Friend's wife hardly ever comes to anything

[SockSensation]

Clearly none of my business, but starting to feel concerned for her.

I have a small friendship group with a pretty active social life, including lots of long weekends away.

The core is 4 single people (2 men, 2 women) 2 married couples and a married man who almost always comes without his wife. At various times friends of friends will join us and obviously not everyone comes to everything.

Friend's DW is very welcome, when she does come she's sociable and appears to enjoy herself.

Mostly though he says she prefers having the house to herself and him going without her. This is most weekends, sometimes twice in a weekend, although he is aware when it's been several weekends in a row, and they do go off and do things as a couple fairly often too (no children). Sometimes he'll decline on a "better not" basis, but she'll tell him to come.

In the face of it, it seems a perfect realtionship, happy together but enjoying separate interests too, and I can't quite put my finger on it, but lately I feel like something's not right. I don't know her as well as him, but she's lovely and I'm a bit worried for her but can't place why.

FWIW, he is always perfectly well behaved when out with us and she has nothing to worry about on that front.

Is there anything I should do?

I'm always nice to DH's group of friends if they're ever altogether but I don't chose to go out anywhere with them. They're nice enough but I like being on my own too.

I'm the wife in this scenario. I'm not particularly sociable and prefer to stay at home. I also don't like being in groups much. I do enjoy one on ones though. My DH is opposite and loves socialising and big groups. I'm not socially anxious or abused. I'm just me and 50 now so comfortable being me. If she is a friend of yours and you like her, ask her out for a coffee to catch up. Now, I'm worried though thinking some of my DH's friends might think there's something wrong.

This 100%
If I were her... I'd never turn up again if you ''reached out'' demanding to know why I didnt want to socialise with you...

Maybe she’s an introvert and likes relaxing on her own? Doesn’t mean she doesn’t enjoy being with you all. She just needs time alone to recharge. But every weekend out with the same people sounds exhausting to me! Let her rest!

I am the wife in this situation too.

I enjoy my own company after a long week at work. My partners friends are ALWAYS doing something, full of energy and I just can’t keep up. I go to about 50% of the social stuff. Honestly, I say this nicely, but the constant expectations of my partner and I going to everything every weekend can get really annoying. I wish the group would back off a bit.

I don’t think you should be worried, unless when you next see her, you feel like something is going on.

Invitation, not summons remember?

The simplest answer (Occam's Razor) is that she can't be arsed and you are DH friends, not hers in her eyes.

I like her style and would be the same myself. Speculation is not nice either BTW imo. I think OP is over invested.

Honestly, I think it is your business. We all complain there’s “no village any more”, and we encourage women in difficult situations to open up to someone in real life. Well, those things require us to be concerned for other people!

Im not saying get up in her business and interfere, or accuse him of something. But send her a message (you’ve clearly met often enough for it to be fine for you to talk to her directly) and say that while you totally understand if she just prefers doing other things, she’s always very welcome to join your group, and to let you know if there’s anything you could do to make it easier for her. If she’s happy, she can just say “oh that’s fine but thanks for reaching out”. If she’s not happy, it might be helpful for her, open a channel of communication, be something she doesn’t follow up on but reassures her that she’s worth caring about. I’d rather check in on ten people who turn out to be absolutely fine than miss the one person who isn’t.

Maybe they're happy together because they spend time apart. I'm a social person but I wouldn't want to be going away with the same people every weekend, maybe she feels the same

This is most weekends, sometimes twice in a weekend

I don’t want to socialise with my own friends this much, never mind my DH’s friends. I feel a bit suffocated even just thinking about it.

Maybe she's an introvert, social anxiety, or maybe she's just reached the stage in life where she's realised that she doesn't have to be doing everything as a couple? It's been great since I realised I could tell my DH he can do something but I aren't interested. I no longer do outings I don't actually want to do for his sake (unless there's a good reason). Suits my introverted, getting precious little time to myself self.

It's better that she comes when she wants to and enjoys it when she does.

In absolute agreement with all of this.

@SockSensation, I find it absolutely bizarre that you'd give such a thing so much headspace, honestly!

The 'friendship' group sounds suffocating and intense. And to even start a thread on someone you don't really know that well is very gossipy and strange. What is it about her not attending the myriad meet-ups that bother you?

I'd take him at his word and that she enjoys having the house to herself (bliss!) or maybe when he goes out he locks her up in an oubliette so he can socialise. Who knows but surely that's their business?

Both your OP and this one could be about me and DP.

We both have fairly separate social lives. I'll occasionally go out with her and her friends and she'll occasionally come out with me and my friends, but its the exception rather than the rule.

It started when we had DD due to a lack of babysitters but it just suits us really. We're both introverts so I'd prefer to only go out a couple of times a week, and while I get on with her friends, I'd rather be with the people I get on with best.

DP also has a habit of dropping out of events with my friends. To my friends it probably does seem a bit "convenient", but the fact is she gets about 10 migraines a month, and she's dropping out of stuff with her friends and family just as much as she is with mine.

I think you are leaping to conclusions.

I would choose to go out with dp and his friends very often. I would much prefer to have the house to myself.

I also don’t think I am as nice as people assume. I am a fairly pleasant person, but also have no qualms about not being nice when the occasion calls for it. But as my friends are all decent people I have never needed to not be nice around them. So, my friends don’t see it. My best friend has seen it, aimed at someone attempting to harm her. Depending on the inebriation I might say ‘I am not as nice as you might think’. Doesn’t mean I am abusing Dp.

You are his friendship group? Is that right? She doesn’t need to go out with you or have a particular reason why she doesn’t want to go out with his friends.

