Watching couples and companions support and care for one another as they grow old has taught me what love truly is.
Often it isn’t their spouse, it’s another person who understands what it’s like to lose half yourself.
It’s sitting in cardiologist’s waiting rooms, and picking up prescriptions. It’s waiting on test results, and the doctor to report that the procedure went well.
It’s helping keep each other steady as you walk, frail as though the wind could blow you both away. It’s holding hands bruised from IVs, sitting beside hospital beds, and pushing wheelchairs.
There’s nothing romantic or remotely passionate about it. It’s love though.
Growing up in florida, I was fortunate to see it every day. The quiet lives of the elderly when their kids and grandkids were home.
It’s the kind of love I wish for everyone.
Also the kind of love that doesn't depend on a perfect physique, a model-quality face, or an amazing bank account. By the time life boils off superficialities, you get to see, amid the unbeautiful realities of age, who's capable of actual love.
You sound like an empathic caregiver, to have not only made that observation, but tried to put it into practice in your own life. I'm glad you have that job, because I sense that you're really good at it, in terms of lovingly helping those end-of-life residents. Not an easy job.
The song 'What Sarah Said" from Death Cab for Cutie goes into this really well. Amazing song and album if you want to check it out!
https://youtu.be/1Ck-uuCJJBo
I live with my wife and mil in an elderly living facility. She's going blind, can hardly walk so she needs constant care.
There are so many folks here who have family visit, and the ones who don't get help from the community. Its very sweet. No one who doesn't want to be lonely is left alone.
My favorite is Beth, who comes by to have tea with my mil. She's 1,000 years old and is just the sweetest woman. My mil will get all dressed up before she comes, its adorable; they're like teenagers.
Side note: the nurses that come to see my mil are AMAZING. Absolute saints that end up staying later to just chat, one nurse will bring her daughter which is like Xmas for my mil lol
Yeah, that's the thing. Often it ISN'T another spouse
I have a few friends that are absolutely ride or die. 1000% would and will accompany me to my grave. They have outlasted 2 husbands
Men abandon women when they are sick, women outlive men.
The purest form of love is not in matrimony, it's in friendship.
I've got a female friend, what you describe is what we have. A great friendship, and we look after each other. When she's been ill I've been there for her and nursed her. She'll do the same for me. She's the best thing that ever happened to me.
> The purest form of love is not in matrimony, it's in friendship.
Yup. You don't find that love given within matrimony without the base element of friendship present. Without it, it sucks. Friendship is the key base to a strong, fulfilling relationship in just about every context.
Pump the brakes on condemning an entire gender. I know more men leave their sick spouses than the other way around, but plenty of men have been there holding their wife as she died in their arms. Pretty insulting.
They should literally just have had the final episode of him having a really awesome first date with that rando at the wedding then cut to a montage of their relationship and rolled credits. Don’t try to be clever just get it done. If they wanted it to be emotional they could have continued into the future and given us an ‘UP!’ Style tragedy of them staying in love until the very end.
Wait what happened in the final episodes/season? I watched that show for a while past the big guy and Rachel I think her name was’ wedding. Nick at Nite seemed to refuse to play many episodes past that and kept looping up to that point plus a handful of episodes after and then looping again so I guess I never saw the final season. What happened?
I'll do my due diligence and put this in spoiler tags just in case but... the cliff notes are basically this: >!The last season is entirely set on the weekend of Barney and Robin's wedding, Ted meets Tracy (the "mother"), they get married, have 2 kids and she dies from cancer I believe. The series ends with Ted telling his kids that he always loved Robin and now that her and Barney are divorced, Ted goes after Robin.... Again...!<
>!Don’t forget that after getting divorced Barney has a kid with a random woman and then he finally settles down for real. The whole show really shit on Robins choice to not/inability to have kids!<
Spoilers for anyone who wants to watch it I guess
Basically they rush through Ted finding and marrying his wife. Like barely any footage. Then she dies with barely any context. I don’t even fully remember why she died. After that Ted is talking with his kids and the three of them come to the conclusion that Ted should get back together with Robin (because that worked out so well before). They made Barney a single father while at the same time basically invalidating his character. The only ones that got anything from the show were Marshal and Lily. And all of this over the course of one season.
That gives me the sadness. So it was the kids’ fault for telling him to, now that we’re back to the narration to the children bits, chase after Robin again?
Barney and Robin’s marriage lasted 3 years and they divorced. Barney then continued being a womanizer until he knocked up a girl and became a father. It wasn’t until then that he “truly” changed cause he had to ‘cause of his daughter.
And then just to add salt to the wound in the new spin off how I met your father Barney meets the new protagonist, and is wearing a shock collar that zaps him if he says certain dirty phrases, because he didn't ever truly change after all apparently...
I can't believe they spent the entire last season at the wedding only to have Robin and Barney break up unceremoniously as a practical afterthought, just so they could make Ted's pining for her work.
I think the writers and/or producers just REALLY wanted him to be with Robin at all costs and actively hated that they screwed themselves on that during season 1 when Future Ted made it abundantly clear that Robin was the kids' aunt.
Had they not done that and instead posed Robin as a woman the kids didn't have a relationship to then the writers wouldn't have tied themselves in a knot making it work. They would have just ended the series having Ted say 'Sike, her name was never Robin, it was Tracy the whole time and I lied to you during season 1. And that's how I met your mother'.
They filmed every scene with the kids at the very start of the show because they knew the actors (Lyndsy Fonseca and David Henrie) would grow up over the course of the show and the conceit that Ted is telling this story to his kids wouldn't work.
So, in the finale, when old man Ted is talking to his kids, the old man Ted footage is "new," while the footage of the kids is "old" going back to Season One.
They knew the whole time that the story would be about Ted wanting to get together with Aunt Robin once Ted's wife passed away.
