To think that just about everyone knows that one couple...

[HoneyDragon]

The one where one party isn’t abusive/ cruel/evil, but is just your bog standard simply dreadful. Yet their significant other is a total poppet and somewhat unassuming and nice.

You know the ones? Where you find yourself at events where they are and spend your time considering rehoming and rehabilitating the nice one and then relocating them 3000 miles away and releasing them back into the wild to start a new life with a suitable mate?

Most of the time you can see what a friend sees in a person, even if they would not be right for you, you can kind of get it can't you?

The only time I haven't seen ANYTHING is with a good friend of mine. Her ex was totally devoid of any personality, social skills, conversation and was also physically repulsive. It was a total mystery to all of us. He was and still is the most boring person I have ever met, and I can make small talk with anyone. My friend is beautiful, ambitious, great fun etc.

They had a lovely child together and split up soon after. He drives her crazy now and she cannot bear him, but he is actually not a bad parent.

I agree with the sentiment but you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

One of my closest friends recently got engaged to the MOST boring man I have ever met. He does everything she says and is basically just a wet blanket with zero personality. It drives me crazy because she’s so fun and lovely! URGHHH

A friend of mine is engaged to someone who I just can't click with. He's so boring, there's no spark to him at all. He's dreadful in social situations as he would prefer to sit in a corner and talk to no one. He makes zero effort to get involved. There's not much he likes and his personality is dull as dishwater.

My friend is the opposite - bubbly, life of the party, loves socialising and I just don't know what she sees in him. Other friends think this too so in a way, I'm glad it's not just me!

He isn't abusive there's just nothing about him!

OMG yes. More than one. Lovely neighbour who’s DH is such a smug, akward prick who thinks he’s the smartest person he knows ( and tells people that). She’s super bright, and modest and has a big stressful job but you wouldn’t know because she doesn’t go in about it. He’s clearly deeply insecure in a middle upper class white straight male way.
Another couple where she’s brilliant and he’s such a stupid wind up merchant, honestly just such a dick with few redeeming qualities everyone wonders why they’re together. He’s a giant child.

Yes, I've met a few of these. A former friend of mine was consistently ghastly to her very mild-mannered and shy DH (oversharing with him about the fact that she was still more attracted to her exes than him, telling third parties embarrassing details of their sex life in front of him, verbally abusing him in public over the most ridiculous things including screaming at him for being at work when she wanted him to kill a spider for her). It was one instance where I was confident that their life behind closed doors was exactly what it looked like in public, because (i) she was an oversharer and would tell me about all the times when she screamed at him and he just took it, and (ii) she pretty much treated everyone else like that too. In general, I think toxic people (of both sexes) are pretty good at identifying which potential friends and partners have low enough self-esteem to take their shit.

It's just awful isn't it?

We've got a great group of friends and one of the blokes, Tom has recently met Jenny and they're now about a year into their relationship.

Tom is the nicest, most genuine guy you could ever want in your life. Jenny has resting bitch-face, is a huge show-off and general meanie.

She called me a 'massive dick' to one of our other friends behind my back.
She told my DP she was going to cut his dick off.
She wore white to a mutual friends wedding.
She invited herself to the evening reception of a wedding that she wasn't invited to.
She has (within a year!) convinced Tom to sell his 2 bed flat and move in with her with a view of buying a house (and she makes it very clear that the budget is £1million )
She assumes the reason we don't see them as much now is because we are shit friends.
She told me she wasn't buying a present for my newborn DD.
We went to a comedy club and the stand-up made a joke about crappy wives - she stood up and argued with him...not a little bit of banter or heckling, but a full on argument. She looked like an utter idiot and we've never really been able to see past it.

She is just awful - I've never met anyone quite like it in my life. I love Tom but can't stand Jenny!

Oh I forgot to mention at one of the weddings last year, she warned the bride to back off from her boyfriend as they were dancing too closely for her liking...

Thanks for that story about Jenny, she sounds a delight, doesn't she?
I'm feeling sorry for poor oldTom, what with having to stump up a million quid for a gaff and all. I don't give this relationship long.

I suspect my ex and I were this couple.

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME?!

I can only put our brief marriage down to temporary insanity on my part. He had, and has to this day, no redeeming features.

