DH and neighbour weird situation

[anotherglass]

Hello, yesterday my neighbour came over for a BBQ. She has been widowed for several years and we generally get on v well, exchanging Xmas cards, and putting eachothers' bins out when we are away etc. She does not have a partner currently.
After a nice BBQ in the afternoon catching up on the street, the three of us (me, DH and neighbour) sat in the garden cabin listening to music. Then came the bit that shocked me. There was a brief conversation about a new local massage centre that we thought was a bit dodgy. I add this for context.
Then neighbour volunteers that when she moved to the area, with her former husband, she jokingly thought about setting up a fantasy style sex chat line, in quite a niche area.

She went into detail about how she would operate the line. She was stood up in the centre of the room while she said this. I was shocked as our conversation never strays into personal sexual areas. I have only ever thought of her as a nice lady, my age.
DH pipes up he'd use her phone line. I was mortified.
I was very tired last night so did not raise how upset it had made me feel. I have woken this morning thinking WTF happened last night and how do I deal with it.
I raised with DH this morning and he says 'it was just a joke" and to "calm down".
Neighbour has invited us over for a BBQ. How would you deal with this situation? I am angry at both neighbour and DH.

She has plenty of friends who she goes on holidays with, goes out with on a weekly basis etc. We socialise every 3 - 4 months. Appreciate you may be trying to prompt me to see things from her side, but tbh if a very close friend had made the same comments around my hubby then I don't think I would have come to Mumsnet to sort out my upset.

Typo!!!😃😄🙄

I get you OP, you feel maybe all her sex talk and details were for the benefit of your husband, and the fact that he took the bait in going along with it. I'd be pissed too

I am not sure tbh. I know that I don't want to be put in a position again of feeling uncomfortable in my own home.

I think it might depend how it was said as well?

I have a friend I can imagine saying something like this but it would an embellished/exaggerated for effect joke iyswim.

I think she just thought she was having a laugh with some friends. Everyone has a different sense of humour and different boundaries. It doesn’t sound like she had any ill-intent behind it. As far as what your OH said, only you know if he was being flirty or just funny, but I wouldn’t blame the neighbour.

So why did you start this thread when you're convinced you're right, @anotherglass ?

You say you're not prudish. I AM quite prudish (Catholic upbringing) and I would not turn a hair at this.

Poor woman probably didn't realise she was supping with someone whose exorbitant yet inconsistent sensibilities allowed a conversation to flow about massage parlours in the area but not a mild joke about a sex chat line.

As is your right, obviously. Your neighbour clearly feels differently. Or she didn’t view this as any kind of ‘personal revelation of her naughty side’, but a humorous business idea/joke she and her DH concocted in happier times that she was reminiscing about. Maybe she misses him, and likes to remind people of his funny side?

I mean, you may not share their sense of humour, but that’s hardly a cardinal crime. You have personal rules about when and with whom you would discuss joke ideas for a sex phone line, but her rules are different. Again, just a mismatch.

I once lived in a London squat which was so cold I used to take baths wearing a hat, and people made porn films on the floor below — the ground floor was a bakery and we used to meet all sorts at the end of the day when the bakery would give us leftover cakes, and the people we’d just heard simulating orgasms and cracking whips were swapping custard slices for our doughnuts on the stairs.

If I told this story to a couple now, it would not be code for ‘Imagine me naked and eating doughnuts with low-grade porn actresses — I’m naughty!!’ It woukd be a mildly amusing anecdote about squatting in the 1990s.

But again, you don't know what SHE thinks of the friendship. You have literally changed between her being a neighbour and being a good friend so I don't think you know what you think either

The conversation about the massage parlour is the talk of the neighbourhood - it is discussed between the neighbours so I didn't see it as spicy. Secondly, I started this thread to help navigate how I responded to the situation last night. I am upset primarily with DH but also a bit perplexed with neighbour for what she said. It wasn't a simple joke about a sex line. She described what she would be wearing while on the line, how she would speak and who else would be in the room. In my view completely over-sharing.

Why not?

They're both sex businesses.

I think you’re being prudish and humourless, op. We don’t live in a Victorian society anymore, we don’t shame people or force them into secrecy. We have rejected that kind of fear of sexuality.