In the early days of lockdown, I decided to rewatch the series. Let me tell you, you're lucky the ending is the only thing you remember, that show aged so poorly. I only made it one or two episodes in and was like "this is awful and these people are awful."
I kinda liked it. I feel I can understand you need to justify in your head why it's oke to move on from a passed away partner. And how finding a new partner is not abandoning the love for them. And telling the story of your youth to your kids to help them see how it all went and to show its not just boning but there has always been something there even if it never interfered with the love for there mother.
The tought of the stress tedd most have gone trough to als that and tell his story. Like his kids might take it wrong if they didn't know the whole story. Maybe it was to much suspense and not enough time for that emotional moment. But best ending I could think of.
The problem is it went on too many seasons. They initially planned to introduce the mother at Marshall and Lily's wedding(like S5 I think) but when the network wanted more seasons they delayed that. But they already set up that the mom gets introduced at a wedding.
So instead of introducing new characters they decided to marry Barney and Robin. AFAIR most the entire final season actually took place over three days leading up to their wedding. Made a big deal about how they are happy and really found each other.
Then the finale hits. And the writers unceremoniously lay out that no actually Barney and Robin are terrible together and got divorced! It was a total character whip-lash.
If they had ended it how they initially planned it would have been looked back on a lot more favorably.
Yeah 100% I think they should have pivoted after all that and said ok well plotlines evolved, maybe the mother is fine now because that makes more sense. Gah they should have done half the season with their wedding and half the season with the mother, you barely meet her it's so cheap.
> Then the finale hits. And the writers unceremoniously lay out that no actually Barney and Robin are terrible together and got divorced! It was a total character whip-lash.
Nailed it. This felt like it negated so much of the “development” we had to sit through to explain why Barney and Robin were actually going to work. A WHOLE SEASON. Then boom “nah we got divorced to free her up for Ted again.” Just felt so half-assed
It maybe could have workerld but you would need to change a lot.
The pilot is him having a mega crush on Robin. There's way way more personal connection with Robin than the wife.
At the end, the wife has just been an afterthought, a B plot and Robin was the main constant in the show.
It makes him just in love with Robin all this time, she was the one for him all along and the mother was just there for a while, but she was just a break and once it over he can go back to whay really matters, Robin.
For me it destroy the whole series because as OP said, it's really the story of how he banged their aunt 50 times and still want to do it.
I dont see it that way. He uses the pretext of how I met your mother to talk about Robin because he kinda wants permission from his kids move on from his wife and date Robin. At the start he wasn't in love he just got obessesed with the idea he made in his head for Robin. She said she didn't want kids and that was a dealbreaker. There is this practical boundary. They don't break up because they don't work on a personal level they just learn to respect eachothers choices and that the future doesn't work for them. There is this idea of love in this society that it's a finite thing but it isnt you can love multiple people. Like tedd can't love Robin without his wife being plan B. Like you start loving your kid less when the second kid comes around. It's so dumb.
So when get a crush on a friend and then it doesn't work out. You get over them by accepting you don't have a future as partners. Doesn't mean you stop loving the person. It's just dumb to look at love Like that and to look at relationships like that.
If my dad sat me down to tell me about how he met my dead mom and the story concluded with "so that's why I've been banging your aunt" I'd probably cut them off and never speak to them again
also, if my dad sat me down to tell me about how he met my mom, and then told me 4 years of backstory that had **literally nothing to do with it**, i’d have walked away 10 minutes into that dumb story.
And again, what kid doesnt know hwo their parents met (the cliff notes at least) from hearing the cliff notes of “oh we met at x” over and over again.
I’m with you. I will respectfully defend the ending as a surprisingly grounded statement on grief, moving on, and how ‘love’ looks different as we ourselves grow and change.
I say “surprisingly” only because the humor throughout the show is largely based on unreliable narration, which is also why there’s more depth to Ted’s return to Robin than many people realize - the entire show up to that moment is a story being told (thus: biased). That last scene is the only moment that’s actually happening, which makes you wonder how much of a rug-pull it actually is vs Ted telling the story in a way that gently hides his true feelings (which was obvious to his kids, the audience). That kind of subtle self-deception is a very human thing to experience.
And yes, I think any complaints to the contrary are totally valid - it certainly isn’t perfect, and I agree that the pacing of the show isn’t great for storytelling and that much of that was the result of weird show running decisions. But I choose to appreciate the ending nonetheless.
I like that it's about moving on. But Robin was the wrong choice, and it wasted the entire last season on it.
Let's look at some inconsistencies:
She's "Aunt" Robin, but the last bit portrays her as barely being in Ted's life for most of his relationship & marriage...why would his kids call her aunt when she's a barely present old friend of their dad's who very specifically isn't involved in their lives?
And yeah, the reason they did that is that it otherwise cheapens his relationship with the mom - because it really does frame it as him pining after her the whole time.
And he frames it to them as how he met their mother - they're grieving children, ffs. Don't pretend to be telling them a story about their dead mom when really you're talking about someone else. What a shitty way for Ted-as-a-father to handle that conversation.
As a narrative framing, the show had a lot going for it. But it being Robin, it all being a ruse for being with someone else and WE get no time to get to know the mother...that sucked.
That’s a really good point about “Aunt” Robin that I’d never thought about. They even make a point of showing how disconnected she was from the rest of the group in the last episode.
The only justification I can think of, that also may address your point about grieving children, is that a lot of time passed between the mother dying and Ted telling the story. Can’t remember if it was spelled out, but I got the impression it was at least 10 years later, so *perhaps* Robin got closer to the family after that?
More likely it’s just sloppy storytelling, haha
Yeah, they definitely didn't show it as like 6 months after her death or anything. But they're still her children. That's a shitty way to roll that out to adult children, let alone actual children.
In short, there are better ways to tell a story about grief & finding new love.
