To not want to go to another couplesy dinner

[twiney]

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?

@onalongsabbatical
Amen to that sister.

I didnt realise having a child meant your life effectively ended.

Well he's just got out of bed so I guess I will be breaking the heart stopping news that I aint going very shortly...

Life's too short to waste time doing something you don't want to do - and you don't need a reason either - we just think its nicer to have a reason because good people are always nice, right?

Make your decision entirely without guilt op - and make the choice that will bring you joy. It's always the right one.

I wouldn't back out at such short notice. As someone else has said, they will have already purchased all the food and drink and will most probably be starting the preparations even if you notify them now.

Can you and your DH not compromise and say you will go but agree to leave at a reasonable time?

Oh barf, OP - that's probably exactly why it grates so much. I have always regarded that sort of thing with a certain amount of horror (nice couples doing nice grown up couples things together - it strikes me as such a waste of your free time.) I'm in my 50s and was never into that sort of thing in the first place.
OK, I don't at all mind occasionally going to a mate's house for dinner and genuinely enjoy my annual team dinner party - but the people I hang out with are not all in couples and certainly not obsessed with couplehood - and some of them are not even heterosexual, which would mess up the idea of boy/girl/boy/girl seating...

That's very much what I meant by possible incompatibility. Your DP and his friends sound dreadfully old-before-their-time. Which can sometimes come with an undercurrent of, well, political conservatism (no, I'm not calling them racists or even Brexiteers, it's more that people like this can sometimes exist in a comfy bubble and not want to be challenged in any way).

I think part of the problem here is that you just dont gel with these people. Dinner at someone’s house doesn’t need to be stuffy and boring and talking about kids achievements.. you do not have to go. You didn’t accept so it’s not your fault. Hope DP doesn’t sulk!

@ReanimatedSGB
Oh yes, the right-leaning politics, how did you guess?
Also we're abroad, DP's home country. I'm bilingual but conversation aimed at me frequently comes round to "haha (something about British people)". I take it in my stride and laugh along, but I mean I'm an intelligent woman and bilingual - my own friends here would only very rarely mention my nationality when actually relevant.

I've always wondered why I don't find this sort of thing enjoyable when others seem to. Now I know. Its what a PP said earlier... you feel captive.

We've been invited to a very similar scenario as OP, but for New Year's Eve. We have been instructed to arrive at 6pm... six full hours of captivity at least before we can escape home.

So its like 7 hours of:

• Look at my kid, lets talk about my kid
• Hey everyone, twiney is British! Haha! It must be nice for you to eat some decent food as a British person! Haha!
• Watch a bit of TV
• Local gossip
• Twiney is British, haha!
• Vaguely right-wing anecdote
• Repeat

Jesus, that sounds hideous.

Seriously, OP, even if you're not ill, lick a raw chicken breast or something.

Oh yes, the right-leaning politics, how did you guess?

I retract my suggestion to go this one last time! I'd rather chew glass than sit down to dinner with (in my case) Trumpettes or other alt-right thinkers who spew their garbage at all and sundry. And I use the term 'thinkers' loosely!

Luckily DH and I are on the same page on this and have actually 'cut ties' with most of the Trumpettes in our lives. The one couple remaining (who we are very, very close to) know better than to bring up politics!

Does your DH agree with their politics? And why does he allow his friends to make fun of you?

@AcrossthePond55
I suppose because written down, as ever, things sound worse than they are.
So they arent Trumpettes spewing racist trash, more like just very conservative views.

And the taking the piss out of me is "affectionate leg pulling", I can see that, its just that it gets old and I just cant be fucked with it of a Saturday night!

I wouldn't go either. In fact, like fuck would I go.

I'm over being the female entertainment for significant others. I'm at that point in my life that I'll go if I want and won't if I don't. It's the rude, arsehole stage and I'm fine with that.

I'm happy for dh's friends to join us, they can even come on Christmas day. At some point I'll be putting PJ's on and soon after I'm going to bed to leave them to it (to read and mn). 90% of the time the mens end up in one room and the "girls" and children in another. I'm over it. I will socialise with my oh, his friends and their ohs and DC but on my terms.

YANBU. Sounds like my idea of hell. And something I had to put up with in the past - and did. (A few times in the first 7-8 years of our relationship.)

