6 Reasons My Husband and I Probably Won't Make It to Your Event (Don't Take It Personally)

Over the past weekend, we unfortunately missed at least two pretty important celebrations of life events for some of our closest friends. Thankfully, they are the type of people who understood the reasons for our absence, and they're OK... Not everyone else is, though.

These were occasions that we were actually invited to, RSVPd for, and expected to attend. Then a little thing called LIFE happened, and our fun-filled weekend was replaced with a killer sinus headache, an exhausted mommy, a sneezing/stuffy daddy, an attempt to get our car battery replaced, a coloring book marathon with my 4-year-old, and a massive poop explosion from the 11-month-old tyrant.

I decided to turn this experience into a special FYI for the wider world. It is necessary, and we're probably not the only people who need to share this heartfelt disclaimer!

Here are six reasons my husband and I probably won't make it to your event, and why we don't want you to take it personally...

1. We have KIDS!
I know. I know. This one is too easy, and a lot of people are tired of hearing it. However, I feel like most need to! Especially those who do not have kids. While we still love you, we also need you to know that you have NO idea about the strange things that randomly occur in a household with children. A temperature that's two degrees over the norm, or a baby whining because of a missed nap, can drastically alter the amount we care about meeting up for drinks and chatter!

2. We are TIRED!
Like, not normal tired. We have the type of unbearable exhaustion where you fall asleep on the toilet and sneakily nod off while your child is reading Corduroy to you for the 678,467th time that day. Please understand that all of that great intention we had to make it to your housewarming just got flushed down the toilet as soon as we sat down in one spot.

3. We don't have a babysitter!
Contrary to popular belief, there are seriously only like two people in the entire universe, outside of ourselves, who we will allow to watch our children. Yes, we continuously crack jokes about how people can "come and get them," but ummmm, not so much! If those two individuals aren't available, we will all stay at home! Period. There is NO outing important enough for us to hound somebody to watch our children, or sacrifice their safety just to say we attended the hottest night out of the year. Fail! That's why we both went to college and had a whole lot of fun and got that all out of our systems. We don't feel guilty or as if we're missing out on anything. Sorry, but we're not sorry.

4. If ONE of us can't attend, nine times out of 10 NEITHER of us will attend!
This is a hard one for people to understand, and we've lost friendships over the concept. We are married. We are not pals, boyfriend & girlfriend, or side buddies. We are a union. A team. We make our appearances together in the situations that call for it. This isn't really negotiable. If hubby is sick and shut in, so am I, and vice versa. Of course this doesn't apply to the token girls' or guys' night out. We respect each other's individual socialization. I'm referring to the things we are both hoped to be in attendance for. This also applies to situations where one spouse may think/know that the crowd at a certain event is questionable. Again, nothing personal against you, but we choose not to put ourselves in awkward or obviously drama-filled situations when we don't have to!

5. We actually DO have a financial budget and priorities!
Not to rain on the parade of your $100/meal dinner party, but this week's automatic tuition debiting from our bank account and the Costco diaper/wipe stock-up will probably hold a higher level of importance for us. I can cook you a fabulous meal, serve you a wonderful glass of wine, play some classic jazz tunes, and indulge you in the ambience of my own darn home! All for under $200. We still love you, though! :-)

6. We just don't want to go!!!
Yep, it sounds rude as hell and a bit pretentious -- and it will probably cause our invites to dwindle in the near future -- but it's honest. The very few times we actually get to be alone, we just want to enjoy each other! We still DO enjoy each other, and we aren't going to apologize for that. Sometimes we even just want to be left alone as a family, with our boys, to relax.

Now, none of this is to say that we don't like you, or that we're trying on purpose to be douchebags or "unsupportive." We are humans! We want people to overstand that. We love and appreciate all of our friends and family, but guess what? WE come first... and we don't want you to take that personally!

A version of this post originally appeared on DJ 'N' Devin.

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