To also not be flexible with friends ?

[awholelotoflabour]

I am usually a very flexible, laid back person. I absolutely loathe making plans far in advance, or being ‘ booked up ‘ for months and months.

I have been like that since my teens and I’ve stopped making the effort with people who were completely inflexible and needed to be booked 2 months in advance. It just does not work for me.

My husband’s friends wives are super super extra planners and the husbands seem to need to get permission to be able to meet their buddies, weeks / months in advance. I am not like that with my husband. Of course, occasionally there are ‘ things in the diary ‘ 🤢 but generally speaking we are relaxed and if he wants to go out for a meal with friends from one week to the next, we make it work.

My husband has sprung it on me that we should go and visit his friends this weekend and you know, let’s just go. If this was the other way around, the wives would NEVER agree to drive for 4 hours ( with kids ) at such short notice. This was the husband’s idea and apparently the wife has said that they have plans on Sunday and therefore we can’t really stay the night on Saturday. We don’t even want to stay at their house anyway, but just the principle - it doesn’t sound like we are wanted.

am I unreasonable at this instance to also say that I don’t want to do that ? If the shoe was on the other foot, there is no way in hell any of the other wives would ever agree to just go on a long trip on a whim like this. You’d have to book it in, at least 6 months prior. So why should I force myself to go there ? When they’re busy anyway? If they wanted us to come, they could have offered to include us in their plans. That’s what we would do if it was the other way around.

So the plan things a month or two in advance people husband have just made a fuck it let’s get together Saturday plan you know fancy and free but that’s still not good enough because you can have a whole weekend where as if it was planned in advance by the men folk the whole weekend could of been free.

Most people have limited free time. Yes it’s also to be able to decide (oh let’s have everyone round tomorrow for a bbq). However that’s not real life. People have commitments, grandparents to see, kids football match, kids gymnastics competitions, birthday parties, weddings, diy! It’s just not possible to always be fancy free

You aren't flexible. You rigidly stick to not making plans far in advance and get annoyed with people who act differently.

With kids, their activities, family, other friends, 50ths, university visits, holidays, school fetes, dance shows...all the stuff that comes with being a grown up ... I wouldn't see anyone if I didn't plan.If someone "fancy free" sprung a visit on me at the weekend I wouldn't be free. My 20s and teens were more flexible but that's not possible now.

Tbf, if my husband had other wives, I might fixate on them too. 😀

😂😂😂

Urgh I have a family member like this. Refuses to make plans in advance when you try to then gets really pissy when you aren’t available exactly as they want you to be last minute.

OP YABU to make this all about the wives. If you don’t want to go, don’t go but it’s you who is the inflexible one. You won’t agree to making plans then when they try to do something last minute that doesn’t suit you either.

Wtf is wrong with you?! Tbh it just sounds to me like you're full of your own self-importance. Most people's lives are busy so either you accept planning ahead and are respectful of the commitments you make or you accept that being spontaneous means that... (shock horror!) .... your friends might have commitments that are more important than you. You probably need to get over yourself and accept that people won't want to socialise with you if you're this hard work.

You sound very inflexible and not as carefree as you’re trying to make out. If you don’t want to commit to plans don’t, it doesn’t matter if they are tomorrow or in a month, if you don’t want to go then say so. I’m not sure why the organisation skills of other people are of concern to you? If someone asks if you want to go to the cinema in two weeks and you don’t want to commit, then just say no. You seem very invested in your husband’s friend’s lives, can’t you leave the planning up to him, you don’t have to control everything.

Well anyway ! I’m definitely not going. And as for future meet ups, I need 6 months notice, like they do. That’s how I roll with people who need 6 months notice. So yeah I’m flexible with the flexible ones, rigid and uptight with others, just how they like it I guess !

Drive four hours on a whim and they’re not putting you up or providing eg a Sunday roast before the long drive back. Fat no from me

Sounds like you're neither flexible or inflexible.. just petty.

You sound exhausting

Why did you even post on a message board called Am I Being Unreasonable?

You’re so rigid and inflexible in your thinking that you won’t even consider counter responses to your entrenched views and simply repeat yourself over and over.

You don’t like them, do you? That’s the real problem here. It’s nothing to do with flexibility, you just don’t like them. If that’s the case just own it and stop bringing up these strange reasons. And based on your comments here you sound as rigid and inflexible as the best of them.

Bet they're all devastated you're not going.

I feel very sorry for your dh. You're being utterly ridiculous. It's v clear that you don't like his friends, in particular their wives & you're making it difficult for him to arrange to meet then because neither planned nor spontaneous works for you. Because you don't want it to.

I find this really bizarre. You like to do things X way, and this group like to do things Y way, which annoys you. When they decide to do things X way for a change, you say that you only do things X way with other people who always do things X way, so now you want to do things Y way, but only with these people who usually do things Y way.

I think that your fixation on not planning things is a moral absolute for you rather than a preference, which is why you are so worked up about this.

They probably sense you don’t like them because you don’t? They aren’t stupid why would they want to make plans with you if you hate them!

You claim to be the flexible one but don't like these last minute plans?! YABU

Struggling to see how refusing to make plans in advance means you are ‘flexible’…

Yabu. I was flexible when I was young, these days with DC, clubs, work and plans, most things are booked in advance, as are most people I know. Refusing to is just being difficult.

It all a bit ‘I’m too cool and wild and free for formal plans’

You sound unwell…the only person who will suffer here is your DH although perhaps he will appreciate the break…this is properly batshit OP.

So you don't like planning but you object to this because it's short notice and spontaneous?

I have to plan in advance because we have lots of friends and family, children's parties, events related to DC activities, I am on call some weekends , my diary just gets full. I was a lot more spontaneous when I was young, but now I end up with clashes, people I don't see for ages etc so I plan.

OP, time to tell your husband to do meet up with his friends on his own.
If you have zero interest in the wives, why would you bother being involved at all.
I certainly wouldn't

I really don’t understand why you’re making such a drama. Just don’t go. You clearly don’t like the ‘wives’ and see yourself as somehow superior because you’re super ‘flexible’.
I’m a planner and I find people like you hard work as the unwillingness to plan comes across as not valuing me, noncommittal and flaky.