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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want to go to another couplesy dinner

261 replies

twiney · 16/12/2017 10:40

DP has a very good and old friend and today is his birthday. We're invited round for dinner.

I dont want to go this evening. Reasons:

I'm tired and today is my only full day and night off as I'll need to do some work tomorrow.
I just fancy a night in.
We had dinner with them a fortnight ago.
We'll be expected around 7.30pm and then the night will go on and on until about 2am.
I have no way of leaving earlier as its out in the sticks.

I just dont understand why I am expected. They're nice enough but I dont have much in common with them.

Why cant DP just go and celebrate his mate's birthday with him and leave me to it. Why is there an expectation when you are a couple that you do "Couplesy Dinners"?

Disclaimer: all of DPs friends are real home bods. So for example theres no (and believe me I've tried): going out to eat, going down to the pub, going to the cinema, anything, even coming to mine. Its always going to theirs to eat for a long drawn out dinner, which to me feels boring and claustrophobic.

AIBU to feel this way and want to stay home?

OP posts:
mirialis · 16/12/2017 11:47

To be honest I think this is normal (after a certain age) and it’s maybe your friends who are the unusual ones

eh?! No OP, your friends are not unusual for wanting to socialise outside of the home, whether they have kids or not.

If you didn't accept that don't go if you don't feel like it. Your DP needs to learn not to accept on your behalf anyway, and that won't happen unless he realises that you won't automatically go just to keep everyone else happy.

Isetan · 16/12/2017 11:51

Have I missed something? It was an invitation not a summons, if it’s ok for your DH to decline invites, why are you making it an issue if you want to do the same.

If your H is accepting invitations on your behalf without clearing it first with you, then he’s being rude and hypocritical, if he has no problems declining invitations extended to him for precise the same reasons. Tell him double standards aren’t your cup of tea and you won’t feel guilty about pointing his out and expressing your opinions.

Original poster
twiney · 16/12/2017 11:52

@DenPerry
Yes, yes and yes.
Possibly it is along the lines of "lets rope in some play mates for the female part of the couple"!

I also agree with the home/out split and feelings towards DP, its strange!

OP posts:
JaneEyre70 · 16/12/2017 11:53

Can you agree to go but give a specific time that you want to leave by ie 11pm? And book a taxi to arrive at that time, or leave him there if he wants to carry on without you? I'd say that would be a fair compromise.

Original poster
twiney · 16/12/2017 11:55

Just to be very clear, DP has absolutely not accepted on my behalf. More like gentle pressuring for me to go.

@mirialis
I agree, I dont think my friends are unusual at all. In this couples case, the gran lives right next door so if they needed childcare it would be doable. In a year, we havent been out with them.

To me theres just such a difference between:
Head out for something to eat, grab a pint or two in another pub, home at 12.
Versus sit in someones dining room for 7 hours forced to act charmed by someone elses child and listening to menfolk reminisce.

OP posts:
mirialis · 16/12/2017 11:57

Versus sit in someones dining room for 7 hours forced to act charmed by someone elses child and listening to menfolk reminisce

Yes, absolutely, so really don't go if you've only had to do that a couple of weeks ago!! Once a year of that per couple is enough!

Chrys2017 · 16/12/2017 11:58

@twiney In that case there is clearly already a precedent for going out on your own, so either your DH is very insecure or he is also bored by this couple so doesn't want to go without company!

Jaxhog · 16/12/2017 12:00

YABU. You've already agreed to go, so not going would be mean and flakey. Especially at such short notice, when they've probably already bought food etc. The time to say no was when they originally asked. Not now.

Sometimes we do things for our friends and loved ones that we don't really want to do. But we do it because we love them. How would you feel if your OH dropped out at the last minute from something you'd been looking forward to?

AnyFucker · 16/12/2017 12:01

I hate these kinds of evenings too.

Sitting in someone else's kitchen having the same old conversations

After a couple of hours I start shifting about restlessly and just want to do something else...move on the ub or just gp home

I must seem boorish at times because I can barely conceal my irritated boredom

Thing is...the invites keep coming and I can't understand why Smile

AnyFucker · 16/12/2017 12:02
  • move onto the pub
TossDaily · 16/12/2017 12:04

I really, really struggle with that sort of evening. To the point of anxiety dreams beforehand.

They're often so hideous. Sometimes they're not, but on the whole...shudder.

HuskyMcClusky · 16/12/2017 12:05

I don’t mind them. But when that’s all people want to do, it gets v boring.

Original poster
twiney · 16/12/2017 12:06

@AnyFucker
Couldnt agree more.

If it were a couple closer to town I could spring up at midnight and leave. But I'm kind of kept hostage. Also like you; I like moving on. Hence restaurant, pub, second pub, thats a good feeling for me.

