To think it’s unreasonable for husband to agree to his friend coming round when we’re already having a dinner party.

OP, I read a good bit of wisdom the other day:
Hanging on to a resentment with someone, is like taking poison yourself, but expecting the other person to suffer instead!?

P.s. Christmas - you- bah humbug!!

Instead of welcoming friends of family in, just bear a grudge for years after instead why don't ya ???....

Oh come on! You know how it is at Christmas especially just moved in to new home and guests over for first Christmas there…. Loads food!

my husband and I would have shared a portion and laughed about it: and then stuffed ourselves with cheese and biscuits

They had just moved in so probably not much food.

Don’t know about the op but at Christmas time, I am usually drowning in food and would be so easy to whip up one extra plate

It would have been annoying re the food situation but id of rolled with it. The more the merrier 🤷🏻‍♀️

You are being unreasonable for continuing to make it an issue.

I bet the poor guests could have cut the tension with a knife during this dinner!

This would be nothing more than a vague funny fond recollection in my mind

Not so it would appear for the op

I'd like to think I'd be welcoming but actually if I'd put effort into a special night and my husband invited someone else,not connected to the original guests I'd be pretty annoyed and see it as disrespectful of my effort . Unless of course they were a friend in need in some way. But I expect I'd get over it pretty quickly , hopefully he'd see it from my view point too or we'd agree to disagree and move on. So has he continued to be disrespectful and this is why it's still rumbling on?

I think you are overthinking this.
Dh friend probably only wanted a drink and chat.

In that situation I would have asked if they wanted to pull up a chair for a drink and offer a small plate of food. Am sure there was a fridge full of food at Christmas so didn’t have to be sea bass.

I would always try to accommodate a visitor especially at Christmas.

God almighty - who are these men who aren’t capable of making their own food

your dickhead husband invited someone round without telling the person who was cooking the food

ofndourse that was a dickhead move. The correct response was for your dickhead husband to sort the food

as for bringing it up years later - unsurprisingly your dickhead husband is still a dickhead . Why are you with him?

Is your husband incapable of making his own sandwich?

It was Christmas Eve. Of course he was welcome.

A friend comes round on Christmas Eve and you are serving dinner. Naturally he/she joins the meal. It's Christmas Eve. It's all about someone being turned away. You do know that, don't you?
See Matthew 25: 34-40. That's who you shared the fish with.

My husband does this and he can go back decades. It's very unattractive.

Depends how good a friend they were - if one of my friends turned up unexpectedly I would always accommodate them so it's only fair that I'd have to treat my husband's friends the same. I'd have raided the freezer and found them something to eat!

It's a deeply dysfunctional relationship that still has contention for something like this after so many years. Get over it.

Being generous and welcoming to unexpected guests on Christmas Eve is good. As pp say, the correct thing would be to serve the extra guest the food that DH was going to be served, and give him something random (we always have half a dozen things in the freezer or larder that can be microwaved in a few minutes). He should have told you as soon as he knew. Both of you should have apologised to each other by Dec 31st at the latest and then stopped thinking about it. Your relationship is doomed because neither of you has the maturity to actually cope with a grownup relationship.

Yeah, nah. Sometimes you have to pull up your big girl panties & say no. Your DH should have said no to his friend in this instance, in my humble opinion. A casual BBQ sure, but not a sit down meal, especially at Christmas. Christmas meals are planned

This is a classic case of wife trying to be all first-mortgage, smug-married, dinner-party couply and husband still in the mates zone.

Yeah, absolutely this. He basically invited his mate round but failed to mention it and did fuck all to prepare for it clearly expecting you to magic a meal up out of thin air. Dick move.

To think it’s unreasonable for husband to agree to his friend coming round when we’re already having a dinner party. me to bring up the same ridiculous arguments from years ago again.

fixed your title for you.

I would have been irritated at the time.

Bloody Nora. This was ages ago. Why is it still an issue?

If he said that he has a friend turning up because he felt sorry for him as he had nowhere else to go, and he said he knew it wasn't ideal but that he'd pop out and get some extra nibbles and some cheese or something to make it stretch further then yabu.

If he sprung it on you, and expected you to sort it without any help or suggestions (in a 'dinner parties are no big deal even though I've never done one) and expected you to switch things up at the last minute then yanbu.

Also depends what the friend had on. If he genuinely had no other friends to see...or if he had just asked your husband if he fancied hanging out, and your husband just said yes without a second thought (and if he'd said no, the friend would have other options etc). If the latter I'd be pissed off.