AIBU to refuse asking my celebrity friend’s husband for business help?

[Soontobesingles]

I have recently (in last three years) become friendly with a celebrity - her husband is also a celebrity and much much more famous than she is. I’ve met him three times in passing (he was polite but not really interested in me, which is fine).

My husband has never met this woman or her husband, though he knows I know her and have met him. When I say ‘friendly’, she and I have a common interest and meet a few times a year for social occasions, to go to events to do with our interest and we stay in touch by text and social media. She is hardly my best mate and I am very careful not to overstep because I am sure she has a lot of piss takers in her life. She is very nice and I like her company. Our shared interest is also very niche (think Japanese performance art) so it’s nice to have someone to share that with. We don’t discuss personal stuff really beyond the odd story about our kids. Anyway, recently my husband has got it into his head that her husband can do him a favour. Basically he wants her husband to reach out to his contacts that might facilitate a lucrative business deal for my husband. He has asked me to meet up with her to suggest this and arrange a meeting with the four of us. I have said absolutely no way, it’s cringey, embarrassing and would end my friendship. Her husband is obviously not going to set up a business deal for his wife’s weird art friend’s husband. It’s user territory and I don’t want to do it. Anyway my husband won’t let it go and has been going on for weeks. He is currently sulking and refusing to eat dinner with me because ‘I’m putting this woman’s feelings before my family security’ (he thinks he could earn big from the deal). His last thing was that I just want to be a celebrity hanger on and am letting the marriage down. I think I am being normal and he is unhinged, but need an outside perspective. AIBU?

I agree OP it feels so obvious for you to have to point out to him, it’s got to be a no!

I agree. Lie. He obviously has a fixation about thi,and wont give up. Your only option is to lie.

Your husband is a complete nincompoop!
Tell your husband you asked her and she said no 🤷🏻‍♀️

I was thinking the same thing. @Soontobesingles tell your daft dh that before anyone helps promote his business they would have to go through his books with a fine toothed comb.
if and it's a huge if they can see its worthy and a sound business they will then look at him personally, do they want to be associated with a manchild that sulks and won't eat his dinner out of spite the type of person they can trust.
They could look into his ( and your ) past and find alsorts, another huge if they do promote his business and the press find out they will dig deeper to find dirt on both of you.
If they cant find anything they will make sometĥing up.

Am i going overthe top ?
Yes of course i am , but then so is your DH

So he doesn't even really want your friends dh to get involved , he wants famouse guys friends to get involved.

Good lord how converluted would that be !
Dh > you > friend > friends dh > his friends > business deal all just on dhs whim that they may want to look at / invest in his business that they know nothing about. .

If he really wants famous people to help him he should write to them !

Why don't you say you asked they said no? 🤔

If his idea is so good then why does it hinge on this one contact who he's never met? That's immediately a concern. He's being extremely unreasonable and his childish attempts at emotional blackmail sound tiresome and immature.

Your husband's gone batshit!

You are right. This is a Massive Nono.

As a celebrity he’ll have his PR team and OPs DH won’t get passed that, and also may quietly do some digging and put the word round that your DHs business is on the ropes and his remaining ‘clients will drop him.

Put it to your DH that you’ve heard that is what is what happened to others who tried it on.

Your DH is astonishingly naive if he thinks a celebrity gets where they are without treading on a lot of people.

I agree with everyone saying don’t do this. The lady is probably feels great that she can share a niche hobby with a person who puts friendship over celebrity. If DH can’t set this up without a celebrity endorsement then it’s probably not that great, or flawed in its idea

Using emotional blckmail like "putting this woman’s feelings before my family's security" is wrong for any H to use against his W. If there is no reason for him to be doing this (like debt or money troubles) then he is obviously "putting his delusional ideas ahead of his family". I think any time friends become involved with you and your work it makes for difficult and potentially disasterous situations, because it adds an extra level of pressure to the relationship. Be strong and stick to your guns. Whether you shut the conversation down so it is no longer talked about, or you sit down and try to explain how this will never happen and why it will never happen, is up to you. Either way, you know you are not putting your friendship ahead of your husband and family, you are just being pragmatic and reasonable. Common sense should always take presidence. If there are no financial troubles then I am sure it will blow over. If there are, then that is a seperate battle to fight without the abuse of your friendship. I am sorry you are having to deal with this petulant behaviour from a grown man and I hope it sorts itself out soon.