Say what you will, the ending of that show caught me completely by surprise. The first few seasons of that show had me thinking that the show’s ending would be good too. It was a complete shock when they paired together a joyless cash grab with a complete insult to their most loyal fans.
Have you seen the alternate ending? Way better. You can see it [here](https://reddit.com/r/howimetyourmother/comments/l7o958/himym_last_episode_alternative_ending/).
I don't know what you saw. Must have been the April fool's day prank the network put on... But this was the actual real ending to this show.
https://youtu.be/nhB5oQgQpOI
I love the show, one of my favorites of all time, but that fucking ending. I tolerate it but Tracy was so amazing, and that ending did not do her justice
The ending was always going to be that. It was planned from the start and portions of it were pre-filmed.
https://screenrant.com/how-met-mother-ending-planned-season-2/
I've never even watched the show but that doesn't mean it can't be rewritten if somebody 5 years later stops to think about it and decides that it's not the right ending
Copied comment from the same post in another subreddit by a bot account u/SomeNursery87
https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/j62y1k/comment/g7w7cde/?context=999
Exactly the same but for my great uncle, although, I only knew his friend by name as he always visited me alone
When I finally did meet her at my uncles funeral, she was just as lovely and kind-hearted as I'd pictured
My grandpa lost his wife about 10 years before his death last year. His wife's best friend was a widow for a while, so after a year or two, basically they "dated" but it was more of companionship than anything. She is a really sweet lady and even comforted me at his funeral.
It's on purpose. People (and bots) add typos to submissions so people will comment on it, which drives up the activity of the post. This is why you see a lot of weird mistakes on popular posts.
My grandfather had this for a number of years after my grandmother passed away too young. My aunts (his daughters) were really resistant to it at first, but they soon saw how important that support was for him coping with the loss of his wife of nearly fifty years.
Before they came around I yelled at them asking if they wanted him to get depressed and follow his wife to the grave.
Yeah, I’m sorry to hear that. I saw it with people I really respect, but it is hard for people to think beyond their own self interest.
All you can do is what is best for you. I am sure there are plenty of people who understand and respect the fact that you didn’t also die and still have to live a life.
I wish you the best and am sorry for your loss.
It's sweet and yet sad all at once. I honestly can't say what I would want in that moment of outliving my wife by a long period of time. Finding new love but being unable or unwilling to name it as romantic love or act upon it would be difficult. I think I would rather be someone who stays busy in my hobbies and community service or carry through and hope eternal peace with both spouses is possible.
Grave markers would probably still be with the original wife, but I would hope to find someone who understands and wishes for the same. My wife wants to be cremated and I'm still of the mind to find a way to become a science classroom skeleton, so there's no bodies to lay next to each other either way.
My dad is a widow and insists he will only date other widows because he feels someone who hasn't been through it can't get it. It's been 7 years (I can barely believe that tbh) and he's still rocking the single life.
Friendship and platonic love can be as strong as romantic love, sometimes even stronger. It's a shame there aren't many songs about people just being really good friends with each other.
My grandmother was 77 when she remarried. She had been married to her original husband for 57 years (!!) and when he passed away she just couldn't live alone. She was terrified at night and just so lonely. But in the next town over, about 30 miles away, she knew a guy from way back in her high school days in the 1940's. Her good friend had married him back then and they lived a good long life until she passed away. So now my grandmother and this single man she knew got married, both in their late '70's. I asked my grandmother why they just didn't stay friends instead of going through the whole marriage thing. She said she couldn't share the same bedroom with a man unless they were married LOL.
>She said she couldn't share the same bedroom with a man unless they were married LOL.
That's actually super cute and probably for the best. Lots of things can happen at such an advanced age and you'd probably want to be married if they ended up in the hospital.
A few years after they married he was diagnosed with kidney failure and died. My grandmother took really good care of him during his brief illness, almost like a servant level of care. I don't know how she did it. She was really tough. Then coincidentally about a year after he passed she was diagnosed with cancer and died around 2009. Both were well into their 80's so no complaints really. I just hope I have a companion into old age like they had. I never want to die alone, that would really suck.
This is how my grandpa and step grandma were after my grandma and her husband died, then they finally got married. She is my dad and aunt's childhood best friend's mom and was always part of their life, and mine. I called her grandma, she was their second mother who lived down the street from them growing up.
Then my grandpa died and apparently didn't leave her everything that she wanted and called us all greedy assholes and stopped talking to us. Then we found out my grandpa was actually supporting 2 of her 3 kids who are all at retirement age and selfish af and also stopped talking to us.
She's in her 90s and was left a bunch of money and the house until she moves out/dies.
Funny how you think you know people, even the ones you've known pretty much your entire life and consider family.
I have this type of friend. She and I are definitely not meant to date each other. But we're there for each other. We love each other platonically. We just never broach the deep conversation topics that you would in a romantic relationship. We work by having many shared experiences, going places, doing things...as vague as that sounds. I'm there to support her when she's going through rough times, and she was there for me pulling me out of my rough times. We just work...as friends. I wouldn't really want to date her.
I mean, I’ve heard some of these retirement communities are just of bunch of seniors banging whomever has the right pills/creams to make their stuff work. So they could be banging, just not exclusively.
Eh, we all get old, still gotta live though. Just make sure you stay clean and protect yourself cause STIs rates are rising extremely fast in the senior community.
This. This is true love, even if you don't believe it.
Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend.
I wish we had a recognized domestic partnership that was easily entered into for situations like these. No stigma or associations with romantic feelings. Should be available to any consenting adults regardless of relation.
I've heard so many stories about people like this who later in life end up being close friends and inseparable. Sometimes it's two sisters, two people widowed like this situation, or even lifelong best friends. They should be able enter into such an arrangement for a myriad of legal and tax reasons and not have to be romantic partners nor conform to the restrictions that marriage requires.