Also, this part is hard to explain so I hope you get me, but:
There's something about being on someone else's turf all the time. You know? Heading out it's neutral, I feel freer to relax and enjoy myself and have some control over how the evening pans out, the pace, I feel freer to be myself.
When you're closeted in at these home dinners, I feel more stifled - we eat when they want to eat, we get served a whisky when they want to have a whisky, you know what I mean? I feel like you have less freedom to relax and be yourself in someone elses home.

OP posts:
woollychimp · 16/12/2017 12:07

Just out of interest why does the evening have to go on to 2am? Why can't you and your husband leave at 11pm, say? 2am is v late if your tired?

Original poster
twiney · 16/12/2017 12:08

@HuskyMcClusky
Yeah, even just on a pure conversational basis, there's just so much more to stimulate you when you're out and about. You see someone in the street or at the bar who makes you think of something else, conversation can turn more easily, compared to just being in someones living room.

OP posts:
HuskyMcClusky · 16/12/2017 12:08

Versus sit in someones dining room for 7 hours

This is the bit I hate. You’re so...captive.

Friends invited me to their house for 5pm last week. They lit the barbecue at 9pm. Lovely people, but I was so over it by the time we actually ate.

Original poster
twiney · 16/12/2017 12:09

@woollychimp
This particular friend gives us drinks and blathers on nd doesnt actually start cooking until about 9pm. You get the idea...

OP posts:
Whinesalot · 16/12/2017 12:09

Suck it up this time - or use the illness excuse to them with DH 's full knowledge this time, but use this as an opportunity to tell Dh that in future they need to come to you sometimes and/or that you will be busy on some of the occasions. Point out that you don't make him attend all your functions but that if you have to do things for him that you don't want to do, then it's only fair that he will have to come out with your mates when he doesn't want to and hope that this just opens his eyes rather than him tagging along and spoiling your night out a bit You might have to make him do it once or twice though to ram the point home.

HuskyMcClusky · 16/12/2017 12:09

Yep, totally get where you’re coming from.

shushpenfold · 16/12/2017 12:11

I would go but prime you DH with ‘sorry but I turn into a pumpkin at midnight’. 2am....seriously.

Nikephorus · 16/12/2017 12:12

Since it's a dinner party & they think you're coming I think it would be rude to not go now. But you agree a leaving time in advance with DH and you tell them when you arrive (as in when you're walking through the front door) that you have an early start tomorrow for Christmas shopping / family event / something else you can lie convincingly about and so have to leave by x pm. And then make sure you check your watch half an hour before then so you can start the leaving preparation and get out on time.
And for the future you tell DH that when they offer he's to say that he needs to check with you first and will let them know. Then you can decline at will. And he can put more effort into the whole 'what a lovely idea but you really MUST come to us / come out for a meal, we always come here and feel sooo guilty so I INSIST you come out'

Whinesalot · 16/12/2017 12:12

And worse comes to worse get your Dp to tell them that you are exhausted/have to be up early the next day, so will have to leave by 11 at the latest - so could they sort the food out earlier. Or eating so late means that you get indigestion all night.
If they don't respect this then I would just refuse to go in future.

woollychimp · 16/12/2017 12:13

Oh dear Twiney - i'd be asleep by 11.30!

Original poster
twiney · 16/12/2017 12:13

@HuskyMcClusky
Absolutely.
You cant move on, decide just to have some onion rings, decide you want X to drink, strike up convo with table next to you, catch the end of some free music when you move to the next pub, decide to wrap up the night when you've had enough - nope. You just have to sit there and eat and drink what you're told when you're told, and watch your night go by at someone elses pace.

I wouldnt mind if it was like a two or three times a year thing, but when all his mates are doing this every week, its just like - sorry, I cant be doing with this on my saturday night, Im sorry. Let me know when they fancy going to see a film, or going to the christmas market, or basically anything that isnt IN THEIR LIVING ROOM.

OP posts:
ReanimatedSGB · 16/12/2017 12:17

I'm in the camp of 'put up with it this time but in future tell your DP that you will not be going to these dreary dinners with him.

And, TBH, I'd advise having just a little bit of a think about your DP and your relationship. Not saying LTB or even that he is doing anything particularly wrong but the fact that he likes these cosy middle aged dinner parties, and wants you on his arm, but won't come out to do things with you and your friends suggests a bit of an incompatibility. Maybe he would prefer it if you were more cosy, and 'grown up' and respectable; there's a school of thought along the lines of quiet domesticity being 'better' than actually having new experiences and engaging with the world. This is particularly the case if the emphasis at these dinners is on couplehood (what I call Noah's Ark people - if one of their group becomes single then the whole lot of them are thrown into panic and, if they ever invite the single person to dinner, they have to go scrabbling through their contacts to find a 'date' for the person)...