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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Sitting with your partner at a business dinner

58 replies

LaPeste · 19/09/2019 12:43

Last night, I went for a work dinner with my DW. It's her work. There are around 10 tables and it's a buffet dinner. My wife is currently on crutches and therefore unable to walk and hold a plate. Normal etiquette (I think, although not universal) is to not sit on the same table as your partner. Because of my DW's injury, I sat next to her, so I could offer to go and get food for her. She was quite annoyed with this.

WIBU to sit with my wife last night? Or was I being unreasonable because of the etiquette?

OP posts:

KUGA · 19/09/2019 13:23

Frustration or not, shes well out of order. You were being kind and helpful. Shes lucky you didn`t tell her to done ungrateful or what.

FrauHaribo · 19/09/2019 13:24

They always sit partners separately. Apparently it's considered the height of common to sit next to your other half.

well, it's kind of true, but it only means couples don't sit next to each other - unless they've been married for less than a year, it doesn't mean you don't seat people at the same table!

If you have partners at a work do, you don't seat partners at different tables, that's weird. The whole thing is odd to be honest!

Whoops75 · 19/09/2019 13:25

She should have gone on her own.
Inviting you then treating you like a nuisance is very rude.

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 19/09/2019 13:26

I'd hate to be invited somewhere by dh and then told by him to go away. It's pretty fucking rude. If she wanted to network, why even invite you?

dollydaydream114 · 19/09/2019 13:28

If you were invited to the event in your capacity as her partner, rather than as a client/contact of her employer, then the 'normal etiquette' would be to sit with her anyway, as you were invited as her plus-one.

'Networking' is supposed to build business relationships, and if you have no connection with your wife's employer other than your marriage, that wouldn't apply to you.

As I wouldn't go to a work event with my partner if I was then expected to spend the evening 'networking' with random strangers on my own. There would be no point in inviting me if that was the case.

tvdinnertracks · 19/09/2019 13:29

Yes the table thing is a bit ott. I personally hate it.

I get quite bad anxiety and didn't know ANYONE when I moved to be with dh. Sitting next to a stranger at dinner would usually be ok but occasionally it would set of my anxiety and I'd sit there like some kind of mute weirdo who didn't want to socialise and had just turned up for the food.

Frangible · 19/09/2019 13:30

I think had she been able to walk, I would have done. But intuitively, it just felt wrong to leave her on her own.

The fact that she's on crutches doesn't make her incapable of making a decision about how she wants to approach a business networking dinner! And she wasn't 'on her own', she simply wanted to be sitting surrounded by people with whom she wanted to make work connections, not by someone blocking her access to people she wanted to talk to.

OP, I can see you meant well, but someone at their spouse's work event really needs to defer to their sense of how to approach the evening. If you're too shy to sit with strangers when your spouse needs to network, then you really shouldn't attend.

Original poster

LaPeste · 19/09/2019 13:33

Had I have known beforehand that was the plan, I might have handled it differently. But waiting until we had joined a table and then being told to go just felt weird.

OP posts:

Original poster

LaPeste · 19/09/2019 13:41

In the end, my wife admitted it was fine and I didn’t stop my wife from networking

OP posts:

onyourway · 19/09/2019 13:54

I think that at any form of formal dinner, I would do 'same table, different seat' so you both can chat to people you don't know yet.

She probably felt you were drawing attention to her crutch issue by sitting next to her and helping.

Must admit we got this spectacularly wrong at an American wedding where we were given a table, but free seating st the table. We got there first and I said 'you go over there and I'll go here' opposite each other on a round table. The rest of the table thought we must have had an almighty row, but I think it's pretty common not to place people next to their partner to encourage conversation and chat.

VeniceBeach · 19/09/2019 13:56

I don’t understand why she’s annoyed! I had a similar problem recently, actually. I was on crutches and part of a wedding party so had to sit on the head table away from my family. I had to remind the person next to me that I couldn’t get my dinner myself (also a buffet) which was a bit awkward for me. Maybe she knew the people she was sitting with and felt comfortable with them getting her food?