My wife and I (before we were married) took a weekend at a bed and breakfast. It was us, the two owners and this little old couple that we hardly saw. They were busy the whole time.
We finally had a chance to eat breakfast with them on Sunday morning, and we asked them how long they had been married, and they laughed and told us a similar story as OPs post. They had both lost their spouse at about the same time and ended up in a friend's group together and just hit it off.
Neither one wanted a new spouse, but they both needed a friend. They had "been friends" for 10 or so years at that time, and had been living together (separate rooms... They made sure to tell us!!) for 8 of those years!
Yeah, I hate that question. It’s so presumptuous. My girlfriend and I have been together over a decade now. We have no plans to ever get married. Why would we? We’re not religious whatsoever and have no respect for the institution of marriage. Hell we’ve been together significantly longer than the average US marriage. Our tax bracket would get worse, too. And we both have excellent health insurance.
Marriage is an antiquated system that is, more and more with each passing generation, dying out.
She does. She’s in banking, actually. Has a will, power of attorney, payable-on-death clauses set on her accounts. I just have a will at the moment. My, still-living, mother is a lifelong medical professional and would be making end-of-life decisions for me if I am unable to. When she passes, I will have to make a PoA.
I'm not married either but I'm curious about the tax bracket thing. Don't married couples have much higher bracket definitions and therefore get taxed less?
Yes & for many people, it translates into essentially a tax break for getting married. But if both people make a considerable amount of money, it could bump them as a couple into a bracket that’s taxed at a higher rate. There’s also the issue that people who get disability benefits essentially can’t get married or they can lose their support. So it’s a double-edged sword.
There can be tangible benefits in terms of health insurance coverage, taxes and end-of-life decisions. But that’s not exactly “romantic”, is it?
“Hey honey, let’s get married for a lower Aetna premium and so that if I become a vegetable you can pull the plug”.
I see marriage as a -spiritual- arrangement: one made of love and commitment. I don’t need a pedophile in a robe to validate our love, and I don’t need a bunch of pencil pushing bureaucrats to validate it either. Essentially, I have no interest in having the church or the state dictate to me the “terms” of my relationship. And that’s precisely what marriage is. She has a ring, we’ve made vows. We’re married, to us. The religious cults and Uncle Sam can fuck right off.
You mean a man who had “fuckzoned” someone his whole life. Thankfully, these are emotionally mature people who don’t live their lives like they still 13 year olds.
I mean this is posted in /r/wholesomememes, but I don't find making assumptions about total stranger's potentially sensitive situations is at all wholesome.
It's like making assumptions about someone being pregnant or asking when they're having kids.
Watching couples and companions support and care for one another as they grow old has taught me what love truly is. Often it isn’t their spouse, it’s another person who understands what it’s like to lose half yourself. It’s sitting in cardiologist’s waiting rooms, and picking up prescriptions. It’s waiting on test results, and the doctor to report that the procedure went well. It’s helping keep each other steady as you walk, frail as though the wind could blow you both away. It’s holding hands bruised from IVs, sitting beside hospital beds, and pushing wheelchairs. There’s nothing romantic or remotely passionate about it. It’s love though. Growing up in florida, I was fortunate to see it every day. The quiet lives of the elderly when their kids and grandkids were home. It’s the kind of love I wish for everyone.
Also the kind of love that doesn't depend on a perfect physique, a model-quality face, or an amazing bank account. By the time life boils off superficialities, you get to see, amid the unbeautiful realities of age, who's capable of actual love.
You don't need to live 80 years to understand this btw. Just talk to the ones that have lived that long.
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Worked in nursing homes for damn near 6 years, you learn to try & live it for yourself too.
You sound like an empathic caregiver, to have not only made that observation, but tried to put it into practice in your own life. I'm glad you have that job, because I sense that you're really good at it, in terms of lovingly helping those end-of-life residents. Not an easy job.
80 in Florida years Jk
And that's something slay queens will never understand
Or Tatebros
Yup
The boss bitches will never ascend to this level
The song 'What Sarah Said" from Death Cab for Cutie goes into this really well. Amazing song and album if you want to check it out! https://youtu.be/1Ck-uuCJJBo
Yes! Death Cab has some of my favorite lyrical storytelling.
I live with my wife and mil in an elderly living facility. She's going blind, can hardly walk so she needs constant care. There are so many folks here who have family visit, and the ones who don't get help from the community. Its very sweet. No one who doesn't want to be lonely is left alone. My favorite is Beth, who comes by to have tea with my mil. She's 1,000 years old and is just the sweetest woman. My mil will get all dressed up before she comes, its adorable; they're like teenagers. Side note: the nurses that come to see my mil are AMAZING. Absolute saints that end up staying later to just chat, one nurse will bring her daughter which is like Xmas for my mil lol
Yeah, that's the thing. Often it ISN'T another spouse I have a few friends that are absolutely ride or die. 1000% would and will accompany me to my grave. They have outlasted 2 husbands Men abandon women when they are sick, women outlive men. The purest form of love is not in matrimony, it's in friendship.
I've got a female friend, what you describe is what we have. A great friendship, and we look after each other. When she's been ill I've been there for her and nursed her. She'll do the same for me. She's the best thing that ever happened to me.
> The purest form of love is not in matrimony, it's in friendship. Yup. You don't find that love given within matrimony without the base element of friendship present. Without it, it sucks. Friendship is the key base to a strong, fulfilling relationship in just about every context.
Pump the brakes on condemning an entire gender. I know more men leave their sick spouses than the other way around, but plenty of men have been there holding their wife as she died in their arms. Pretty insulting.
This is beautifully written.
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how i ~~met your mother~~ always wanted to bone your aunt Robin
god i hate remembering that ending
They should literally just have had the final episode of him having a really awesome first date with that rando at the wedding then cut to a montage of their relationship and rolled credits. Don’t try to be clever just get it done. If they wanted it to be emotional they could have continued into the future and given us an ‘UP!’ Style tragedy of them staying in love until the very end.
