Friends husband a miserable git

I'm another one who doesn't get why the friend's husband's clothing choices means he has mental health issues.

If he always dresses like this, then he does. The 30 degrees is irrelevant. I'm in Australia and see plenty of people who stay covered up.

The fur-lined slippers do seem rather statement-y

I'd just go for his being an arsehole due to his separation from the group, grumpiness, being horrible to his wife and rude to a waiter.

I thought he was wearing those clothes because he was uncomfortable with his own body and didn't want to expose it to others

Yea. Some of us have a skin disease that we don't want comments on from ignorant people, so we cover up. Even at the height of summer at 30 degrees..... 😚

Ugh, this reminds me of the relationship between 2 colleagues in my second workplace where I had gone for promotion - sadly they got married and I felt sorry for the wife. She and I were senior staff and her husband (several years younger) was one of the junior staff. We seniors were all churchgoers of different denominations and he was also a churchgoer which probably brought them together Unfortunately he was a manchild and she ended up mothering him...for years. I lost all respect for him at the leaving do for a pregnant colleague when I heard him making rude comments under his breath about pregnant women - fortunately our colleague was unaware. At the time I was also pregnant, and I made damn sure that my leaving do would be held on the day when the prat was at college so he wouldnt get a chance to insult me!

You’ve all put up with him for 30 years 🤔

Your friend continuously trying to do foursomes when she knows well how rude and poorly behaved he is, would piss me off.

She may choose to be with this awful twat that speaks badly to her in public but why should others have to tolerate it?

She is clearly determined to foist him on others to suit herself.
There is no way I would do that to my husband on a precious holiday OR a night out.
Life is too short.

For goodness sake. Put your big pants on and tell them you don't it can't go!

Brilliant for you but you do realise not everyone is you and may behave differently to how you did !!!
My social anxiety makes me extremely snippey and yes sometimes rude or abrupt

Next time you male plans an she assumes he is coming, id go a bit overboard to say

"are you sure? He doesn't have to come if he doesn't want to. He doesn't seem to enjoy our company much as he doesn't speak to us or gives one word answers. I'm not saying he can't come but he just seems really unhappput be out with us and tbh I left the last catch-up feeling uncomfortable and like I'd upset him And I don't really want to do that again."

Then leave a lot of space to let her talk or offer up a solution.

There are a number of things which sound like traits of Asperger's- the dressing inappropriately for the occasion, the dislike of changes in routine (going on holiday) and the difficulty with small talk and social/communication issues. I have a number of relatives with somewhat similar behaviours and diagnoses in the family.
However although a neurodiversity might explain the root of his behaviour I wouldn't say it's an excuse, because other people have boundaries of acceptable behaviour and certainly overstepping those to the extent of abusive behaviour is not ok.
It seems as if your friend doesn't challenge him or push back which has exacerbated the situation, I would suggest that you simply encourage her to tell him not to go with you all.

I have a friend whose DH is a bit like this - he no longer comes along to anything. Could your lovely friend just say to him, look you never enjoy it so why don't you just stay home?

I don't know whether he is ND but the description OP gives, especially of the weird behaviour with his clothes, all point to some mental health issue being involved.

As regards him belittling his wife infront of her friends, which the OP says has been going on for 30 years: why does his wife want to include him in social events with her friends if his behaviour towards her at these social events is so bad? Are you implying she is incapable of socialising with her friends without him being there or are you implying he won't let her not go alone? Surely if she found this behaviour towards her in front of them so awful she would leave him at home when she met her friends or even not go along to group events. Yet OP says her friend is busy trying to arrange other social events including him.

This is yet another thread where we are being invited to judge another couples relationship at third hand. If the friend herself was posting on here about her relationship and how her DH treats her in front of her friends then that would be totally different. But no, we are getting a report from OP, who is not unbiased because she can't stand the man anyway, of her friends marriage as she sees it in public. She has no idea what goes on between the couple in private.

OP has every right not to want to socialise with her friend' s DH. She can still maintain the friendship without seeing him. But her account of the DH and his behaviour smack of judgement and assumptions and the tone of this thread where someone's behaviour is quite weird is just a reminder of how people with mental health difficulties are still treated in society.

It must be awful for her. Maybe when you next see her say ‘was DH ok, he didn’t seem to enjoy the holiday’ and see what she says.

