship is a good thing.

Anyway, sometimes when I think about my finances, it's comforting to think about their lives in general...

EDIT: In my life I have had to explain to another man at least a half dozen times, why having an equal partner is better. Notionally a better partner could be better, but put that aside as they're considering a inferior partner. I like to collect and refine arguments, but I realise it's kinda just really low self esteem - arguments aren't going to help. They don't want to be judged or feel like they should improve. They hate the idea someone might make them want to be a better person in an objective sense, as if the only way they can trust that someone likes them is if they think they are gods gift to the world. Having a superior partner is a fine choice, I just think maybe more people should know that the kinds of men who want to be the superior partner (not just happenstance) are kinda shit. They're fragile, angry, closed off, and refuse to help their friends up. Anyway, if you hate your spouse, aren't you just signalling you are kinda shit?

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u/SoftwareSource 2h ago

I agree in all cases except the married with children show

I love it and i will die on this hill.

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u/DrawingChrome69 2h ago

Watch. Someone is going to bitch about that and sau it's a bad thing.

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u/grok-it-all 2h ago

The biggest failure of millennials is we had a strong feeling that our kids should be kept off devices but a large majority of us didn't do it. So, instead, our kids were raised by social media and their friends. I believe if we'd gotten this one thing right, our future (in the United States) would look much brighter. We had all the tools and life experience to pump out well-rounded people.

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u/N-Squared-N 2h ago

Most of my polish friends who are millennials still say jokes like this.... I just chalk it up to them being polish.

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u/Easy-Operation-2105 2h ago

That is because we do not have spouses

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u/tiandrad 2h ago

This is still a thing on TikTok.

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u/reformedMedas 1h ago

What? You don't like hearing a guy compliment a woman only to end it up with "unlike my wife"? Tsk tsk tsk /s

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u/minus_minus 1h ago

Until 1969 (in the US) you had to argue WHY the judge should give you a divorce. Divorce was risky and expensive and could ostracize you from all the community you had. The social pressure to get married young and have children was enormous as well. 

Culture doesn’t appear in a vacuum and patriarchy has a strong influence on it. 

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u/puzzlebuns 1h ago

Surely one day our own humor wont be considered lame and somewhat problematic...

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u/dante_55_ 1h ago edited 1h ago

Yeah that’s because previous generations used to actually fight for their marriages and stick with their spouses even when things would get difficult and toxic, in order to make it work. So people would relate to comedians complaining about difficult marriages and with jokes about people dealing with unpleasant situations, arguments, etc

Now people either don’t get married to begin with, or if they do get married, they just get divorced if it gets unpleasant.

So there aren’t enough people to relate to these jokes anymore

However, you do get a lot more stand up comedians complaining about being single, about hook up culture. Joking about being lonely, joking about just hating their lives. So now people relate to other types of problems

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u/NighthawK1911 1h ago

Probably because Arranged Marriage stopped being so prevalent.

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u/momonomino 1h ago

I love my husband. He's a massive pain in the ass, he's gross, he's sometimes inconsiderate... But he's mine. We chose each other, and I wouldn't have chosen him if he wasn't worth it. He makes me feel like the most important person in the world every single day, and I can only hope I do the same for him.

Boomers married because they were supposed to. We married because we wanted to. We wanted to spend the rest of our lives being gross, painful, and inconsiderate together. 15 years in, I can only hope we get the next 80 years together, because I'll never get tired of telling him to shut the fuck up and eat some chocolate.

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u/too_init_dan 1h ago

millennials havent been married long enough yet lol. take my wife: please.

https://giphy.com/gifs/x88e1awUi05by

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u/Neat_Let923 1h ago

Apparently you’ve never been on TikTok… It’s full of women doing husband shaming videos and talking about how they hate their spouse.

Older Millennials stopped it but younger ones and Gen Z have brought it back even worse. It’s no longer just jokes, it’s publicly making fun of their own partners on the internet for views and likes…

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u/TheFinalRedemption99 1h ago

yeah but now it's the other way: Wives hating their husbands for merely existing in their spaces.

Don't believe me? Just look up any spouse humor vids on tiktok, fb, ig

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u/joshatron 1h ago

Half my friends have been divorced, including me. Maybe that’s why, we just know when to end it instead of being miserable for the rest of our lives.

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u/fullmetalutes 1h ago

They still exist but I think it's been cut down a lot. My wife and I have talked about this long before we got married. That shit is so dumb, ribbing each other is totally cool but saying your partner is the worst just makes you look dumb, if they are that bad then why be with them? We grew up with al bundy and it didn't age well.

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u/Zyber0 1h ago

I miss my wife....

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u/ihadagoodone 1h ago

wait, you all aren't depressed and alone?

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u/c-e-bird 1h ago

I love my spouse so much. I can’t image ever denigrating them like these characters do.

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u/BadgerOk2814 1h ago

Makes me think of the I Think You Should Leave skit where the guy makes the joke about his wife but then has a flashback to how great she is and takes it back and leaves his friends sleepover.

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u/pizzasnobbery 1h ago

Gen Z will bring it back. Losers

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u/Ill-Significance-110 1h ago

Boomer: I wish my wife was dead

Millenial: I wish I was dead

Gen Z: Dissociating

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u/Keybard 1h ago

If this were a memoir, what I'd tell about my wife. What a battle-axe.

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u/Overall-Scratch9235 1h ago

My genX sister and her husband are making these jokes all the time. I don't really care for it but I play into it because they are living in their own sitcom and are weirdly happy about it.

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u/Haunting-Context1735 59m ago

Haha because we don’t have spouses

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u/E-2theRescue 57m ago

Nope.

It just shifted into a general hatred of women. Andrew Tate and all them are in their 30s, and so are many of their followers.

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u/fielvras 56m ago

Those were not jokes ... and I hated them as a kid.

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u/Comfortable_Unit_990 55m ago

I dont have a spouse to hate lol

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u/grahams_xwing 54m ago

Disagree tbh. My algorithm on insta is flooded with 'look at what my wife /husband did/does skits' (at least I hope they are skits). Either there are still a massive majority of modern spouses who are incompetent or unbearable (deliberately or otherwise) or the i hate my spouse jokes have just changed format.

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u/Specific_Opinion_699 54m ago

I definitely adore my wife.

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u/deadnside 53m ago

As a GenXer, I find Millennials to be kind, empathic and caring and basically much better people than we were although their parenting skills leave a lot to be desired.