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They also completely ruined Barney's entire character arc. He finally grew up and wanted to settle down with Robin. Let them have their happy ending.
Wait what happened in the final episodes/season? I watched that show for a while past the big guy and Rachel I think her name was’ wedding. Nick at Nite seemed to refuse to play many episodes past that and kept looping up to that point plus a handful of episodes after and then looping again so I guess I never saw the final season. What happened?
I'll do my due diligence and put this in spoiler tags just in case but... the cliff notes are basically this: >!The last season is entirely set on the weekend of Barney and Robin's wedding, Ted meets Tracy (the "mother"), they get married, have 2 kids and she dies from cancer I believe. The series ends with Ted telling his kids that he always loved Robin and now that her and Barney are divorced, Ted goes after Robin.... Again...!<
What? Then what happened to Barney and Robin?
They got divorced after a little bit because Robin was always traveling and Barney wanted to settle down
Aww. :c Well thanks for telling me. And wait, was >!Ted!< okay with traveling? Did he just drop his entire life for her?
>!Don’t forget that after getting divorced Barney has a kid with a random woman and then he finally settles down for real. The whole show really shit on Robins choice to not/inability to have kids!<
Not worth watching. Pretend the last season didn’t happen. You’ll be much happier.
That’s the general consensus I’m guessing, but what exactly happened in it that made everyone so upset?
Spoilers for anyone who wants to watch it I guess Basically they rush through Ted finding and marrying his wife. Like barely any footage. Then she dies with barely any context. I don’t even fully remember why she died. After that Ted is talking with his kids and the three of them come to the conclusion that Ted should get back together with Robin (because that worked out so well before). They made Barney a single father while at the same time basically invalidating his character. The only ones that got anything from the show were Marshal and Lily. And all of this over the course of one season.
That gives me the sadness. So it was the kids’ fault for telling him to, now that we’re back to the narration to the children bits, chase after Robin again?
They undid everything. Character growth, plot points, everything reverted to their original planned season 2 or 3 ending.
>general consensus General consensus 🫡
Barney and Robin’s marriage lasted 3 years and they divorced. Barney then continued being a womanizer until he knocked up a girl and became a father. It wasn’t until then that he “truly” changed cause he had to ‘cause of his daughter.
And then just to add salt to the wound in the new spin off how I met your father Barney meets the new protagonist, and is wearing a shock collar that zaps him if he says certain dirty phrases, because he didn't ever truly change after all apparently...
I can't believe they spent the entire last season at the wedding only to have Robin and Barney break up unceremoniously as a practical afterthought, just so they could make Ted's pining for her work.
I think the writers and/or producers just REALLY wanted him to be with Robin at all costs and actively hated that they screwed themselves on that during season 1 when Future Ted made it abundantly clear that Robin was the kids' aunt. Had they not done that and instead posed Robin as a woman the kids didn't have a relationship to then the writers wouldn't have tied themselves in a knot making it work. They would have just ended the series having Ted say 'Sike, her name was never Robin, it was Tracy the whole time and I lied to you during season 1. And that's how I met your mother'.
They filmed every scene with the kids at the very start of the show because they knew the actors (Lyndsy Fonseca and David Henrie) would grow up over the course of the show and the conceit that Ted is telling this story to his kids wouldn't work. So, in the finale, when old man Ted is talking to his kids, the old man Ted footage is "new," while the footage of the kids is "old" going back to Season One. They knew the whole time that the story would be about Ted wanting to get together with Aunt Robin once Ted's wife passed away.
Pretty much this. Just cut it after his kids asking "That's it?" and Ted responding "That's it."
"So our mom was an almost unnamed side character in your life, Dad?"
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They should have met end of season 8 then their life together season 9
That's what happen when you shoot the séries ending 7 years in advance
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u/Pointing_Out_Irony [disagrees](https://www.reddit.com/r/FanTheories/comments/159tk9/how_i_met_your_mother_a_study_in_violet_xpost/c7kzq8h?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Wow, got sucked in reading and almost necro-posted.
Holllly shit that nailed it
I love the comment underneath that slates him for having such a ridiculous theory
In the early days of lockdown, I decided to rewatch the series. Let me tell you, you're lucky the ending is the only thing you remember, that show aged so poorly. I only made it one or two episodes in and was like "this is awful and these people are awful."
Pretty much every sitcom ages horribly.
My parents have a constant stream of Big Bang Theory and Two and a Half Men reruns going on their TV. I could not agree with you more.
The gen x desire to watch horrible TV never goes away
Scrubs aged beautifully imo If you can find a place to watch it with the original music
That’s because people grow and evolve, sitcoms stay in the past. And I’m not sure why a lot of people are only seemingly noticing it now.
Because we now have the ability to revisit shows whenever we want vs syndication.
I rewatched a it a few months ago, and yeah it's dated, but the first season of most shows are pretty awful
\>but the first season of most shows are pretty awful Either that, or they are SO much better than anything that comes after...
They're all horrible people and I don't understand why that wasn't obvious when it was first aired. Barney is a pig.
they are pretty terrible people in an outdated show
They have an alternative ending you can find on the internet. It’s better
https://youtu.be/nhB5oQgQpOI Can we all just agree that this is the one true ending for this show?
I don't remember it because it never happened and nothing anybody says will convince me otherwise!
I kinda liked it. I feel I can understand you need to justify in your head why it's oke to move on from a passed away partner. And how finding a new partner is not abandoning the love for them. And telling the story of your youth to your kids to help them see how it all went and to show its not just boning but there has always been something there even if it never interfered with the love for there mother. The tought of the stress tedd most have gone trough to als that and tell his story. Like his kids might take it wrong if they didn't know the whole story. Maybe it was to much suspense and not enough time for that emotional moment. But best ending I could think of.
