When your partner isn’t part of your friend group….

[Mrloner]

My husband and I just moved from London to his home town up north. I do have my own friends as I play a sport that’s very social.

His friend groups goes back years together and most seem to have met their partner at school or uni, so the partners are long standing parts of the friend group. I am comparatively very new and haven’t met everyone yet (we had overseas tiny wedding).

My husband does include me in lots and lots of the groups plans, but occasionally something comes up where just the friend group is invited.

I was a bit sad at the weekend when he went to what I assumed was guys’ dinner, for a friend’s birthday (at said friend’s house) and then saw photos which had partners in it. Similarly I’ve had the same with mixed groups of men and women, but I’ve not been invited. Again rare but it happens.

DH did explain that at the weekend dinner gathering there was limited seating and only close friends were invited.

I’m not annoyed at the event itself (I was a bit sad) but wondered what was reasonable in such situations? I don’t expect to be taken everywhere with him but I am curious to know what people think it reasonable in such circumstances. I can’t imagine being out with a mixed group and not inviting DH along, or asking the host if I could.

The other side of it also being that DH is absolutely entitled to want and have space with his friends without me, but often that friend group does include people’s partners and/or other female friends. Again this has so rarely come up but I expect it will.

Does the group include partners; or does it include people of both sexes who are all friends, some of whom happen to be couples? There’s a difference, and in this case it seems to be the latter.

DH and his friends include you in “lots and lots” of the group plans. It’s not unreasonable that a group of close friends wouldn’t include all partners in absolutely everything they do. You need to develop more friendships of your own which aren’t connected to DH, and each of you have some social time which doesn’t involve the other - that’s perfectly healthy and good for everyone, living in each other’s pockets and always socialising with each other can get very cloying. Expecting that DH ask the host if you can be invited to something you weren’t, when he might actually himself be looking forward to a night just with his friends, is likely to cause frustration between you.

I supposed the partners were once just partners but have since become part of the friend group.

We have very healthy social lives separately and I don’t mind that, but a mixed group gathering with some partners but not others , feels different to me. It might just be me though!

If the original friendship were just meeting up, then that’s fine.
But if partners are invited and you’re being left out, then I would feel hurt.
It’s down to your DH to be firmer when making these plans…. ‘Are partners coming? Yes? Then I’ll bring x’ He’s allowing you to be left out…

It’s some partners but not others, because the partners who are there are considered good friends. It changes the dynamics of a group, whatever the sex of the people involved, when partners are around, and it’s reasonable for a group of friends to somebody’s want to spend time together without all the partners. If they invite you to lots of things and you have a healthy separate social life of your own, I really wouldn’t be making a big deal of not being invited to everything. For one thing, do you really want a duty invitation which is only being offered by people who’d rather you weren’t tagging along on that occasion because you’ve asked DH to ask for you to be invited?

I think it’s grown over many years so the concept of the original friends is a bit blurred.

But presumably they became part of the group by being invited to things!

A dinner to celebrate the darts team winning a trophy - then it's fine to invite only team members, male and female.

A dinner to celebrate the birthday of a friendship group member - I think it's not OK to exclude the wife of a member, especially if other partners are there. This group of friends sounds like it's grown over the years and now includes partners.

A group of friends can expand; it's different from the darts team where you are either a team member or not.

I can understand you being a bit disgruntled.

I've been with my dh since college our friendship groups are one and the same now however when a new partner comes into someone's lives they automatically get invited when its a both male and female group, like you say how are you supposed to.integrate if they don't let you or invite you!

The guys may do things together, the girls may do things together,there may be a mash up, but I genuinely think you should have been invited to that and id be asking your dh how are you supposed to get to know these people when your left out?

And they invite you to lots of things, so you might eventually be part of said group. Or not. Which is fine, imo.

DH and I both have longstanding mixed gender friendship groups. And, yes, some of the members of said groups became known to us because they dated ‘original’ members. Be that as it may, they’re core friends, now.

We invite each other to some stuff, and some is just us + our friends. I love my husband, but I don’t want to socialise with him all the time.

