Friend brought her husband to long planned dinner with old friends 🙄

[Wofflewaffle]

Went to have dinner out with three old friends tonight. It’s taken a year to find a date that we are all available, we’ve all got lots to talk about, really looking forward to it and… 30 minutes before we are due to meet one of them texts to say that her husband will be joining us!!!

she’s got form for this. I’ve often gone to meet with her and she’ll have brought some random acquaintance along with her. Or I go to her house for tea, and her neighbour will be there too. Or we’ll go en famille to her country house - and when we get there another family / some cousins / the neighbours will also have been invited.

i hate it. It changes the dynamic completely. Tonight it changed from the expected girly catch up to talking about very bland stuff, because we didn’t want to get into anything personal with her husband there. I didn’t make a fuss at the time, and he left after we’d eaten so we had about an hour of proper catching up, but I feel very cheated. I didn’t say anything at the time because her husband is also friends with us, as a family friend. He’s perfectly nice - just not tonight!

i just can’t understand why she thinks this is ok - nor why her husband would even want to join us!

@gannett

ah you’re not like other girls. You’re cooler.

Am I awful for talking about my sex life and personal issues with my close friends? I feel so judged!

What is wrong with talking about your sex life and gynae issues with your friends?

Did they not care that they totally changed the dynamic every time they unilaterally decided to make a single sex get together mixed sex? They were making that change for each of their friends, not just themselves. That's either very lacking in empathy and insight, or very arrogant.

Hang on there, they always told people they would come together or not at all. People liked them so wanted to see them and made their choices whether to or not.

They then made the entire thing about them didn't they! That's just as bad if not worse!

i have a friend like this. She asks sometimes if her partner can join on girls night. I say no. Because it’s weird

It is weird. End of.

Someone needs to get a few drinks down them so that it’s even clearer you’ve not said anything so far out of politeness and turn to him and ask, “So - we were all wondering - as a man, why did you want to come along to our girls’ night out?” And all turn and watch him.

He’s made of the same thick skin as the men who want to gatecrash any women’s group. Perhaps he’s just a nosy bastard!

Very odd and yes I would be annoyed too. What’s even odder is the fact that he wants to go out with her and her friends. I can tell you now my DH couldn’t think of anything worse.

People seem to bring kids and even their parents sometimes, now! I guess at least a husband is of a similar age, so it's not like you can't go to the same place, but I wouldn't bring anyone not specifically invited-if I had a very good reason, like needing my husband to come and help due to a health issue, I'd talk about it first.

I don’t think you should wait till the next time. I think this needs tackling. “Friend, why on earth did you bring DH to a girls get together? If you do it again we’re going to stop inviting you!” She can take it as a joke or be offended, but you have to tell her.

Where did the OP say she only socialized with women? Most people will circulate in mixed groups at parties, events, meals, clubs and societies, and so forth - but if you’re explicitly getting together with specific friends there’s no reason why it can’t exclude partners.

I have a group of friends from school. We’ve been friends for over 40 years and although we socialise with the husbands and kids occasionally there are times where we go out just as a group. We reminisce, talk about parents and families (we all know each others parents and siblings), and yes - gynae stuff, health, relationship and work problems, the news, politics (we have similar political leanings), diets and exercise, recommendations for skincare and hairdressers, books we’re loving or hating, etc. (and that’s usually in the first 10 minutes!). We have a shorthand that probably baffles other people. It would be really weird if one of their husbands came to that. Fine if three or four came, or even all of them, but that’s a different kind of meet up and no less fun, but we don’t catch up in the same way.

Thats exactly what I was thinking 🤭

I have a group of solid female friendships ive had since school. I didnt purposefully set out to make it a women only group or to ban men it just happened that way. In fact I have a separate set of male friends too that I met through work. It's not about gender.

Its about the fact its tedious AF to drag your partner along to friendship group meet ups when he doesnt know the people there and it will make it awkward for other people to share their private info because someone they barely know is there. Thats tedious.

