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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Just want DH to make an effort to get to know people after 15 years in our village

211 replies

Sillysausageandeggs · 01/01/2020 20:09

We've lived in our town for 15 years. Over those years, the kids have made friends, I've made friends, and we are sometimes invited out as a family or couple to events. Despite not really having a great deal in common with people around here, I've continually made an effort to get to know the women/mums and over the years their partners have all gotten to know each other too. It seems like a lovely community feel... Until my DH gets in the mix. He just refuses to try to make conversation, he will go on his phone instead of talk to the other fathers or will make excuses to leave. It often seems to come off as rude, really. (Especially the phone thing) I feel like the outcasts. This isn't limited to the people in our town either. Over the years, he has done this everywhere we have lived and with every couple or group of people we've met. He is not painfully shy, either. Just odd! I feel like I am doomed to live out my days being the singleton at events/parties (which would be fine if I actually was single), being the one with the partner ignoring everyone, or living a life of isolation. This all became glaringly obvious at a NYE party at someone's house last night where he sat alone for most of the time, despite others efforts at trying to include him. Including me! Afterwards he just said "I just find most people boring". It's driving me mad. Unless someone shares one of his obsessive interests, he just won't speak to them. He has no friends nearby. AIBU to expect him to at least try to get to know people?

OP posts:
WatchingTheMoon · 02/01/2020 07:17

@SonEtLumiere And I feel drained being around people like you, who seem to think introverted people are somehow faulty.

I don't answer my door, I don't speak to my neighbours besides saying hello, I don't have thousands of friends. Why does that bother you? It doesn't bother me that you do the opposite and yet extroverted people seem to take offense at the fact that not everyone thinks/feels like them.

It's no criticism of you, so why take it that way.

kevintheorangecarrot · 02/01/2020 07:21

He is an introvert. I am also one, so I understand how his mind works. YAB a tad U. That's just how he is and he should not be forced into doing something he will not be happy with doing. Leave him alone.

adaline · 02/01/2020 07:22

I'm very much the DH in the relationship.

Can't stand small talk, I'm pretty introverted and would much rather be left alone with my dog than be forced out as a "couple" to socialise. I genuinely can't think of much worse than dinner parties with lots of other couples!

I do however have Aspergers and a diagnosis of social and generalised anxiety, which explains how I feel. I am capable of chatting and do it at work all day, but it totally drains me and when I get home I just want peace and quiet. I don't want to use my precious down time to socialise with the neighbours and there is no way I would be attending any kind of community event!

LisaSimpsonsbff · 02/01/2020 07:25

Ah, I see we've started in on the MN favourite 'introverts are precious, intellectual flowers; extroverts are stupid stomping boots' thing. The 'oh I'm just too clever and interesting to make small talk' thing is so arrogant and delusional - other people aren't that interested in you either, they're being polite. Of course it's fine to be introverted (and not as unusual or special as most of MN thinks) but being actively rude, which OP's husband was, isn't being an introvert it's being a dick.

WatchingTheMoon · 02/01/2020 07:26

@adaline The couples socialising makes me cringe as well. I have plenty of single friends and I don't get why they should be left out. And just...why? I don't get it. It always seems really awkward and forced to me.

BeverleyGoldbergsJumpers · 02/01/2020 07:27

I agree with Leek. I think your husband sounds classically autistic (I have two close family members with ASD). In which case socialising will be the last thing he wants to do, the last thing he is ABLE to do. Read up a bit on autism, and you will find out that it is not a choice to struggle in social situations. If your dh would do it, there are plenty of online questionnaires which will indicate whether he might be. Obviously they are nothing like a diagnosis but they can give an indication.

If he is autistic then yes, you may need to accept that big social things are too difficult for him. You’ll have to enjoy the small ones as a couple and accept at the big ones you are circulating by yourself.

If he’s not autistic and just being an arse then that’s a completely different situation obviously!

WatchingTheMoon · 02/01/2020 07:27

@LisaSimpsonsbff Can you please point out the posts that said that? Because I don't see them and that sounds more like your own insecurities than anything anyone has actually said.

Oopsypoopsy2020 · 02/01/2020 07:36

Most of the men in my family are like this OP we just get on with things and leave them at home, don’t let it stop you from doing what you enjoy.

PhilCornwall1 · 02/01/2020 07:40

I think the armchair autism diagnosis going on here is a bit over the top but not unexpected.

Not everything has to have a medical reason.

CatteStreet · 02/01/2020 07:42

I can't help agreeing with Lisasimpsonsbff.

There's being 'introverted' and there's thinking being 'introverted' gives you a free pass to ignore the rules of interaction that make community possible. 'Small talk' is not superficial, it's social oil. It - those lots and lots of tiny, repeated, brief interactions - prepares the ground for closer connections and more enduring relationships.