I know quite a few very wealthy people (and I guess famous-ish, like interviewed in the papers but not household names) and it's relentless the number of people on the make who want stuff from them. It must be awful and you shouldn't become part of it because it will end your friendship I'm quite sure.

Just NO

It’s not about him being a celebrity though is it? It’s about the fact he has connections and is used to people attempting to use him for them.

My DH is certainly not a celebrity but owns a very successful business in an hard to get into industry and has links to lots of other successful people in multiple industries. He is very generous and has made introductions for long standing friends but we have had lots of people trying to take the piss out of this. Lots of people he hasn’t spoken to for 20+ years or has met twice asking for favours. He’s had parents approach him on the school run asking for connections for their nieces and nephews.

There is absolutely no way I would be happy with introducing a new casual friends husband to him to talk about a business venture. That would completely shut down any kind of friendship I had with her. These types of things happen organically and probably over the course of a few years after building trust and getting to know each other. My DH would not want to introduce anyone to his connections without knowing he was making a good recommendation. That’s how any kind of networking works.

What if you don’t ask, you don’t get applies to everyone? Do you not think that everyone thinks this so these people have to go through life wondering if people really are their friends or just using them for connections? It starts to get really old really fast when you are having multiple of the same types of conversations every week.

Your friend must be enjoying the no fuss, non celebrity gushing friendship.
Don't risk it. Your husband is totally unreasonable.
Ignore him, enjoy your friendship and hobby.

Thanks everyone. I’ve made it clear this is a dead end subject and we had a nice weekend where it didn’t come up, so I’m hoping he has moved on from this particular obsessive idea. I am not going to lie to him because as PPs have said, it suggests I’m ok with the idea when I’m not. I also don’t want to have to lie to keep the peace in my marriage.

I also had a dig around and asked to see his accounts (I help with these anyway, so it’s not odd for me to ask), and there is nothing to suggest he is in bigger trouble than our joint debts, so that’s a relief.

I think this hang up on my friend’s husband is just a combination of panicking that we will never steady the boat money wise, grief induced mental instability and celebrity weirdness/envy at the seeming ease of other’s lives. I do think he has some undiagnosed neurodiversity as well.

For those suggesting I end my marriage over it - I think this would be extreme. I married to be married for life, which means staying together through ups and downs. Trying to connect again when you lose the connection or your spouse does something very unattractive. I am not going to break up my family over something this ridiculous. Like everyone, I have my red lines (infidelity, violence etc) but ‘mad business idea’ and ‘sulking’ isn’t marriage ending territory for me. We have been through worse and no doubt will again. I intend to keep honouring the commitment I made in marriage. No wonder the divorce rate is so high if this is what some people end a marriage over.

Thanks for giving me the confidence to absolutely set a boundary on this.

@Soontobesingles I'm very pleased to hear your husband has dropped this and sanity reigns again.

However I left my marriage because of abuse, which included weaponizing the silent treatment or "sulking".

I was committed to my marriage and planned to work on it, stick it out through the rough times and be a team together... unfortunately my abusive husband was not on the same page, he wasn't even reading from the same book!

It's ok to leave if there is abuse. If that's not you, great! I'm genuinely happy for you, but not everyone is so lucky.

Leaving a marriage doesn't always mean someone is a faithless person who didn't take marriage seriously.

I didn't mean to suggest that marriage should be for life under any circumstances. I understand there are many valid reasons to end a marriage, I just didn't feel it was proportionate advice for the specific issue I posed. Hope you are happier now.x

I am much, much happier now thank you x. Leaving was the right thing to do for me because there was actual abuse, not just a minor bump in the road with some unfortunate behaviour.

It just came across in an unfortunate way, it's fine.

I think what I'm really trying to say is that you may have heard "LTB for a very minor reason", when I and possibly others were concerned that the level of sulk had tipped over into abuse territory. Especially since it had been going on for weeks.

If that had been the case having other women say "No that is ridiculous behaviour and is tipping into abusive" can sometimes be helpful to hear, it was for me.

I am genuinely pleased to hear that this was very out of character for your husband, and that it's now resolved.

You are 100% right. This is so embarrassing and cringe I don't know why he thinks it's ok. So let him silk because he didn't get his own way and hide the contact details of the slebs so he can't help himself