However, in your case, you’ve just moved to a new area and are probably still finding your bearings a bit. It’s understandable that you’d be more socially dependent on him than might normally be the case. Hopefully that resolves itself naturally as you make more friends (which you’ve already started doing).

I’d suggest you start hosting things or planning things with that group.

A party/BBQ/games night/pub crawl etc that you and your DH plan can’t exclude you.

Once you’ve bonded with whoever the other key members of the group are you’ll be included on your own behalf not just as a partner.

I’m in one of these groups. New partners always welcome to all social occasions if they want to come. Very rare we do anything that’s all men or women, if we do then obvs partners don’t come to that, but that’s the only exception.

Interesting to see how different people’s views on this are.

In my previous relationship my partner didn’t have mixed gatherings that I wasn’t included in. But he was also a terrible human and my husband is completely glorious!

Were you the only partner not invited? As in all couples apart from your DH? If so, I'd probably be a bit hurt by that. Have you tried forming closer friendships with any of the wives/partners or do you only socialise with them with your DH?

But this particular event wasn’t just a group of couples doing a social activity together. It was somebody’s birthday celebration dinner, which they were hosting in their own house for their close friends. It’s a more intimate occasion, which will no doubt have cost them a lot of money and effort to put on, and which suddenly becomes a lot more money and effort if rather than just their 8 good friends, it becomes 12 people to include some partners they don’t know very well. It would have been fairly embarrassing for your DH to try to get you an invitation when he wasn’t the one buying the food and wine, cooking the meal, and dealing with the stress of an extra chair and space at the table.

Had they all just gone down the pub and bought their own drinks, it may have been a bit different.

I think it's really weird and poor form not to invite your friend's long term partner/spouse.

I just can’t imagine inviting a group of people and only some partners - it’s rude and really unwelcoming. How do you become part of the group if the cut off point was 2010!
normally I’m all for your own social groups, but if I had moved to my husbands home town, I would expect a little more consideration - my husband wouldn’t attend a party if he knew other wives were invited but I wasn’t because I hadn’t gone to school with them! My husbands group of school friends actually are similar in that I was the last wife to join ( so far) but I’ve become a core member by going to those kind of events - isn’t that how it works?

So he's going out with other people who are taking their partners and deliberately leaving you at home.

How weird.

Personally I'd rather have a separate friend group. It's healthy to do things sepetwtky and have your own lives. I do find it odd to have something where jist some partners are invited, but then it sortof makes sense if some partners are the friends (although it seems overly complicated!)

Completely glorious? With his incredibly immature-sending group of friends from school? 🫢

If other partners are being invited it should be all partners regardless of length of time, only exception is if they're new and/or not serious, but you're his wife not just some woman he's seeing.

so the partners are long standing parts of the friend group
That’s key really. If some of the longstanding members of the group are in relationships it doesn’t mean they aren’t all equally part of the friendship group. It’s a group of men and women.

You aren’t excluded, just not asked to tag along every time they get together. As soon as I read the word “dinner “ I thought it would be a space/ seating issue. That seems reasonable to me. Why squeeze in when you’ll be seeing them all soon anyway

How does the guest list for the events come about? Does the person organising specifically say you are not invited? If so that sounds a bit personal.

My hunch is though it is your DH who is limiting which events you can or cannot go to which may or may not be for innocent reasons. It does seem very unusual that some partners are invited but not others - who (if it is not your DH) is making that decision - are you only not invited to events organised by the same specific person?

but occasionally something comes up where just the friend group is invited.

Bullshit. If partners are invited, whether ‘longstanding’ friends or not, then all partners should be welcome. Partners are social units. I’d be disappointed in your DH for excluding you.

At a certain point in life it’s hard to meet new friends so you’re often reliant on it being through your partner. Combined with the fact he knows these people and has taken you to live where he grew up I think it’s incumbent on him to involve you. I would feel upset to be left out of a mixed gathering and it’s immature of them to do so, not recognising that peoples lives evolve and new people are there