What on earth are you talking about that men can't be present for?!

Are you one of those people who cant go anywhere independently of their husband?

I have an ex friend like that. She invited him on a holiday with me, her and our children we’d had booked for ages and presented it as a “either he comes or I have to cancel because I can’t afford it. They spent day 1 and 2 with us (where I had to listen to him mansplain everything) and then of course disappeared off to do their own thing the rest of the week. We also had a cruise booked together and she did the same again so I cancelled. Every thing we did with friends without him was spent listening to her talk about him and his brother and his brother’s awful girlfriend and his mum. Interestingly I let it all go and yet she flounced off because I dared to have lunch with a mutual friend without inviting her (because we didn’t walk to talk about him and hid family again!!!)

I don’t understand why people bring their husbands and partners out with their friends. My DH wouldn’t want to come along!

I have no problem with mixed groups but I really do feel best mate complaining about her DH’s loss of libido would be awkward for DH and he wouldn’t want to know. I love being around women more and more as I grow older.

What a pain! A friend brought a random guest to a lunch recently. The lunch group otherwise were people who’d known each other for 50 yrs. We are mannerly so cut back on the tales and reminiscing so as to include this guest in the conversation. Bizarre move by the friend who brought the extra guest.
Your friend needs reminding gently who the meal was for.

Why are you still friends?

I had a friend like this... HAD.

she always brought her boyfriend with her, changed the dynamics and insisted he is "our friend too". NOPE.

We are no longer friends as she does not do anything without him. Sad really,

I have 2 friends that do this.
One friend bought her very good friend to our catch up - God I couldn't stand her. Me me me moaning on about what was wrong with her life. Tone deaf not to get it that I don't know any of the people that she was slagging off who were making her life so shit. I was really pissed off at my mate for bringing her (and with no warning).
Second one invited me to see her new house. Got there. She said do you know X I said no I don't and then there were 3. Completely changes the dynamics and the convo and I just can't be bothered.
X

Reminds me of the classic mumsnet thread about a group of older women who were all going on holiday together, then one suddenly announced to the group her husband would be joining the holiday too. The other women refused, it made a huge argument but they stuck to their guns.

IIRC it turned out the husband was very controlling and refused to allow his wife to go away without him, but in the initial posts I was flabbergasted by this holiday crashing oaf of a husband.

This isn't about only having friendships from the same gender, it is about the dynamics of the group.

I've regularly been accused (always made to sound like a negative thing) of being a "cool wife" on here as I will always argue I am more than happy for dh to be friends with women. I also do lots of my socialising in groups of men and women. but I don't expect any of my friends to invite a person to a group meet up, when they aren't part of that group.

eg Last week I met up with former colleagues for lunch. It would be weird for any of those colleague to bring someone who didn't use to work with us to that lunch, it doesn't matter if it were a man or a woman, it is just someone who doesn't have that shared history.
Indeed, about twice a year friends who shared a house at University meet up. We've been meeting up for over 25 years now. We have a shared history. One of the group is now married to a woman and has tried to integrate her as part of the group. Yes, she is a woman like the rest of us, BUT she isn't part of the group, so it changes the dynamic.
Nothing to do with gender and everything to do with not having the same relationship as the others in the group do.

I hate when people do this or worse bring their kids!

I totally get where you're coming from. A few ago a similar thing happened to me. I had arranged to meet up with 2 old friends of mine from school and we were going to a pub to have a few drinks, followed by a meal. I was really looking forward to it until I arrived at the pub only to see one of the friends (Ella) with a man I'd never seen before. Apparently,it was her new boyfriend (she'd split from her husband about 2 years previously). It completely changed the dynamic of the evening. He was pleasant enough but I didn't feel totally comfortable talking about some things in his presence. A couple of days later,the other friend phoned me and said that she thought Ella was totally out of order bringing him along without consulting us first. Glad it wasn't just me!

I've just realised I'm friends with 2 women, all the rest of my friends are men. This might be why.