Leave her alone, it doesn’t mean anything. My husband doesn’t usually come out with me and my friends, simply because he’s more of a homebody and enjoys a quiet evening in. I socialise with my friends on my own while still making time for my husband, it works perfectly for us. If anyone suggested that I abuse him or that our relationship is on the brink because of that, I’d think they’d have lost their marbles.

Maybe they like to socialise separately, she sees his friends as his and not hers.
She might not actually like going out with the group.
He said she likes the house to herself whilst he’s out, maybe that’s a part of it.
Social anxiety or mental health problems.
An illness you don’t know about which causes her to miss things.
Husband might not want to have her with him every time.
Twice in one weekend to hang out with the same group could be a bit much.

There’s a number of different reasons which it could be. If your genuinely concerned just message her and ask her if she is coming to the next meet up

This is completely normal. Some people like to spend time with their partners friends, others don't. Among my friends it seems a 50/50 split between people who's DPs usually tag along and people who's DPs never do. My dp hates socializing whereas I like it. I go out with friends every 1-2 weeks, but some of my friends of many years have only met him once or twice, some not at all.

Maybe she genuinely does enjoy spending her time alone and can’t be bothered socialising with you all so much? Doesn’t have to be any far out reason for it really.

No, let her be and have some peace!

Dh would bloody love if I chaperoned his attendance at every single social event he goes to. He hardly ever sees his friends anymore without it being a thing the whole family goes to. His friends are perfectly lovely, but my social battery is often on empty. I need to chill at home and re-charge. He’s socially anxious and needs to attend everything to people please but wants me to come with him so he isn’t alone. It’s tedious!

I think it’s really healthy for people to have their own interests and friend groups and not to always drag a partner along every time. She probably wants to read a book or watch shit tv or go to a class or see her own friends. Let her enjoy it.

It's likely it's just what other posters are suggesting, that she's just got genuine reasons not to go. Social anxiety or health issues or something else

However it's possible he's abusive. It happened to someone I know. Her ex husband was deliberately isolating her. He'd get invitations for both of them to go to get togethers but wouldn't tell her. He'd then turn up and tell us she couldn't make it or didn't want to go. He started telling us she had mental health issues and struggled going out.

Sometimes he'd tell her about a friendship meetup but "forget" the day, like he'd say it was Sunday when it was Saturday, then he'd call her when he was almost there and act panicked and say he'd got the dates mixed up. He tended to do that when it was a longer journey so she'd have no time to get ready to go and join them.

We only found out when she finally managed to leave him. It's split our friendship group as some (women as well as men) refused to believe her as "he's such a nice guy" and because she had PTSD from the abuse it supports his claim "she's mental". This is despite evidence and police involvement.

I don't want to make the leap to say this is happening with your friend's wife OP but it's possible. Difficult to say what you should do. If, as likely, it's nothing sinister you obviously don't want to interfere. Maybe just directly contact her with invites when planning a get together (so it's not reliant on him passing the invite on to her) and try to chat to her if she turns up. Don't jump in and ask about abuse - just let her feel she has a friend - so someone she can turn to if she needs.

She’s just not that into you.

My friend’s DP has a group of friends he’s known for over 20 years; they meet up a lot for all sorts of things.

My friend doesn’t really like them that much. She doesn’t hate them or anything, but she has little in common with them, doesn’t have the decades-long history of in-jokes and memories they have, and just finds them hard work and a little bit irritating. She will attend things occasionally and will be really nice charming and friendly and chatty when she does, but she would, ultimately, rather be at home with a bottle of wine and a box set / book, or socialising with her own friends. She doesn’t have social anxiety, she’s not autistic, she’s not being abused, she doesn’t have a chronic health condition. She literally just doesn’t want to hang out with a group of people she wouldn’t choose as her friends.

My guess is that your friend’s wife simply doesn’t want to be in your gang. And that’s fine!

Honestly I felt claustrophobic the moment you said you have a group of friends with whom there are ‘lots of long weekends away’ and who meet up ‘most weekends, sometimes twice in a weekend’. I wouldn’t want to spend that much time with anyone, to be honest! And certainly not people who weren’t even really my own friends.

Honestly, this thread.

Just because it’s likely that she’s fine OP is nosy and interfering to consider that it is possible she is not fine?

No wonder there’s such an epidemic of domestic abuse with these attitudes.

I am the wife in that situation. My OH loves socialising and goes out once or twice a week with a group of friends. I have less in common with them than my OH does, and I don't like socialising in a group anyway, so I go probably once every two months. Occasionally I intend to go, but I have various health problems and don't go because I'm not feeling well. So I don't find anything odd in the wife's behaviour.

I'm that wife lol can't wait for DH to be out and to have the house to myself. I socialise with my friends, we have no mutual friends or friendship groups...and that works perfectly for both of us.

I'm almost 50 and am not very sociable as a person. Think its because I work as a nurse and have to act sociable so when I'm asked out anywhere I really can't be bothered. I prefer my own company and my partner is the opposite. It's not a problem for us it's just how I am.

Abusive narcissists actually tend to force their partners to socialise so they can up their "act" in front of other people. They need others to see them as a perfect, charming couple so they will never believe the wife if she attempts to leave the marriage. A victim of abuse is unlikely to be brave enough to insist on staying home if her partner insists otherwise.

I never enjoyed the forced socialisation with DH's friends in the years before we had kids. They are lovely people and it was fine when I was there but everything just dragged on so long and I had little in common with most of them. Plus all the insider jokes and endless talk about people I didn't know about. The one saving grace of having a kid is I now have a great excuse to leave early or not show up.