AIBU to think my friend is overreacting to my partner’s comment?

[Friendissue]

NC’d and first time poster in AIBU so I’ve got my hard hat ready!

I’ve had a text from a close friend saying she is upset with me and doesn’t want to speak to me for a ‘while’. Context is below:

-DP and I went for a meal with friend and her DH on Saturday night.
-Friend has been TTC for quite a while and had unsuccessful round of IVF
-I didn’t know it was unsuccessful until she said this over dinner, I was sympathetic
-Her DH was trying to be cheery, said they’ll keep trying
-Earlier in the meal he had said about his gym membership increasing in price and debating giving it up and using the free gym at this work
-DP referenced this and said ‘it sounds like you’ll be getting plenty of exercise at home so at least you can save on the membership’ to which the DH laughed.

Friend text me yesterday, said I should have spoken up and called out DP at the time (she didn’t say anything either nor did I know she was annoyed by the comment). She also said that her DH relayed a comment my DP said to him in a bar we went to after the meal and she found this to be ‘disgusting’ although won’t tell me what it was and DP claims to have no knowledge, although due to work we’ve only spoke via text.

I can understand why my friend is a bit sensitive atm but I find her reaction extreme. I cannot police what comes out of other people’s mouths, and I don’t find the comment DP made to be as inappropriate as is being made out. I would welcome outside views.

Your “DP” sounds like an insensitive pig

Having been on the receiving end of a number of totally crass and insensitive 'joke' comments whilst I was struggling to conceive, I can completely understand why she found his comment so upsetting and offensive.

This is the most batshit thing I’ve read on here today 😂

All a bit chinese whispers in here to be frank.

The IVF couple seem to be using the OP DH to manipulate their own offense. Between two blokes one man saying to another that he isnt getting any......do we think this isnt something that happens often? For the other to say in that same private conversation that i bet you will need pulling off/out because he is so horny, whilst crass, do we think this is so unusual? The unusual part is the IVF DH repeating this to the IVF wife. That strikes me as the IVF DH trying to either get the OP DH into trouble or the IVF DH trying to be nasty to IVF Wife.

A bit of a missplaced joke at the dinner table and a relatively normal blokey chat with his mate.

There is way more at play in your friends relationship than there is issues with your DH. Step back and let them self destruct. My guess is they are under a lot of pressure and are trying to lash out.

Thanks all for your input. I have told my friend I am here for her if/when she needs me.

She can be highly strung at the best of times, and this is obviously heightened.

I am still confused why her DH relayed the bar comment, and to be honest whilst I don’t approve of it, I’m sure a lot worse has been said between two blokes who’ve had a drink. Heck, some of the stuff I overheard on a recent hen weekend pales that into insignificance!

As an IVF mum myself I can well understand how this would feel. It's a gruelling rollercoaster and unsuccessful cycles really wear you down over time. The treatment is invasive, plays havoc with your hormones, and it's women, of course, who bear all the physical brunt of it. Depending on whether the problem has been conceiving in the first place or, as with me, repeated miscarriage once you do conceive, you then endure 40 weeks of terror in case you lose this one as well. It isn't an experience I'd wish on my worst enemy.

Leaving aside the fact of whether PPs are being po-faced about sex jokes or are right to be repelled by their crass puerility, context is everything. But even without the sexual element these comments are hardly a bastion of scintillating wit. These are the sort of things 12-year-old kids or intellectually challenged adults would say. This bloke would give me the 'ick' whether in OP's position or her friend's.

In OP's friend's shoes I doubt I'd want to speak to him again, but as couples are not two halves of one person OP should not be held responsible for something another person said. A way forward here might be to continue their friendship without involving OP's 'D'P. As for OP, I'd find this guy a complete turn off. He's not witty, not big, and certainly not clever.

So in other words, you're minimising it.

If this is the way you've chosen to justify it to yourself, fine, but if I were you I wouldn't make a present of this opinion to your friend.

Not if you want the friendship to continue, that is.

I don’t blame your friend for being upset about the remark tbh. I’ve been where she is. When you’ve been ttc for a long time and have experienced failed IVF sex becomes a chore and not something you do for fun, and being reminded about this is painful.

I’m not sure what else I can do to be honest (ignoring any suggestion to get my poultry in formation!)

Well, he would, wouldn't he?

That’s just it. it’s not “the slightest thing” to someone who has been struggling to conceive and had failed IVF. Just because other people only have to have sex with their partner a couple of times to get pregnant doesn’t mean they have carte blanche to say what they like to others who are not in that position. Calling someone who is goi g through IVF a snowflake is just breathtakingly insensitive.

I think that suggestion was strictly tongue-in-cheek, @Friendissue!

But I can see upthread that it's very definitely missed its mark.

Wouldn't it have been nice if OP had said she was going to speak to DP and explain that the woman going through IVF is going through a health ordeal and his leaning into age old 'conjugal rights ' missing sex tropes...is the very worst of men and leads to such awful things in our societies.

It shouldn't be necessary, he ought to be aware. Either isnt or is a foul (not fowl) creature.

Instead its 'ah well worst things are said at hen dos'. This is how things never change...it's on a par with the husband stitch. Add to that the friend is 'high strung' its a complete take down of the legitimate concerns of women and a choice to be 'pick me'

It’s astonishing.

I find this kind of humour so unfunny at the best of times. But as a recent thread showed (Neanderthal man makes joke about anal sex when wife has a car accident), the bar is v low on MN, and the kool wivez love these jokes).

But to ‘joke’ like this during someone’s IVF struggles completely shocks me. It’s so damn cruel and insensitive. Somebody would have to be very thick or very unkind to make that comment. What a disgrace.

Those of us who conceived easily cannot truly imagine the stress and heartbreak that couples with infertility go through. But at least we can be careful, sensitive and supportive with our comments.

Yep.

Amen to all this.

The problem is the friend isn’t just distancing herself from OP because she is an extension of her husband.

She is blaming OP for not speaking up, and not her own DH. That is completely unreasonable.

She knew her DH complained to OP’s DH about lack of sex, and has scapegoated and blamed OP for her own marital issues.

That’s horrible behaviour.

Out of earshot, furtively arranging to meet up and get off with other men behind my husband's back...No, why do you?

As someone who has gone through ivf to have my babies, she is definitely over reacting! Honestly when going through ivf you're not yourself. You take every comment the wrong way. Yes your DH comments weren't the best to her DH 😬 but most men chat like this with other men. We just don't hear it as we not there!

Just let her know you there for her (when she calms down) and that you sorry she felt that way.

Also remember this is mumsnet and everyone on here has perfect partners who would never say such things hahaha

Bet you’re not married?

These comments are crazy. If people broke up over every incentive remark no one would be married.

I can't work out if some men just have to make an inappropriate joke in any given situation or whether it's their way of somehow trying to be supportive...either way couldn't be doing with it!

Talking about their sex life twice is grim. Even if you are the closest of friends, it's grim. He needs to stop doing that. You don't need to police his speech, he needs to know what normal conversation is and that life isn't an episode of Shameless. For him to even be mentioning sex stuff around people struggling to conceive is stupid at best and deeply insensitive at worst. He needs to apologise and you need to explain to him why if he's not bright enough to get why.

tbf though if the conversation went the way the OPs husband said it went then it was the friends husband who started talking about his sex life to the OPs husband the 2nd time. Seems really weird though that the friends husband would go back and tell his wife what the OPs husband had said because she should surely be directing most of her anger at her own husband in that case

I think that second hand account is all a bit suss to be honest. I see what you are saying.