My best friend’s husband is difficult. He is frequently vile and belittling to her. He dominates the conversation, talks over everyone, won’t let his teenagers talk with interrupting them and has no awareness of social cues. Lots of food issues. He definitely has a type of autism but mostly he is a boring twat. She won’t talk about it, let alone leave him so I stopped talking to her about it decades ago. We love her so we put up with him, I also don’t want to see her become isolated.

Constantly belittling his wife in front of others is the mark of a twat, it doesn't go hand in hand with ND. DD2 is ND, 15 years old and behaves better than the DH. Too many men are just allowed to get away with appalling behaviour

I agree- its pretty offensive to suggest that rudeness must always = ND.
Putting others down in public isnt an ND trait, its more a trait of an abusive relationship dynamic.

I’d be mostly concerned for my friend. It must be awful for her, especially in a group where all the rest of you have (presumably) nice, sociable husbands.

I agree the obvious solution is to see her one on one and try to (gently) talk to her about it. But if you can’t make that happen, I think you just have to still see her with him occasionally. Just ignore him.

Constantly belittling his wife in front of others is the mark of a twat, it doesn't go hand in hand with ND. DD2 is ND, 15 years old and behaves better than the DH. Too many men are just allowed to get away with appalling behaviour.

This. I'd be concerned about your friend first and foremost, OP. If he puts her down in public then I wonder what he's like in private and if she is OK.

My DH come across as an AH in front of my friends as he feels the need to try to fit in and it just across really badly. If he'd just be himself it would be better.

Just be friends with your friend and offer to meet up without her DH. She/he might be grateful.

I’d be honest with your friend and say it’s pretty obvious her husband doesn’t enjoy your group activities and ask whether he would prefer not to come. No reason she can’t come without him or do something separate with you

I agree it's really rude and unfriendly, youre not being unreasonable. Equally, I do think sometimes people get dragged into couples socialising when it really doesn't work. He clearly just didn't want to be there and possibly suffers from some kind of MH/social anxiety type of situation (no excuse to show it/make others feel uncomfortable) but I do wonder if the dynamic is that she begs him to go because its clearly a couples holiday, he doesn't want to be there, resents the cost, resents the use of his annual leave, wouldn't have chosen a hot destination (clearly clothing wise it didnt work for him) and wouldn't choose your company. Maybe he has his own friends he'd rather go on a golfing holiday to Scotland with, or a solo trip to Iceland and instead he's been pushed into this with people he doesn't like. I'm not excusing the behaviour but if it was "we are celebrating with an 8 person holiday" then he probably felt manipulated into going. I hate it when new friends are like "let's get together the 4 of us" why!?! You are my personal friend, its nice to have friends just for yourself and there's no reason why you have to drag your OH into it. Its sometimes good to keep things separate.

I think people are right, see your friend alone (you can do girls holidays as well as just lunch/shopping). I have a few friends where, for whatever reason, we just don't gel as couple friends, we dont need to discuss it we just know, the husbands dont get on or we dont gel. So we hang out the two of us, go on holidays the two of us, have dinner out the two of us. It works better and maybe she needs space to talk about him too as it sounds hard work living with him. I think you also have a duty to check in with her, and see how she's coping with him/if he's struggling and find a way to socialise without involving the husbands (is there something just you two would enjoy, a spa, or a film, or a trip that's clearly just somewhere you'd both want to go). Once you've changed the pattern it'll be easier to just stick to the new way of hanging out.

What strange behaviour with the clothes, maybe he's got Chickenpox 😂

He probably has issues OP. MH issues perhaps. This is not normal behaviour.
I think sometimes people don't see that there are actual problems at play unless they've experienced something similar in their own family.
It must be very difficult for your friend. I would be there for her if you can.

@ZenNudist Probably. It would’ve been much better if he’d said this to his wife and stayed at home, instead of sitting there like a wet weekend. I’ve declined to go on trips with DH and vice versa. You don’t have to do everything together!

Group holiday probably his idea of hell.

For small group outings you could say something along the lines of, "Our social occasions never seem comfortable for (insert name), so let's give him a break and do something else.
If she insists he's fine you could then go into more detail of why it's really not.
For your large group holidays, all carry on as normal and just work around him, not giving any extra attention to his sulkiness. There's enough of you to do that.

Whats him wearing trousers and long sleeve shirts got to do with it? Random