or being a miserable fart?

[youbuggerz]

DH is a very very good cook and loves having dinner parties.

I am sick of them as we are always having house guests (we live in the country and quite a way from all of our friends) and not only is it a lot of effort, but it costs a fortune. DH never remembers this as he doesn't do our finances, but our luckily guests end up with a three course meal, booze, a fry up the next day, clean bed and towels etc etc and DH and I end up doing a lot of cleaning.

Whilst I think its important that we keep friends, I sometimes guilty think I could be spending the money we spend on dinner parties (DH insists they don't cost us much as he is ‘buying food anyway’) on our imminent DC or a holiday for us both.

DH thinks if we didn't hold dinner parties, we'd lose some of our friends as they live miles away and we don't really know anyone locally. Part of me thinks he is right as we don't get many invites back, though they always jump at the chance to come to us.- in fact one couple try to invite themselves frequently stating that we can ‘see what we are in for’ with their 1 year old and do we fancy having them for the weekend? (No!)

However, we do have a handful of friends who have invited us for the weekend but then have taken us to expensive restaurants, which we simply can’t afford to do and I don’t feel like I can ask them to cook for us or to stay in if we get invited somewhere.

Am I being UR to think people take advantage of our hospitality?

:o

That sounds very one way and exhausting to me. If you were to accept their invitations to restaurants, are they offering to pay?

When I moved to London I had a string of visitors, I soon got sick of it.

The emoticon was supposed to have been

No we pay our half.

DH feels we would never see anyone if we didn't host them and insists "it's not much hassle". Doing the washing ironing and setting up of 4 double beds is bloody exhausting.

I think perhaps I'm being unreasonable to expect what I'd offer a visitor from friends.

But sometimes I feel like a free B&B!

Can't you just meet up for a night out or something?

It doesn't sound like they're really returning the favor.

Unfortunately we live miles from any of them so we would have to get a hotel or they would.

We find this with a lot of our friends. Recently we were on holiday where a friend lives and wanted to see them, but they said they were too skint to meet up for a night out and we ended up caving in and inviting them over to our camp site (coincidentally which the friends parents own!!) for a BBQ!

erm you would have to get a hotel?

Oh personally I wouldn't be having it. but then I'm a miserable old bag

Only given that they live so far.

I feel a bit odd saying 'oh let's go to xxx and by the way we are staying with you'. I feel odd inviting myself, though many of our friends don't seem to!

I feel like they come to ours to get a freebie but us going to stay with them (if we are invited) costs us a fortune!

I stopped doing the London Hotel years ago! Visitors are like fish, it's great to see but they soon go off.

I have family in all parts of this country, I wouldn't dream of plonking myself in their houses!

I had my nephew and his Chinese wife and 2 yo ds stop here for 4 days about 2 years ago last, they now have 2 dcs and are hinting at stopping off here again whilst travelling. I'm going to have to say, yes by all means but I won't be here!

DH thinks if we didn't hold dinner parties, we'd lose some of our friends

Doesn't that tell him something?

Yip!!!!! :(

You are being a bit miserable. Your husband obviously gets much pleasure out of hosting these things, which I can understand as I am the same. Maybe he's so good that your friends are intimidated at the thought of cooking in reciprocation . If you feel that the money is an issue or prepping beds is a pain in the proverbial etc you need to have a chat about compromising on food costs, or adapting a more relaxed sort of entertaining eg getting friends to pitch in with the bed making/ breakfast, suggesting they can bring a dessert or a particular type of wine to fit in with the theme. Good friends will be happy to, freeloaders not so much, so it could prove to be a useful 'friend audit'

Deffo someone else should be chipping in somehow. What do exactly do you get out of these soirees OP? Exhaustion?

I do get to socialise too but mostly exhaustion and the bill!

Sorry, but I wouldn't be doing it without reciprocation. I don't do one way stuff on that level. At least I've (no thanks) and others have reciprocated.

I'm not in a position right now to entertain, so I don't accept invitations.

I wouldn't take advantage of kind friends.

Sorry, missed a bit there, I've been invited to China and Australia. No thankyou.

Why don't you just tell them to bring dessert or something. It's also ok to ask friends to make their own beds and even bring their own bedding and towels. It's lovely to treat people but if they really are you friends they won't mind helping out a little.
Having to do four beds worth of bedding is a lot.

Also, you could always order in a takeaway if you want to save yourself some work or just serve simpler food.

You have to be careful you are not trying too hard to be a fab hostess when you don't really want to be.

They need to chip in.

Having a kid is the perfect time to bring in changes. Tell people you're too busy or skint now and even say you'd love to see then if they feel able to pay back the favors by in inviting you over.

Also make an effort to get to know people locally so that you can do casual meet ups and less stressful dinners.

If people only want to be your friend when you give them a free weekend getaway they're not really your friends.

If your DH doesn't think the cleaning, laundry, bed stripping and making etc is a hassle, then let him do it all :)

Other than that I think you're being a bit unreasonable - but then I also love hosting friends and given we live a plane flight away they have to stay a decent length of time, so the bed changing / laundry / cooking is the least I can offer after they've travelled for a day to get here!

You are not being unreasonable. It is too much for you. Either reduce the amount of visits you accept, or make him do more of the work.

YANBU

My parents do a lot of this: very similar situation to you and your DP. My mum is also a very good cook and a born hostess. Everybody loves staying at their house because they are made so welcome.

Unfortunately, my dad is big on extending the invites, but seems unaware of the toll it takes on my mum. It is a LOT of work.

I'm not sure of the solution, but I do think your husband is the one who is not being reasonable. If he is not the one doing the bulk of the cooking/cleaning/organising, then no, he really doesn't get it.

I don't think it's necessarily a matter of these people not being your 'real' friends, either. People are inherently kind of lazy. If you keep inviting them and making it easy and cheap for them, they'll keep thinking you love hosting. People who are not good at cooking or hosting also don't realise how expensive it can be, because they never do it!

Wait, wait - when you visit them, they take you out to a restaurant and don't even pay?!

Okay, that's taking the piss a bit. I'd dial back the invitations, definitely. I hope they at least bring damn nice hostess gifts/wine with them when they come to yours??

Hicdraconis- if they'd spent days travelling or money on a plane ticket then that changes thing slightly. The 8 or so couples I'm referring to live an average 90 minute motorway journey. If you visited their city and they didn't return the favour in the slightest then you wouldn't be miffed?

Sometimes they bring it, sometimes they don't. One couple in particular never do, claiming they are too broke!