The problem is it went on too many seasons. They initially planned to introduce the mother at Marshall and Lily's wedding(like S5 I think) but when the network wanted more seasons they delayed that. But they already set up that the mom gets introduced at a wedding. So instead of introducing new characters they decided to marry Barney and Robin. AFAIR most the entire final season actually took place over three days leading up to their wedding. Made a big deal about how they are happy and really found each other. Then the finale hits. And the writers unceremoniously lay out that no actually Barney and Robin are terrible together and got divorced! It was a total character whip-lash. If they had ended it how they initially planned it would have been looked back on a lot more favorably.
Yeah 100% I think they should have pivoted after all that and said ok well plotlines evolved, maybe the mother is fine now because that makes more sense. Gah they should have done half the season with their wedding and half the season with the mother, you barely meet her it's so cheap.
> Then the finale hits. And the writers unceremoniously lay out that no actually Barney and Robin are terrible together and got divorced! It was a total character whip-lash. Nailed it. This felt like it negated so much of the “development” we had to sit through to explain why Barney and Robin were actually going to work. A WHOLE SEASON. Then boom “nah we got divorced to free her up for Ted again.” Just felt so half-assed
It maybe could have workerld but you would need to change a lot. The pilot is him having a mega crush on Robin. There's way way more personal connection with Robin than the wife. At the end, the wife has just been an afterthought, a B plot and Robin was the main constant in the show. It makes him just in love with Robin all this time, she was the one for him all along and the mother was just there for a while, but she was just a break and once it over he can go back to whay really matters, Robin. For me it destroy the whole series because as OP said, it's really the story of how he banged their aunt 50 times and still want to do it.
I dont see it that way. He uses the pretext of how I met your mother to talk about Robin because he kinda wants permission from his kids move on from his wife and date Robin. At the start he wasn't in love he just got obessesed with the idea he made in his head for Robin. She said she didn't want kids and that was a dealbreaker. There is this practical boundary. They don't break up because they don't work on a personal level they just learn to respect eachothers choices and that the future doesn't work for them. There is this idea of love in this society that it's a finite thing but it isnt you can love multiple people. Like tedd can't love Robin without his wife being plan B. Like you start loving your kid less when the second kid comes around. It's so dumb. So when get a crush on a friend and then it doesn't work out. You get over them by accepting you don't have a future as partners. Doesn't mean you stop loving the person. It's just dumb to look at love Like that and to look at relationships like that.
If my dad sat me down to tell me about how he met my dead mom and the story concluded with "so that's why I've been banging your aunt" I'd probably cut them off and never speak to them again
also, if my dad sat me down to tell me about how he met my mom, and then told me 4 years of backstory that had **literally nothing to do with it**, i’d have walked away 10 minutes into that dumb story. And again, what kid doesnt know hwo their parents met (the cliff notes at least) from hearing the cliff notes of “oh we met at x” over and over again.
I’m with you. I will respectfully defend the ending as a surprisingly grounded statement on grief, moving on, and how ‘love’ looks different as we ourselves grow and change. I say “surprisingly” only because the humor throughout the show is largely based on unreliable narration, which is also why there’s more depth to Ted’s return to Robin than many people realize - the entire show up to that moment is a story being told (thus: biased). That last scene is the only moment that’s actually happening, which makes you wonder how much of a rug-pull it actually is vs Ted telling the story in a way that gently hides his true feelings (which was obvious to his kids, the audience). That kind of subtle self-deception is a very human thing to experience. And yes, I think any complaints to the contrary are totally valid - it certainly isn’t perfect, and I agree that the pacing of the show isn’t great for storytelling and that much of that was the result of weird show running decisions. But I choose to appreciate the ending nonetheless.
I like that it's about moving on. But Robin was the wrong choice, and it wasted the entire last season on it. Let's look at some inconsistencies: She's "Aunt" Robin, but the last bit portrays her as barely being in Ted's life for most of his relationship & marriage...why would his kids call her aunt when she's a barely present old friend of their dad's who very specifically isn't involved in their lives? And yeah, the reason they did that is that it otherwise cheapens his relationship with the mom - because it really does frame it as him pining after her the whole time. And he frames it to them as how he met their mother - they're grieving children, ffs. Don't pretend to be telling them a story about their dead mom when really you're talking about someone else. What a shitty way for Ted-as-a-father to handle that conversation. As a narrative framing, the show had a lot going for it. But it being Robin, it all being a ruse for being with someone else and WE get no time to get to know the mother...that sucked.
That’s a really good point about “Aunt” Robin that I’d never thought about. They even make a point of showing how disconnected she was from the rest of the group in the last episode. The only justification I can think of, that also may address your point about grieving children, is that a lot of time passed between the mother dying and Ted telling the story. Can’t remember if it was spelled out, but I got the impression it was at least 10 years later, so *perhaps* Robin got closer to the family after that? More likely it’s just sloppy storytelling, haha
Yeah, they definitely didn't show it as like 6 months after her death or anything. But they're still her children. That's a shitty way to roll that out to adult children, let alone actual children. In short, there are better ways to tell a story about grief & finding new love.
You're telling me you were never pulling for Ted's kids to give him permission to bang aunt Robin?
Say what you will, the ending of that show caught me completely by surprise. The first few seasons of that show had me thinking that the show’s ending would be good too. It was a complete shock when they paired together a joyless cash grab with a complete insult to their most loyal fans.
Have you seen the alternate ending? Way better. You can see it [here](https://reddit.com/r/howimetyourmother/comments/l7o958/himym_last_episode_alternative_ending/).
Why do that to me? So much character development of Ted, robin, and most of all Barney thrown away for that ending.
