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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be pissed off at friend & husband

358 replies

Over40Overdating · 08/05/2023 13:13

Bit of a rant! And long - sorry!

I’ve been friends with A for many years. She’s a brilliant friend and I would trust her with my life. Since she met her husband, B, 5 years ago, he has been involved in every part of our friendship.
It’s been bloody irritating but she says she likes that he wants to be friends with her friends so I have tolerated it for her.

B isn’t a bad man but has zero social skills and finds himself the most fascinating subject of all time.
He contradicts people, says inappropriate things and will interrupt conversations to start monologing about whatever is on his mind.

It makes spending time together really dull and hard.

A&B had a baby last year and in January moved quite far away (plane ride) to get support from family.
A made me promise I would visit as soon as possible. I said I would but there just hasn’t been time yet : I have been working on a really high stress project that often needed 60 hour weeks and when it came to an end recently I was able to take 2 weeks off : my first break in 4 months to literally crash and rest and catch up on boring domestic stuff.

She messaged me over the weekend to say ‘now that you’ve taken all this time to yourself, I need to know when are you coming to see us’. I replied honestly that I don’t know - work is in flux, I may or may not be made redundant in the coming months and as I’ve just taken 2 weeks off I’ll have to wait to see how everyone else’s diary lines up.

No reply - this is unusual. I thought she’d be disappointed as I know she is lonely and struggling with B as her only social outlet but would give her a call today

I woke up this morning to a string of messages from B berating me for upsetting his wife, being a selfish friend and pretty much demanding I come NOW as he ‘won’t be happy’ with me til I do.

This is not the first time he’s sent me messages making demands or telling me I’ve offended him by not doing what he thinks is best and on every other occasion I’ve checked if A knew and she hadn’t so I’ve told him he’s being inappropriate and patronising and cut it out.

Except today he says she does know he’s messaging me and fully supports it and I ‘should do as he says’.

I am pretty livid right now so haven’t replied.

I don’t think she’s in a controlling or coercive relationship and he treats her very well but this passive aggressive stuff now being at her instigation is both disappointing and pissing me off.

And right now the last thing I want to do is make the effort to take a 2 hour plane ride to sleep on a sofa (they have made it clear they expect me to stay with them to ‘make the most of the time’) with two people who seem to think I’m so very awful and selfish anyway!

AIBU to think ‘away off and shite the pair of you’?!

OP posts:
whynotwhatknot · 11/05/2023 15:10

Over40Overdating · 10/05/2023 09:58

So we had a zoom this morning - and he was sitting in on it.
Doing sad face with jutting lip and ‘I’m sowwy’ the whole time.

He didn’t mean to upset me and what I have to understand is he is just so desperate for me to visit, and hates seeing his lovely lady missing me and he misses me because I am one of his best friends too that he overstepped the mark. I called him out on the tone of the messages actually being the opposite of friendly excitement and more like bullying and how upsetting it is to receive messages like that.

To be fair she did back me up on that and said the messages were totally inappropriate and he had no place doing that and saying it was on her behalf.

More sad face and - literally - rubbing his fists against his eyes pretending to cry and saying boo hoo ‘B is just a big bully for trying to get his two favorite ladies together and see them happy. What a bad man B is’.

At that point I said I had to go.
He has never been this bad before - it’s honestly like he’s gone a bit mad.

I texted A afterwards to ask if we can have a chat just the two of us because I’m uncomfortable speaking to B now because he seems not to have any sense of how inappropriate his behaviour is and that I’m worried for both of them.

She replied saying she is worried about him too and thinks he may be having a MH crisis as he thought the move would be the answer to all his problems. He’d finally be the breadwinner, he’d have a better job, her family would welcome them with open arms and he’d have a ready made perfect life to slot into. The fact he can only get jobs that are even lower down the chain than in the U.K., she will have to go back to being the main earner and they have no social circle has hit him hard.

She has acknowledged that his way of trying to make friends by taking over her friendships has become a major issue because she is very aware that lots of friends have gone low contact after he’s been particularly ‘on’.

Again she says he can’t help it and discussing it with him just makes it worse because he will refer to it in the next social interaction as if he’s being self deprecating but making sure the friends know he knows they find him difficult.

She sounds exhausted by it. She’s never painted their relationship as picture perfect but has never discussed any of the negatives before either so being this honest is new.

its jsut ridiculous hes a controlling bully-wh does he have to sit in on phonecalls

my df partner does this its frustrating but he cant see anything wrong with it

SinglePonders · 11/05/2023 15:31

Honestly op, it doesn’t even sound that it would be safe for you to go visit.
The man seems totally deranged.

I don’t even know you and I’m worried you might go and things would escalate!

I’d say go no contact, at least with him.
Take care.

gogogoji · 11/05/2023 20:36

@Puppers The friend is obviously more invested in the friendship than OP is.
Then friend should have jumped on a plane and visited the OP.

PeaceLilyCactus · 12/05/2023 19:13

He sounds like a ticking time bomb.

You sound very level headed OP and it’s good you’re being firm with your boundaries.

Please be careful as he could become dangerous.

joycies · 14/05/2023 19:32

Don't reply. Just forward all his texts to your friend and ask her to take action and get you an apology. If she doesn't then she has chosen him over you but at least it's out in the open. Partners can ruin friendships. Sometimes they do it on purpose because they are jealous.

Hotfootgoose · 14/05/2023 19:37

ILoveCakeLikeTheToriesLoveRippingTaxPayersOff · 08/05/2023 13:30

I would message her and say "are you aware B is being really rude and demanding I drop everything to come visit? I'm your friend, but I do have my own life this has made me very uncomfortable." And put the ball in her court.

That said I'd cut ties with them.

This.

Idrankyourbananamilk · 14/05/2023 20:03

goody2shooz · 10/05/2023 17:13

Prersonally @amusedbush , I go for ‘away an’ bile yer heid ‘. (While cursing predictive text which really wants to sort the spelling…)

A personal favourite of mine too 😁

Stewball01 · 16/05/2023 13:59

It would be a shame to lose such a long time friend because of the husband. I did. We talk but I don't see her when I go to England. That's 60 years of friendship down the drain.
It's a shame you couldn't go during your 2 weeks off. Try and find some time for her and bugger the husband.

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