Weirdly, I never expected HIM to come out with one of my friends and her husband, or go to their house. It was always his mates who he wanted us to go to.

I have had couply relationships in the past, and I never enjoyed them. I don't mind popping to the pub and spending half hour chatting to a couple (or a group of people,) but not specific 'planned' nights out, and especially not at their house!!! One couple we knew one time suggested we go away for the weekend with them.... shudder

I would develop a huge migraine @twiney

twiney

The thing is I'm 30, all these couples are in their thirties. You have your whole fucking life to sit at home eating shepherd's pie and discussing your daughters progress in life. Cant we go to the theatre and get pissed on mulled wine at the Christmas market or something

Thing is, there is nothing wrong with staying in eating shepherds pie and bingeing on netflix, and discussing bland shit, at the age of EIGHTEEN - if that is what you want to do, and what your partner wants to do... But when one of you is not into it, it's no good. I have to say - in the past - when my husband dragged me to nights at his friends and colleagues, I HATE HATE HATED it. YA definitely NBU!

@reanimated

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.

THIS ^ You need to have a loooong talk with your husband twiney. The desperation for him to want to do stuff with couples all the time is weird IMO. And you don't WANNA do it. So you need a discussion.

Having kids doesn't 'end your life' by the way. It sounds like these people are just boring bland dicks!

I don't want to go. I was only there are fortnight ago, we aren't joined at the hip and they are your friends - see them on your own.

Rinse and repeat!

@Blessyourheart

Agreed, I'm over it to, and I'm always a let down because I end up knocking back whiskies and starting inflammatory conversations, I suppose I should feel flattered I'm still invited.
@apoppetonastring
I love shepherd's pie and netflix. On my own or with DP; not for 7 hours at someones house.

Urgh! He's just unblocked my sink and repumped my bike tyres! Now i feel like i should suck it up and go this one last time since its before xmas, albeit with a midnight curfew!

If he says no to your mates without a second thought, you shouldn't feel guilty saying no to his mates.

Although it may be too late to decline tonight if the hosts are catering for x number.

I wouldn't go. With getting there & back and dinner evening itself, it's 7 hours+ out of the only downtime you have to yourself this week (why can't you point this out reasonably to your DH?). & you've recently been to dinner with them. I suppose they love cooking & hosting. Doesn't mean you have to want to experience that regularly. Sitting round someone else's house when you'd rather chill in your own. Different if there was a night out to break it up, there are such things as bookable taxis to get home aren't there?

Could you not come down with a tummy bug in about half an hour? Smuggle a book into the toilet and sit there and read for a while, making groaning noises.

I don't want to go. I was only there are fortnight ago, we aren't joined at the hip and they are your friends - see them on your own.

Great idea. OP just need the courage to say this now!!! (It ain't easy.)

@twiney
I love shepherd's pie and netflix. On my own or with DP; not for 7 hours at someones house.

Exactly!

twiney

Urgh! He's just unblocked my sink and repumped my bike tyres! Now i feel like i should suck it up and go this one last time since its before xmas, albeit with a midnight curfew!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! DO NOT CAVE!

He will do something next time for you and next time and next time, and it will never end.

YOUR sink by the way?

I wouldn't care if I wasn't working or busy. I still would not go

Don't go - it sounds awful. As others have said, if it was a one off or he hadn't very recently declined invitations out with your friends, it'd be different. Just say no. How are those stomach cramps?

It sounds like your and your DP have very (VERY!) different friendship styles in your friendship groups.

I quite like going out for couplesy dinners, but only if I like both of the members of the couple. I think sometimes it's better to have 3 or 4 couples, to make sure it's not quite so claustrophobic though, particularly if you don't quite get on with both partners in a couple.

But why don't you ever have them around yours? You say they won't go out, but what's stopping you from hosting a dinner at your house?

"there's a school of thought along the lines of quiet domesticity being 'better' than actually having new experiences and engaging with the world."
Definitely. On here to an extent but in real life too. There's a moral superiority in preferring to stay in and hating going out. I don't go out much but enjoy it when I do
Same with drinking - I guess all those mners who barely drink... Just a thimble full of baileys at Christmas will be getting their thimbles out soon :o