MsTSwift · 02/01/2020 07:44

I agree with Lisa. Surely he could make some effort occasionally for his wife’s sake?

SnuggyBuggy · 02/01/2020 07:45

Being introverted and being rude are 2 separate things. You can prefer your own company and still make the effort when you are with people.

CatteStreet · 02/01/2020 07:46

I'm also not sure that, in a specific scenario, introversion would be accepted so readily as an excuse for rudeness (which is what the dh's behaviour is) in a woman as it is in a man.

Part of living in a community, and enjoying the benefits (connection, safety etc), is going to occasions sometimes where the community interacts. Part of going to those occasions is actually interacting. Nobody has to be the centre of the conversation or the life and soul, but they can put their bloody phone down and listen. It's incredibly dismissive to be in a group and show plainly that you consider your phone more important. That has nothing to do with introversion.

SnuggyBuggy · 02/01/2020 07:49

There are definitely people with an "I'm so deep and interesting I don't need to talk to other people" attitude.

Insideimsprinting · 02/01/2020 07:52

You are being a bit Unreasonable. There are times in your life where you either need or want to make the effort with people and you get on with it but it's a personal thing you can't force people to be sociable.
I put effort in at work, with hubby's friends and pretty much that's it.
If I was being forced to be more sociable I would hate it, feel the effort being put in would be fake and just not me, they wouldn't. Be getting to know me it would be the person I was pretending to be for the sake of being social.
The times I do make the effort it's a gradual effort that is a nessesity only so I really do try. I don't have close friends of my own but I'm very happy I'm not happy on social events even more so if I'm being expected to do it with gusto.
If my hubby made me he clearly wouldn't have gotten to know the real me in 15 yrs!!!!!!!

adaline · 02/01/2020 07:53

@lisasimpsonsbff

No, what's rude is extroverts expecting everyone else to be just like them.

I think forcing people to be sociable and pushing them out of their comfort zones just so you can attend a couples evening is pretty damn rude personally.

adaline · 02/01/2020 07:54

Part of living in a community, and enjoying the benefits (connection, safety etc), is going to occasions sometimes where the community interacts.

Only if you want to interact.

Nobody should be under any obligation to attend "community events" if they don't want to.

Newmetoday · 02/01/2020 07:55

I’m introverted. I hate small talk. I have to make the effort to ask about people’s lives even though I really don’t care. It’s exhausting. It doesn’t make me rude. The DH isn’t rude. The OP is for making him attend these events when he doesn’t want to. At least he is making an effort going to them. I wouldn’t go at all. I find extroverts really rude and dismissive and there are posters on here like that. Your way isn’t the right way, it’s just different.

Ceejly · 02/01/2020 07:56

Have to agree with @LisaSimpsonsbff

Your husband is being plain rude. Kbviously there need to be compromises but it sounds like you're already making a lot in that you socialize without your husband.

He has to accept that while he may be happy to live in splendid isolation, you are not and you need some support. Just as he relies on you entirely for companionship.

I hate this introvert/extrovert dichoromy. No one is purely one or the other. We all have tendencies that become more or leas pronounced in different circumstances. "Introverts" online are deeply frustrating. There is a sense of superiority. I'm not sure why proclaiming yourself to be something means that you should be able to do whatever you want and behave however you want and jist shrug and say "you can't blame me! I'm an introvert! You just don't understand!" It's childish.

SnuggyBuggy · 02/01/2020 07:57

I do agree if he's just going to sit on his phone he should probably stay home

MsTSwift · 02/01/2020 07:58

Exactly Snuggy. We live in a cul de sac where the active retired keep an eye on the properly elderly. One lady was like the “introverts” on here very rude and unfriendly blanked everyone rebuffed all overtures. It was only because a neighbor noticed her bins hadn’t been put out for a while and called the police when she didn’t answer the door that they found her body. One of the policemen threw up as she’d been there so long.

Oopsypoopsy2020 · 02/01/2020 08:01

@MsTSwift how do you know the boys introverts are rude and unfriendly????

Now I’ve heard that story I’ll change my personally! 😂

Oopsypoopsy2020 · 02/01/2020 08:01

Sorry random ‘boys’ in there

oohnicevase · 02/01/2020 08:03

I don't think you have to have aspergers to be awkward . I'm mostly an extrovert but can't be arsed with making chit chat with strangers but I will do it for my dh or myself to make friends. If you are rude you don't get ready invited end of . I would make sure he is aware being on your phone is rude and he is letting you down !

WatchingTheMoon · 02/01/2020 08:03

@MsTSwift If I die and they don't find my body, how will that actually impact me?

Should I spend my life feeling awkward and imposed upon simply so that I don't rot into the floorboards upon expriry?

I'll live with that (or rather, I won't, as I'll be dead.)

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