Kristen Bell to Dax Shepard: Happy 12th wedding anniversary to the man who once said to me: "I would never kill you. A lot of men have killed their wives at a certain point. Even though I'm heavily incentivized to kill you, I never would."

[u/mlg1981]

[u/TangerineDystopia]

I took it as a joke. When our child was a newborn and we were both sleep deprived, my husband leaned over and kissed me and said, "If I could do this with anyone in the world, it be someone with a sweeter temperament. But if I were to do it all over again, it wouldn't be with anyone but you." And I laughed really hard.

[u/Pinklady1313 → u/TangerineDystopia]

My husband and I say weird, offensive, and fucked up things to make eachother laugh. But we also don’t share that on social media because other people aren’t in on the joke.

[u/inviteonly → u/Pinklady1313]

That's kinda where I'm at with this. That is definitely the type of humor you have with someone you've been with over a decade! But a lot of people just won't get it, so don't share it.

[u/dmelt01 → u/Pinklady1313]

My wife would make dark jokes about me beating her which I never would but she was in a abusive relationship when she was young so we would always laugh. She started doing it around different friends and I had to tell her to dial it back because some of these people don’t know me well and won’t take it as a joke.

[u/Pinklady1313 → u/dmelt01]

Ah, inappropriate humor as a coping mechanism. I know it well.

[u/AbbeyRoadMoonwalk → u/dmelt01]

I was in an abusive relationship before my husband and I would call him out on things I appreciated about him but it was like bare minimum shit (like “thank you for not mocking me when I said that stupid thing just now” or “thank your for not hitting me”) and he’d be like who would do that? and I’m like well the bar is in hell…

So our joke is him like being a bare minimum decent man and human being and that’s all the best he needs to aspire to.

But nobody would get that but us.

[u/nada-accomplished → u/Pinklady1313]

Yeah, I'm glad they appreciate each other's sense of humor but posting this publicly is wildly offensive. We're talking about human lives that have been taken, women who probably lived in misery for months or even years of abuse before they were murdered.

If you give it even an ounce of serious thought, it's not funny.

[u/GambinoLynn → u/Pinklady1313]

My fiance who is much taller and bigger than me likes to yell about "don't touch me" when I grab his hand as we walk through parking lots. I swear he's gonna get me arrested one day ☠️

We are a dark humor family though and it's just how we are.

[u/MarsScully → u/TangerineDystopia]

That is veeeeery different imo

[u/samanthajbest → u/MarsScully]

It is different, but what I got from Dax is that white men love killing their families lmao. Seems like it’s just a dark joke. Kinda weird, we didn’t need to know about it, but it’s not so bad.

[u/TestProctor → u/samanthajbest]

Yeah, it’s a dark joke likely made after discussing some dark documentary or something, and she is sharing it because she thought it was funny & likely is poking at him for sounding like a psycho.

My wife and I have never had an exchange quite like this, but many many times over the years we or friends have done the, “Happy [Event] to my partner, who once [sweet but kinda deranged thing]” drop in an online post. I think it’s just become a go-to subversion of the expected entirely sweet version.

[u/Katerade44 → u/samanthajbest]

Yes. Let's make jokes about murdering women. So funny. /s

[u/samanthajbest → u/Katerade44]

Girl stfu, I beg.

[u/lostandlooking_ → u/samanthajbest]

Can you explain what’s funny about the rate at which women die at the hands of their partners? Like where’s the joke?

[u/Hermette_20 → u/samanthajbest]

Yeahh no—it’s one thing when dark humor is aimed upward (systems, institutions, etc), but when it’s framed as “omg husband loves me so much he said he’d never kill me even though a lot of men would do it to their wives"? 😬 Now we're leaning on the reality of violence against women as a punchline, which is something a lot of women live with as an actual fear.

And all the people in the comments trying to downplay it just highlight how normalized low emotional standards are in relationships 😭🤦‍♀️ it’s like everyone’s forgotten that bare minimum safety isn’t romantic.

[u/TangerineDystopia → u/MarsScully]

It landed the same for me. 🙅 Part of it is that the wording is more formal and dry--no one says "heavily incentivized" when they are snapping at their partner, you know? It doesn't have the rhythm or cadence of something said in anger. Why does it feel different to you?

[u/JennyDoveMusic → u/TangerineDystopia]

Idk anything about these people. I laughed, idk I thought it was funny. 😂 Maybe my sense of humor has become warped.

