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Original poster

If your friends dislike your DP/DH has it impacted your friendship?

8 replies

Eastie77Returns · 26/07/2023 16:17

Asking for a friend😭

Long story short, my friends DH is universally disliked by our friendship group. Too many examples of shit behaviour to list but latest one is she has had to cancel part of an event with us as he will not look after their young DC overnight. He has never looked after them single handled for any significant length of time and says be can’t cope. On the rare occasions she’s had a break he has drafted in his DM or MIL. This time neither of them are available so friend can only come for part of the break.

It’s getting to the point where we are becoming exasperated with her as she constantly complains about him (almost 10 years and counting) but then gets very upset and defensive if we criticise him. To be clear, we don’t just launch into an attack on him but try to point out how he could be supporting her better etc.

So we try to avoid him as a subject but then she will proactively bring him up in chat “DH did this awful thing xyz again..” or tell us at length about some wonderful thing he has done at work.

I will not visit their house as he made some extremely misogynistic comments in front of both of our respective DD’s when I was last there and I know she is upset about this (that I won’t visit) and the fact a couple of our friendship group avoid him in social situations.

If you have been in this situation did you set any ground rules, for want of a better term, to help your friendship overcome this? We just want to tell her: please stop talking about your DH. We accept you are with him but do not want to hear any more about him (unless you are leaving him and then we are here for support). Does that sound harsh and unsupportive?

Sorry, that ended up being long!

OP posts:
Demolishthecreamcake · 26/07/2023 16:22

Slightly different situation, but my best friend of many years met a dreadful man about 3 years ago. He emotionally controls her but she cannot see any wrong in him (except when she can - but that is soon forgotten once he's laid on his sorry behaviour). We are no longer able to be friends and have almost completely gone our separate ways. I am very sad about it.

I think you have to either accept her the way she is with him, or disconnect from her. You can't really keep on seeing her but ban her from talking about her DH.

Dozycuntlaters · 26/07/2023 16:30

My best friend has really bas taste in men....like really bad. For some reason she seems to end up with the ones with drinking problems. With her latest one (and the one before that) I just told her that I would not be mingling with them as I never want to be in the same room as them. I love her to bits and would never not be her friend and I will support her when the relationship goes tits up, which it will do. But I don't ask about him, she doesn't really say much and its much easier that way.

If your friend starts banging on about her husband either ignore, change the subject or just say something like well he's a prat so what do you expect. Just don't engage with her about him, whether what she is saying is good or bad.

Original poster
Eastie77Returns · 26/07/2023 16:33

Demolishthecreamcake · 26/07/2023 16:22

Slightly different situation, but my best friend of many years met a dreadful man about 3 years ago. He emotionally controls her but she cannot see any wrong in him (except when she can - but that is soon forgotten once he's laid on his sorry behaviour). We are no longer able to be friends and have almost completely gone our separate ways. I am very sad about it.

I think you have to either accept her the way she is with him, or disconnect from her. You can't really keep on seeing her but ban her from talking about her DH.

Very sorry your friendship ended, that sounds like a difficult situation.

I don’t really want to ban her but we are not sure what she wants from us. When she rattles on about how dreadful he is and we agree with her she then becomes defensive and often backtracks.

I now give non committal responses but his behaviour drives me mad!

OP posts:
LobsterCrab · 26/07/2023 16:37

I'd change the subject every time she brings him up. Hopefully she'll get the message!

dearJayne · 26/07/2023 17:04

Demolishthecreamcake · 26/07/2023 16:22

Slightly different situation, but my best friend of many years met a dreadful man about 3 years ago. He emotionally controls her but she cannot see any wrong in him (except when she can - but that is soon forgotten once he's laid on his sorry behaviour). We are no longer able to be friends and have almost completely gone our separate ways. I am very sad about it.

I think you have to either accept her the way she is with him, or disconnect from her. You can't really keep on seeing her but ban her from talking about her DH.

Same, she was leaving him. She had found somewhere else to live when he found out she was leaving he cried, begged, said he would change. He didn't. Last I heard she was still there telling her new friends the same stories she was telling us. He's not changed and she's still there.

Tidsleytiddy · 26/07/2023 17:18

Ive got a similar situation. Friend married a complete twonk. She doesn’t like him much herself and I’ve made it quite clear what I think yet he always has to be mentioned to me. I just ignore any reference to him

SavBlancTonight · 26/07/2023 17:54

He wants you to fall out with her. Then she will stop going out and will only have him

It's an extraordinarily difficult situation. We had similar with SIL although she tended not to rant about his shirty behaviour - she would mention it then very quickly backtrack and make excuses.

Towards the end, we were honest but brief - SIL, he's not a good person and nothing you tell us is a surprise. But if.you won't end it, there is nothing we can do or say. Then change the subject.

He would have been THRILLED if we had cut her off. He has this whole narrative about how toxic and manipulative we are and that would have fed in. But we didn't because we wanted her to know we would be here for her when she finally left him.

Original poster
Eastie77Returns · 26/07/2023 18:45

SavBlancTonight · 26/07/2023 17:54

He wants you to fall out with her. Then she will stop going out and will only have him

It's an extraordinarily difficult situation. We had similar with SIL although she tended not to rant about his shirty behaviour - she would mention it then very quickly backtrack and make excuses.

Towards the end, we were honest but brief - SIL, he's not a good person and nothing you tell us is a surprise. But if.you won't end it, there is nothing we can do or say. Then change the subject.

He would have been THRILLED if we had cut her off. He has this whole narrative about how toxic and manipulative we are and that would have fed in. But we didn't because we wanted her to know we would be here for her when she finally left him.

Similarly I think he would be delighted if we fell out. It’s clear he doesn’t like any of our friendship circle and he is no doubt glad we longer visit.

During a party at their house he kept making comments to a single woman, asking why she “hasn’t found a man yet” and other sexist remarks. Afterwards our friend popped up in our group chat, agreed it was a horrible comment but then became defensive “I don’t think he meant it badly, he has lovely single friends and was probably going to suggest setting [single woman] up on a date…”🙄

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