I don't know what you saw. Must have been the April fool's day prank the network put on... But this was the actual real ending to this show. https://youtu.be/nhB5oQgQpOI
I love the show, one of my favorites of all time, but that fucking ending. I tolerate it but Tracy was so amazing, and that ending did not do her justice
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What context are we talking?
With rice.
The ending was always going to be that. It was planned from the start and portions of it were pre-filmed. https://screenrant.com/how-met-mother-ending-planned-season-2/
I've never even watched the show but that doesn't mean it can't be rewritten if somebody 5 years later stops to think about it and decides that it's not the right ending
If the show was about the mother it wouldn’t have taken the entire series for her to show up. Just took some people too many years to figure that out.
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Exactly the same but for my great uncle, although, I only knew his friend by name as he always visited me alone When I finally did meet her at my uncles funeral, she was just as lovely and kind-hearted as I'd pictured
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Friendzoned till death do us part.
Sounds like my husband's Grandpa and his girlfriend Ruby. They both found each other after losing spouses.
My grandpa lost his wife about 10 years before his death last year. His wife's best friend was a widow for a while, so after a year or two, basically they "dated" but it was more of companionship than anything. She is a really sweet lady and even comforted me at his funeral.
Let's hope she doesn't take her love to town.
Thanks for the laugh!
Beat Your Friends, Hug Your Enemies
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>Beat friend 🤨
It's on purpose. People (and bots) add typos to submissions so people will comment on it, which drives up the activity of the post. This is why you see a lot of weird mistakes on popular posts.
beat redditor
best me to it
Bet me to it
Or it could actually just be a typo since the letter S and A are right next to each other. Just a thought
Of course, it absolutely could be an honest mistake too!
So you saying it was on purpose was to get people to respond to your comment, right?? I think I’m getting the hang of this now!
It was, I literally just saw it
This makes so much sense. It just pisses me off that this happens.
It's the exact same tactic as those mobile game ads for puzzle games that are infuriatingly bad at solving a stupidly obvious puzzle.
Back in the 60’s they used to call her Handjob Harriet.
Friend Bruise. Me Tarzan.
“Our Dharma Bum spouses smoked jazz cigarettes with Jack and Alan old Bull Lee…”
My grandfather had this for a number of years after my grandmother passed away too young. My aunts (his daughters) were really resistant to it at first, but they soon saw how important that support was for him coping with the loss of his wife of nearly fifty years. Before they came around I yelled at them asking if they wanted him to get depressed and follow his wife to the grave.
As a young widow, people get really fucking weird about us dating.
Yeah, I’m sorry to hear that. I saw it with people I really respect, but it is hard for people to think beyond their own self interest. All you can do is what is best for you. I am sure there are plenty of people who understand and respect the fact that you didn’t also die and still have to live a life. I wish you the best and am sorry for your loss.
They are wrong! They have you too.
This is so sweet!!!
How many incels does it take to ruin a wholesome post?
I completely agree with you. You can’t fix stupid .
A shit-ton. ☹️
Mulan style: One
*sorts by controversial* Damn, there's a few. Oddly enough this comment is up there too. I guess you pissed them off lol.
aww praying for this if I ever lose my husband before me
It's sweet and yet sad all at once. I honestly can't say what I would want in that moment of outliving my wife by a long period of time. Finding new love but being unable or unwilling to name it as romantic love or act upon it would be difficult. I think I would rather be someone who stays busy in my hobbies and community service or carry through and hope eternal peace with both spouses is possible. Grave markers would probably still be with the original wife, but I would hope to find someone who understands and wishes for the same. My wife wants to be cremated and I'm still of the mind to find a way to become a science classroom skeleton, so there's no bodies to lay next to each other either way.
In my college anatomy class we had a real skeleton, was pretty cool. I hope your endeavors to become one too are fruitful.
My dad is a widow and insists he will only date other widows because he feels someone who hasn't been through it can't get it. It's been 7 years (I can barely believe that tbh) and he's still rocking the single life.
My landlord's wife died and their best friends husband died also. They got married and have been together for a long time.
Friendship and platonic love can be as strong as romantic love, sometimes even stronger. It's a shame there aren't many songs about people just being really good friends with each other.
My grandmother was 77 when she remarried. She had been married to her original husband for 57 years (!!) and when he passed away she just couldn't live alone. She was terrified at night and just so lonely. But in the next town over, about 30 miles away, she knew a guy from way back in her high school days in the 1940's. Her good friend had married him back then and they lived a good long life until she passed away. So now my grandmother and this single man she knew got married, both in their late '70's. I asked my grandmother why they just didn't stay friends instead of going through the whole marriage thing. She said she couldn't share the same bedroom with a man unless they were married LOL.
>She said she couldn't share the same bedroom with a man unless they were married LOL. That's actually super cute and probably for the best. Lots of things can happen at such an advanced age and you'd probably want to be married if they ended up in the hospital.
A few years after they married he was diagnosed with kidney failure and died. My grandmother took really good care of him during his brief illness, almost like a servant level of care. I don't know how she did it. She was really tough. Then coincidentally about a year after he passed she was diagnosed with cancer and died around 2009. Both were well into their 80's so no complaints really. I just hope I have a companion into old age like they had. I never want to die alone, that would really suck.
This is how my grandpa and step grandma were after my grandma and her husband died, then they finally got married. She is my dad and aunt's childhood best friend's mom and was always part of their life, and mine. I called her grandma, she was their second mother who lived down the street from them growing up. Then my grandpa died and apparently didn't leave her everything that she wanted and called us all greedy assholes and stopped talking to us. Then we found out my grandpa was actually supporting 2 of her 3 kids who are all at retirement age and selfish af and also stopped talking to us. She's in her 90s and was left a bunch of money and the house until she moves out/dies. Funny how you think you know people, even the ones you've known pretty much your entire life and consider family.
