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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:
Dozer · 17/12/2017 09:11

Grin posting from the garden!

The couple hosting live in the sticks, so you have to get a late and pricey cab home?

It all sounds like a literal PITA!

Your bf was U for committing your time without your prior agreement.

Original poster
twiney · 17/12/2017 09:41

So we left at 5.30am.

Yep, that late even though we'd actually had a fucking argument about it.

The argument before we left was me throwing a strop about going and him saying I do this every time we have to go somewhere to meet his friends (true). I said that was because these things were always really extended and in someones house. He said he couldn't help that. I said I also felt jealous (back story is I moved here for him so I'm still finding my feet in terms of making friends. I'm doing ok on that front now but it was hard initially).

He said it had got to the stage where he was worried about even asking me along to stuff now because he knows it would trigger thia reaction in me. I said I didnt think he was getting it. He said he wasnt even in the mood to go to his mates anymore. I felt guilty.

We went. It was awful the first half hour as we clearly were off with each other. We had a fondue. Hilariously there was another version of me there who was trying to get her husband to leave around 1am. They left at 3.

It annoyed me how in these situations the women always look like party poopers.

I did okay. We came home at 5.30 in vaguely good spirits and had a conversation. He said he was worried he was tying me down and also how he hated this one little aspect (my pre dinner stropping) that spoilt an otherwise great relationship, that he was sorry i felt frustrated having moved here and not finding his friends "enough" but he didnt see how he could change that. I felt bad during that convo because i know he had a point - but I also know that the relationship is "otherwise great" because i pick up so much slack: financially, "wifework" and moving for him, not vice versa.

There you go! The conclusion to the great dinner party debacle.

I really could do with finding a way of handling this side of me. Its clearly frustration that surfaces when we have to meet his people, and im right to feep tje frustration but wrong to strop.

OP posts:
StealthPolarBear · 17/12/2017 09:46

Well I think he has to be flexible too.
If you don't live together what wife work are you doing?
And why on earth was it so much later even than normal? That would drive me mad!!

Dozer · 17/12/2017 09:47

It’s bad that he turned his selfish behaviour (accepting the invitation knowing you didn’t want to go, staying mega late every time) into a criticism of you.

Dozer · 17/12/2017 09:48

IMO it’d have been better to say immediately that you would not be going rather than going but moaning. Just stop going to most of the things you don’t enjoy and, if you have plans the next day, just leave at the time you want.

diddl · 17/12/2017 09:49

He doesn't sound very nice from your last post tbh.

What's the reason that you can never leave when you want to?

MsJaneAusten · 17/12/2017 09:50

I really don’t think it’s you who needs to change.

LoniceraJaponica · 17/12/2017 09:51

He sounds monumentally selfish. I would simply not have stayed that late, and gone home on my own saying that I was tired and needed my sleep. I would have stayed off the wine and driven.

However, I would have agreed this before going out in the first place.

Original poster
twiney · 17/12/2017 09:54

@Dozer @StealthPolarBear
Urgh, I dont even know whats right or fair anymore to be honest.

I do know that I found it hard to integrate here initially and that yes, I felt jealous of having to do that whilst he kept his old social circles and family - but he did say that before I even moved, that he was worried I would feel that way.

I DO feel bad that when he gets an invite for us to go to dinner I tense up and think "oh here we fucking go!", he senses it, we have an argument. In his words, "its just a dinner with my friends and it becomes this big massive thing". I get that.

HOWEVER - the past year I've cooked every single meal, done all the laundry, done pretty much all the cleaning, picked up the lions share of the tabs for stuff because I make more, supported him through financial disaster. And yes, whilst feeling homesick. I just think - give me a fucking break.

And I'd have thought we could have at the very least left at 3am with the other couple seeing as we'd actually argued about that very point.

Actually on balance, I dont think I have anything to feel sorry for other than not handling my frustrations properly.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 17/12/2017 09:54

It was worse than I thought !

And despite my ligtheartedness earlier on the thread, this situation is clearly the thin end of the wedge in terms of your relationship

Incidentally, I am also curious as to what "wifework" you do when you don't live together. And does he get his own way on every occasion and you are painted the "bad guy" for having an opinion ?

NataliaOsipova · 17/12/2017 09:56

5.30??????? Jesus God. Nowhere and nothing is that good that I'd stay up until 5.30 for it.

AnyFucker · 17/12/2017 09:56

I reckon he made you stay until 5am as punishment. I don't like the sound of this guy.

NataliaOsipova · 17/12/2017 09:57

I reckon he made you stay until 5am as punishment.

Hate to say it, sounds like that to me too....

Original poster
twiney · 17/12/2017 09:58

Hey @AnyFucker see my above post re wifework.

When we argue, this is what happens:
Me, boiling over from suppressed frustration and rage, exploding into a series of accusations.
Him, looking hurt and staying silent.
Me, waiting.
Me, finally goading him into actually reacting.
Him, telling me I am unreasonable and need to communicate better and not throw things back in his face all the time.
Me, feeling like a bully.

OP posts:
diddl · 17/12/2017 09:59

Yup, I thought that also.

My husband would never expect me to stay that long at something I hadn't wanted to go to.

Well, he wouldn't expect me to go tbh.

LoveInTokyo · 17/12/2017 10:01

YANBU, twiney.

It sounds like you're doing all the running and all the compromising in this relationship and he's just doing whatever the fuck he wants and waiting for you to fall into line because it's easier than having another row.

Dozer · 17/12/2017 10:01

You are not the problem here.

Dozer · 17/12/2017 10:03

Things need to change OP.

AnyFucker · 17/12/2017 10:03

Nope, you are not the problem.

diddl · 17/12/2017 10:04

No, he's the bully.

I don't exactly get the big deal about seeing them at their home (from your POV) if you get on with them.

But it seems that you make the effort & he takes the piss.

NataliaOsipova · 17/12/2017 10:04

In his words, "its just a dinner with my friends and it becomes this big massive thing". I get that.

But (and I speak as a middle aged person who hates "big nights out" with a passion), "just a dinner with my friends" is something that starts at 7 and ends at 11. Midnight at the outside. Seriously.

(Plus - you say these people have a child? It may just be me, but I couldn't cope with looking after my kids the day after if I'd been up until 5.30. Especially not if copious amounts of booze had been involved. So I don't think this is "normal casual socialising" even for the middle aged set. Last time we had "dinner" with friends (with two sets of school aged kids, admittedly, and we went as a family) we went for 5 and left at 8 because it was school the next day Grin. 5.30 is an ordeal; a labour of Hercules!)

Dozer · 17/12/2017 10:05

The hosts’ DC probably go to MIL next door!

ferntwist · 17/12/2017 10:05

Staying until 3am is excessive. Staying until 5.30am is totally insane. Doesn’t anyone have anything else to do today? Don’t the couple have kids?
Why does it have to be all or nothing?

MsJaneAusten · 17/12/2017 10:07

Did you raise your concerns during that conversation or does he still believe that your ‘pre dinner stropping’ is the problem?

Dozer · 17/12/2017 10:08

It seems from your posts that you are not able to be assertive in your relationship so put up with way too much shit and then, understandably, become resentful and the anger spills out.

If you made changes - not subsidising your bf, cooking, laundry, cleaning (whose places are you cleaning?!), spending less time doing things you don’t enjoy, leaving when you want - what would he do?