Original poster

LaPeste · 19/09/2019 13:58

At the point she sat down, she had no idea who she would be sat with and she didn’t know any of the other guests on the table beforehand

OP posts:

PerkingFaintly · 19/09/2019 14:02

The whole set-up sounds weird to me.

But anyway, you weren't unreasonable to plan to sit next to her. And you weren't unreasonable to not make a last-minute change when people were already committed.

I can imagine she might have been frustrated at being restricted by her leg and wanted to be in the role of her usual capable business self for an evening. If she'd mentioned it beforehand you could have obliged.

But that doesn't put you in wrong for not reading her mind – frankly you were thoughtful and she was rude. Even though her frustration is real and valid.

(Disabled myself, have to negotiate shit like this all the time. Loss of autonomy is HORRIBLE. Really horrible. Frequently makes me want to die, truth be told. But that doesn't make it other people's fault.)

jennymanara · 19/09/2019 14:11

I don't understand this at all OP. If it is normal etiquette in your circles not to sit with your partner, then surely you just ask her whether she wants you to sit with her given she is on crutches? And then do what she says. It is really not that difficult.
So yes YABU to not actually talk to your wife.

TonTonMacoute · 19/09/2019 14:14

They always sit partners separately. Apparently it's considered the height of common to sit next to your other half.

At a purely social occasion yes, not at a business dinner.

I wouldn't go with DH to a business dinner and sit on a different table, and I wouldn't go with him if it was a networking dinner either. It sounds very odd.

jennymanara · 19/09/2019 14:16

It does not matter if you personally as a random commenter would not sit apart from your DH. The OP has said that they normally do and this is what is expected.

Original poster

LaPeste · 19/09/2019 14:20

The thing is about the normal etiquette, I’m not sure if it is normal etiquette. Certainly all the guests from other organizations that I saw sat with their partners. I think most working for my wife’s organization didn’t sit with their partners.

OP posts:

WhyBirdStop · 19/09/2019 14:32

It's definitely weird. I have some work functions that are networking/business only and partners aren't invited, when they are it's expected that you sit with your spouse/partner! Do they usually have a strange partners table?!

Original poster

LaPeste · 19/09/2019 15:04

No, I think the expectation I would talk to other guests. Partners of organization employees are (implicitly) expected to represent the organization.

OP posts:

RufusthebewiIderedreindeer · 19/09/2019 15:13

Ive also never heard of that

Ive always sat with dh at dinner

Its when he buggers off after dinner to network is when I get cheesed off

I now only go to these things if the wife of one of his colleagues goes...its much more fun

Expressedways · 19/09/2019 15:23

I’ve always interpreted the don’t sit with your spouse as you don’t sit side by side or opposite them, not that you sit on the other side of the room. And regardless it doesn’t really apply at a business dinner where the spouse doesn’t know anyone. Your wife behaved very strangely and she was rude.

Userzzzzz · 19/09/2019 15:41

I think it’s slightly hideous to mix work and home anyway but I’d find it a bit rubbish to go to my husband’s work dinner and then be sat somewhere away from him (and vice versa). surely these events are just better when they only involve the people that should be networking with each other?

I went to a residential conference once where a few people brought their partners and it was really awkward.

Userzzzzz · 19/09/2019 15:43

‘Partners of organization employees are (implicitly) expected to represent the organization.’

Diplomatic service? If so then I take back my comments about weirdness and you should have listened to her. Those sorts of things will just be played out on different rules.

CocoLoco87 · 19/09/2019 15:54

At Dh's work annual work do when the wives are paraded invited, it's vair vair posh and black tie blah blah blah. Partners are on the same table but split up. If a manager is on the table too then there's usually a race to the table to swap name place cards so we're sat next to each other before the manager notices we're not the only couple that does this! People pretending not to run in tux and ball gowns just to swap places

Although if I'm sat next to his colleagues who I know from previous years then we don't bother swapping.

Original poster

LaPeste · 19/09/2019 16:14

Diplomatic service?

Not quite, but not a million miles away in terms of ethos.

OP posts:

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