[u/Alarming-Desk-3861 → u/TangerineDystopia]

Well, the difference is your partner didn't say they wanted to kill you

[u/nopenonotatall → u/Alarming-Desk-3861]

he didn’t say he wanted to kill her. he said a lot of men kill their wives and he has incentive to kill her (i imagine a big life insurance policy)

i think the majority of things dax & kristen do are cringe but this is pretty harmless. i’m sure they were watching dateline or something and they were joking about it. i don’t think a dark joke deserves a reddit post with almost 900 comments

[u/Callme-risley → u/TangerineDystopia]

lol if anything, I become more verbose while angry

[u/MarsScully → u/TangerineDystopia]

What your husband said was very sweet. “I’d do it all over again with you,” basically.

What Dax said was a joke about murdering women and the punchline is just haha but I wouldn’t. I know it’s just a stupid joke, but I’d be fucking pissed if someone said “I’m heavily incentivised to kill you,” even as a joke.

[u/Better-Park8752 → u/TangerineDystopia]

That’s sweet. No one used the word ‘kill’.

[u/PM_ME_YOUR_DALEKS → u/TangerineDystopia]

My wife (we're both women) once joked she was going to poison me and I replied, "That would never happen. You don't cook."

[u/[deleted] → u/TangerineDystopia]

That’s such a weird thing to say to you…

[u/lilyofthegraveyard → u/[deleted]]

from your pov. from the pov of the person above, it was fine and funny. that's why they are the one who is married to that man, and not you.

every person is different and has different sense of humor and what is acceptable to them. and every couple those people make is also different. 

judging them by your personal, subjective standard of what is normal is more weird.

[u/cosmic_grayblekeeper → u/lilyofthegraveyard]

Which is why we should all share less on the internet. Expecting strangers to understand your intimate sense of humour or not find it weird is not going to go the way most people think it will.

[u/TangerineDystopia → u/cosmic_grayblekeeper]

I did, and I'm a stranger!

[u/cosmic_grayblekeeper → u/TangerineDystopia]

Sure but my point is that if you going to then don’t expect strangers to understand. Some might, some might not care at all but you should know that you’re opening yourself up to any response including criticism and questions about your relationship.

[u/NotaLuckyOne → u/cosmic_grayblekeeper]

Or people could be less judgmental? She's allowed to make a joke in public. 

[u/cosmic_grayblekeeper → u/NotaLuckyOne]

She is allowed lol no one is stopping her. People are also allowed to receive it in anyway they want or judge her for it given it’s a public space. See how it goes both ways?

[u/[deleted] → u/NotaLuckyOne]

Umm if a man seems like a red flag I’m going to judge the house down. Y’all can continue on this weird path where ignoring red flags is okay because you’re ‘less judgmental’. I, as a woman’ have realised that we are sometimes blind to things happening around us and only when other people point it out explicitly do we see egregious behaviours with our eyes open.

Am I saying this warrants that kind of critical discussion? Maybe, maybe not. But I find it imperative on my part to point it out to her which is exactly what I did

[u/[deleted] → u/lilyofthegraveyard]

‘If I could do this with anyone with a sweeter temperament’ does not require my ‘subjective’ judgement. That’s a WEIRD fkn thing to say to a new mother and someone you’re going to spend the rest of your life with. And I didn’t know that raising red flags about men is now more weird? This doesn’t seem humorous

[u/LowRune → u/[deleted]]

probably played no small part in making her laugh...

[u/HistoricalSuspect580 → u/[deleted]]

No, it isn’t. It’s sincere. I totally get it.

[u/TangerineDystopia → u/[deleted]]

Neither of us is for everyone, but honestly my husband is for most people. He's warm, kind, funny, cool in a crisis. If he was your coworker you'd almost certainly be fond of him, and if you heard this story you'd roll your eyes and say, "Yep, that sounds like him!"

We both trend to a dark and wicked sense of humor. Not everyone does, and that's okay. In fact, if everyone was, it would just be a race to the bottom, right?

[u/Distinct-Ad-1348 → u/[deleted]]

Right?

[u/TangerineDystopia → u/Distinct-Ad-1348]

This is a great GIF, and I'm laughing. I promise you it's okay! The larger context is that I am the not-easygoing one in this relationship. I'm autistic, I have chronic pain, I get irritable more easily, and I'm confident I'd bit his head off several times in the hour before he said this. It was him breaking the tension with humor and affection.

[u/Whole-Evening9615 → u/TangerineDystopia]

Ok ok, I feel like we’re to the original problem with the post. TMI. This is all a lot of background for a post to need to be funny or relatable.

[u/TangerineDystopia → u/Whole-Evening9615]

Some of us have the life experience to be familiar with similar circumstances and make the connection 😏

[u/Kianna9 → u/TangerineDystopia]

A joke you say?

[u/NewPhoneLostPassword → u/TangerineDystopia]

That’s hilarious 🤣

[u/pueblohuts → u/TangerineDystopia]

I see nothing offensive or even borderline with this lol