Well done on reclaiming your sanity, george49. I thought I was the difficult partner for over 20 years...

@george49 it's such an impossible situation....

If I told you that your partner was a knob, it was cause you to be upset and to think I was nasty.

You wouldn't have thought "hmm okay yes they are right, I'll ditch my partner and not buy a house together and not live the life we have spent the last X amount of time planning".

Either you'll be upset or you'll be angry, but it will only aggravate the situation, rather than solve it.

One of our braver friends has spoken to Tom about Jenny - he jumps to her defence and fails to see any fault in her behaviour.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing - I hope Tom sees the light like you did!

I know just that couple. She has just started opening up about how crazy he is, she's not scared physically (yet) but he sounds so demanding and controlling. Now she has mentioned that to me I frequently imagine her and her ds turning up at my house and me letting them live in our spare room.

When you walk into their pristine house she is always apologising for the non-existent mess. I did wonder who she was apologising to....and I used to know a couple where everyone loved the wife but thought the dh was a git. I also know that to many people dh and I are That Couple

Hello Poppet here, just to let you know sometimes the obnoxious one sometimes leaves you for a 'friend' after years of making you miserable, endorsing the fact that somehow, miraculously 'the trash takes itself out'😀 Really truely and utterly marvellous! Freeing you up to be happy all over again...

Apart from his politics, my daughter's boyfriend seems fairly nice. However, my daughter talks to him like he's an idiot at times and I'm surprised he puts up with it. My daughter is quite a difficult person, she's hard to please, a bit sanctimonious and is never wrong. I love her, but she really tries my patience. I think it takes lovely saintly people to put up with the more difficult members of society. I'm hoping she'll lighten up as she gets older.

My OH can come across as a bit of a dick socially and when he’s dealing with tradespeople 🤷🏻‍♀️ but behind closed doors with the family he is a poppet.

I've lived next door to exactly that type of couple for 14 years. Pensioners now. She is a scowling, miserable woman who often shouted at my kids. He is a smiley, sweet man. Her constant screaming at him such delights as 'get in here now you lazy idiot' have made my kids giggle over the years especially in the summer when we hear everything. But seriously how can a human being put up with constant verbal abuse and put downs from another for their entire adult lives? Don't get it!

oh yes and we all wonder - is the popper truly a popper or is there more than meets the eye..

I also know one where it's the wife who is the unpleasant one. I very rarely really dislike people but this woman is just awful. Loud, obnoxious, bossy, utterly oblivious to her DCs' behaviour even when it's happening in front of her...

And always the one-upmanship thing with her. 'Oh well, I've known XYZ for 10 years'. Like we give a shit.

Luckily I can very easily avoid her. But she makes me so irritated.

Her DH is lovely.

Yes!

My lovely friend from uni, her husband is crass and arrogant. Can't stand him.

DH's friend's wife is so awful that the friend walked two miles in the snow at night to get to the pub rather than be trapped in the house with her.

Yes, two couples spring to mind but one of them makes me think maybe she's not so nice deep down if she's married to such a self absorbed twat. The other one I feel very bad for, she often complains but turns everything so that his cruel behaviour is her fault, I've stopped asking how things are because it's just upsetting to hear.

cacti he sounds like he might have social anxiety.

Our ndn growing up were like this. He was a lovely man who always had a smile for everyone, but she was vile. Real busy body that treated him like utter shite. We never once saw or heard him snap back at her. They are now both bedridden and dependent on carers, and my mum says she can hear the wife yelling at her husband like always. Except now he yells back and tells her to 'just die'. Apparently he cries a lot

One of DH's friends is in a relationship like this. She's lovely, she was widowed about five or six years ago and last year she met someone new. We were all delighted for her, but he's an absolute arse. He'd have you think she'd been nowhere and done nothing for her entire life until she met him. He was really disparaging about her "wee job" until DH and his best mate pointed out that she does the same technical/highly skilled job as them. Even then he managed to make her job sound 'easier' as she does shorter stints off shore when he knows fuck all about it.

Apparently my maternal grandparents were like this. I'm only getting to know my grandfather and my uncle now, but everyone in the extended family, including my Grandmother's relatives, seem to have found her a hideous bully and him lovely and totally cowed by her.