I do not share things with my good friend/neighbour like I would my very close friends. Does that make this clearer for you?

But you've posted on a message board called Am I Being Unreasonable? A majority of the vote (though by no means all) think that you ARE indeed being unreasonable. Yet there is no sense that you're taking this on board and if anything, just becoming entrenched in your view.

By all means, don't have her round again. OR, you could attend the invite to hers, and avoid all conversation about sex-related issues (no more discussing of the massage parlour). See what happens then. if she continues to bring topics of discussion up you are uncomfortable with, then you can make a more informed decision. But I wouldn't bin her off for a single indiscretion when she was (probably) in her cups. And yes, two glasses of wine can and does make some people giddy.

I'm not a prude but don't really like sex chat with friends or neighbours so I'd feel a bit uncomfortable and a bit wtf about this. And I'd be telling my husband not to make comments like that as its embarrassing and a bit cringe, Infront if his wife and other neighbours. I'd probably choose not to socialise with the neighbour if that's how they are as its not my cup of tea but I think firstly you need to discuss with your husband.

But she is not you

Is that clear?

As someone with a student friend who did put herself through a master’s degree partly via working for a phone sex line, I was occasionally in the room while she worked. She would be purring into the phone about removing items of underwear and being wet, while peacefully making pasta sauce or taking notes, wearing jeans and a jumper and these big knee-high knitted socks with leather soles. In fact all my associations with her phone sex work are really cosy, of winter evenings and people coming over for dinner and talking.😀

Better kick him out then.

As you said, you're not convinced he was actually joking that he'd use her sexual services.

And keep an eye on that massage parlour!

I haven't tried to shame her.

If you feel uncomfortable, then politely decline the invitation and do not issue a return invitation. Be busy every time she does invite you again.

And be very very clear with your husband that he crossed your personal boundary in responding in the way that he did, and that you do not want to socialise with her again. That it gave you the ick. You do not have to socialise with people unless you want to, for whatever reason.

But yes, your husband's response was off for you, he needs to know that.

@anotherglass I would feel pretty much the same way as you OP - it does feel inappropriate. And to add to the chorus of what you've already been told and already know - your DH's OTT reaction is the primary problem. However, you asked how to navigate this now she's asked you both back over for a BBQ at hers and this is what I would do: accept the invitation (having marked DH's card first). Go to hers and see how she behaves. She could be feeling absolutely mortified that she over-shared, wishes she hadn't and has invited you back to show her previous behaviour was an aberrant one-off. Or not. Only if you get together again in a social setting will you find out. If she starts up a similar conversation, you just say "Sorry neighbour, but our previous conversation about this made me feel uncomfortable and I don't want to repeat it if we're to remain on good terms." (Or something like that.) I really don't see how you can just go cool on her, which would make neighbourly relations just as uncomfortable.

She wouldn’t have worn it though, she’s on the phone, she would have told the punters she was wearing it. You’re really taking this way too seriously, it’s just a funny, risqué anecdote that involved her husband. If anyone did anything wrong it was your husband, but no doubt he was only joking too.

This is brilliant.

You've happily latched on to others who called her desperate and suggested she was "sending out feelers" I've read all of your posts so don't try and backtrack now - you've been incredibly unkind to somebody who clearly considers you as a friend...which is in far poorer taste than her mentioning a silly idea she had in the past.

Just because she has other friends doesn't negate her believing you are also friends, we don't get a limited amount of tickets to only allow us a certain number of friends.

You keep deflecting on why the issues are with your husband and continue to blame this poor woman - and she is a poor woman because she's lost her best friend, no amount of friends or dinners out is going to resolve that.

It doesn't matter how many people tell you that you're wrong and you should be looking at your husband and leave her out of it you are stubbornly digging your heels in and refusing to acknowledge and accept that yourself and your husband are the issue - frankly you should be honest about your issues with him and seek advice on how to thrash that out rather then projecting on to an innocent bystander - because she is innocent, she's done nothing wrong and, unlike your husband, she is not responsible for your comfort or your prudishness unless you have set a clear boundary, which you had not.

Have you read my responses where I have said I am upset/angry with DH? There's a few.