Seventy-five years together. Fifty years. Forty years. Whether you’re celebrating decades of wedded bliss or just surviving another year with someone who forgets your anniversary and leaves a bathroom scale in the driveway, these five jokes will resonate. They’re warm, they’re wicked, and the last one about the divorce is — if we’re being honest — the funniest thing we’ve read all week. The first one, though, is a masterpiece of a punchline. Read slowly.
1 A very elderly couple is having an elegant dinner to celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary. The old man leans forward and says softly to his wife, “Dear, there is something that I must ask you. It has always bothered me that our tenth child never quite looked like the rest of our children. Now I want to assure you that these 75 years have been the most wonderful experience I could have ever hoped for, and your answer cannot take that all that away. But, I must know, did he have a different father?” The wife drops her head, unable to look her husband in the eye, she paused for a moment and then confessed. “Yes. Yes he did.” The old man is very shaken, the reality of what his wife was admitting hit him harder than he had expected. With a tear in his eye he asks “Who? Who was he? Who was the father?” Again the old woman drops her head, saying nothing at first as she tried to muster the courage to tell the truth to her husband. Then, finally, she says, “You.”
2 Over breakfast one morning, a woman said to her husband, “I bet you don’t know what day this is.” “Of course I do,” he indignantly answered, getting up from the table and going out the door to the office. At 10am, the doorbell rang. When the woman opened the door, she was handed a box containing a dozen long-stemmed red roses. At 1pm, a foil-wrapped, two-pound box of her favorite chocolates arrived. Later, a boutique delivered a designer dress. The woman couldn’t wait for her husband to come home. When he did, she exclaimed, “First the flowers, then the chocolates and then the dress! I’ve never had a more wonderful Groundhog Day in my life!”
3 John was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary and his wife was angry. She told him: “Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from zero to two hundred in six seconds and it better be there.” The next morning he got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift wrapped in the middle of the driveway. Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway and brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale. John has been missing since Friday.
4 On their 50th wedding anniversary and during the banquet celebrating it, Tom was asked to give his friends a brief account of the benefits of a marriage of such long duration. “Tell us Tom, just what is it you have learned from all those wonderful years with your wife?” Tom responds, “Well, I’ve learned that marriage is the best teacher of all. It teaches you loyalty, meekness, forbearance, self-restraint, forgiveness — and a great many other qualities you wouldn’t have needed if you’d stayed single.”
5 John asks his wife, Mary, what she wants to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary. “Would you like a new Mink Coat?” he asks. “Not really,” says Mary. “Well how about a new Mercedes sports car?” says John. “No,” she responds. “What about a new vacation home in the country?” he suggests. She again rejects his offer with a, “No thanks.” Frustrated he finally asks, “Well what would you like for your anniversary?” “John, I’d like a divorce,” answers Mary. John thinks for a moment and replies “Sorry dear, I wasn’t planning to spend that much.”