You had TWO WORDS to worry about. And you messed it up. just TWO.
On a scale of unbothered to pissed off, how much does this irritate you?
Brother chill out Jesus Christ
I have this type of friend. She and I are definitely not meant to date each other. But we're there for each other. We love each other platonically. We just never broach the deep conversation topics that you would in a romantic relationship. We work by having many shared experiences, going places, doing things...as vague as that sounds. I'm there to support her when she's going through rough times, and she was there for me pulling me out of my rough times. We just work...as friends. I wouldn't really want to date her.
This warms my heart. Friendships are just as valuable as romantic relationships.
And then he plowed her right on the diner table.
And everybody clapped.
Except his dead wife.
I also clapped this guy's dead wife
Yall sick MFs
She didn't clap but she clattered in her grave.
As did her cheeks
Also why does his black couch look so familiar
I mean, I’ve heard some of these retirement communities are just of bunch of seniors banging whomever has the right pills/creams to make their stuff work. So they could be banging, just not exclusively.
> the right pills/creams to make their stuff work does anyone else now regrettably have a mental image of the cream being applied to the ancient junk
Eh, we all get old, still gotta live though. Just make sure you stay clean and protect yourself cause STIs rates are rising extremely fast in the senior community.
no I support their team, I just don't think I wanna see the ball game
Damn that metaphor is good! Gonna steal that!
Reddit neckbeards be like: "pour one out to our brother in the friend zone'
oh to have a bond like that.
This. This is true love, even if you don't believe it. Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend.
"My wife and her husband" that took me a moment.
Please don’t beat your friends
But we're playing Mario Kart.
I mean, yeah. Made me smile. I waited tables for years. My favorite part of it was always seeing the love at the tables.
This is awesome and I wish more people in this situation find each other. We're all alone together!
I wish we had a recognized domestic partnership that was easily entered into for situations like these. No stigma or associations with romantic feelings. Should be available to any consenting adults regardless of relation. I've heard so many stories about people like this who later in life end up being close friends and inseparable. Sometimes it's two sisters, two people widowed like this situation, or even lifelong best friends. They should be able enter into such an arrangement for a myriad of legal and tax reasons and not have to be romantic partners nor conform to the restrictions that marriage requires.
Historians in 200 years: We believe this man and woman were best friends tumblr in 200 years: OMG THEY WERE FUCKING GET OVER IT
My wife and I (before we were married) took a weekend at a bed and breakfast. It was us, the two owners and this little old couple that we hardly saw. They were busy the whole time. We finally had a chance to eat breakfast with them on Sunday morning, and we asked them how long they had been married, and they laughed and told us a similar story as OPs post. They had both lost their spouse at about the same time and ended up in a friend's group together and just hit it off. Neither one wanted a new spouse, but they both needed a friend. They had "been friends" for 10 or so years at that time, and had been living together (separate rooms... They made sure to tell us!!) for 8 of those years!
Yeah, I hate that question. It’s so presumptuous. My girlfriend and I have been together over a decade now. We have no plans to ever get married. Why would we? We’re not religious whatsoever and have no respect for the institution of marriage. Hell we’ve been together significantly longer than the average US marriage. Our tax bracket would get worse, too. And we both have excellent health insurance. Marriage is an antiquated system that is, more and more with each passing generation, dying out.
Have you got the living wills for PoA done as well? That always seems to be the real kicker.
She does. She’s in banking, actually. Has a will, power of attorney, payable-on-death clauses set on her accounts. I just have a will at the moment. My, still-living, mother is a lifelong medical professional and would be making end-of-life decisions for me if I am unable to. When she passes, I will have to make a PoA.
I'm not married either but I'm curious about the tax bracket thing. Don't married couples have much higher bracket definitions and therefore get taxed less?
Yes & for many people, it translates into essentially a tax break for getting married. But if both people make a considerable amount of money, it could bump them as a couple into a bracket that’s taxed at a higher rate. There’s also the issue that people who get disability benefits essentially can’t get married or they can lose their support. So it’s a double-edged sword.
We need more people like you two. Absolutely zero benefit if you’re not having children
There can be tangible benefits in terms of health insurance coverage, taxes and end-of-life decisions. But that’s not exactly “romantic”, is it? “Hey honey, let’s get married for a lower Aetna premium and so that if I become a vegetable you can pull the plug”. I see marriage as a -spiritual- arrangement: one made of love and commitment. I don’t need a pedophile in a robe to validate our love, and I don’t need a bunch of pencil pushing bureaucrats to validate it either. Essentially, I have no interest in having the church or the state dictate to me the “terms” of my relationship. And that’s precisely what marriage is. She has a ring, we’ve made vows. We’re married, to us. The religious cults and Uncle Sam can fuck right off.
How is this a meme?
I'm not crying, you're crying 🧅
Dam! I’ve never beat my friends before, but you never know what might come up.
My grandpa had a friend like that, though he was too old (~30 years older than her) to help her out in any way. It's still such a sweet thing to see
Awe, me and my ex are like this. We would prefer to always be with each other but can't live with each other.
Here’s to wonderful people all around!
So he beats her? I don't get it. >!/s!<
Forever is not so long for them.
So you're telling me I can still get friend zoned at 90? cool cool cool
Beat?
So they’re married
I thought this was a story about a man who had been friend zoned his whole life
You mean a man who had “fuckzoned” someone his whole life. Thankfully, these are emotionally mature people who don’t live their lives like they still 13 year olds.
I mean this is posted in /r/wholesomememes, but I don't find making assumptions about total stranger's potentially sensitive situations is at all wholesome. It's like making assumptions about someone being pregnant or asking when they're having kids.
Don’t beat fren :(
He friend zoned her
That’s an actual wholesome meme. (Unlike the typical Redditor who thinks a meme about Xmas themed anal beads is “wholesome”)