AIBU to feel hurt when my husband accepts invitations excluding me?

[Heartford]

My DH’s best friend B (50s, professionally successful) ended his marriage by having a long affair with his wife’s close friend. He caused a lot of hurt to his wife and children to whom we remain close. My DH has stayed friends with B throughout and continued to see him alone/in other male company. I have not really seen him and he knows that I disapprove of how he ended his marriage.

The affair has now ended and B is leading a single life in London. He now invites my DH to parties and dinners without me (even when everyone else’s partner is invited). The next one is 3 couples plus DH and a single woman. I don’t like that – I think it disrespects our marriage, it leaves me at home doing domestics while DH is out having fun (this already happens quite a lot as I have a demanding job and do the lion share of household/kids for various reasons) and echoes how B treated his own wife. DH can’t see the problem. He says I wouldn’t want to go myself – which is true (as I feel uncomfortable around B due to all the lies/deceit that went with his affair). DH would also (reluctantly) cancel if I make him (and would tell B that is why). But for himself, he thinks it is fine for me not to be asked and for him to accept and go alone. AIBU in being hurt by DH’s view?

I wouldn’t like my dh hanging around with someone who had the morales of an alley cat!

Find it strange how this guy is single but also organising to go out with other couples

Were these old friends who did not share the disapproval of his behaviour? Or new couple friends? In which case I’d be surprised as it’s not that easy to conjure up new couple friends and less so get a random woman who would agree to meet friends on a first date

This ^^ pretty much.

He may be a sleaze but that's no-one's business except his and his ex wife's.

You doing the lion's share of the household work/kids etc is a MUCH bigger problem than who your DH is mates with.

Marriage is dead in the water. He not only still talks to but openly supports a lying cheat and now is going to a couples dinner party without you and another woman there. Absolutely if he went I would be ending things.

This really. His friend sounds like he wants to split you up so he has a party mate

That’s what I assumed too. Clearly if the woman is there as the husbands’ date that does change things.

I think it’s very rude when only one part of a couple gets invited to dinner. (Unless it’s a boys night/girls night of course)

I think drinks at the pub, watching football - all those sorts of things are not weird. But dinner party…

I also have the sort of husband that would go and would reluctantly not go if I asked. It’s the pits really because what you want is to be chosen without having to point it out.

Is the event a sleepover or will DH get back that night to take kids out early next day ?

TBH your husband sounds pretty awful. He leaves the lion's share of parenting to you, even though you have the more demanding job and he's happy to attend dinner parties where you have been deliberately excluded and it sounds like his friend has set him up with a single woman to spite you as he knows you disapprove of his treatment of his ex-wife and kids.

Your husband has more in common with his friend than I'd feel happy with. His friend has obviously ditched his kids along with his marriage and is living the life of a single man. You husband doesn't sounds like a particularly hands-on dad and he doesn't seem to disapprove of his friend's behaviour at all.

Having a life outside of a marriage is good up to a point. In this situation, it’s toxic. Having a best mate that has behaved so badly is already raising red flag. Nights out in these circumstances is very worrying. You two have a lot to discuss.

I’d have plenty to say about my DH going alone with 3 couples and a single woman, and I wouldn’t care if it was his best mate.

What bizarre responses. You don’t like B, he doesn’t like you, he’s primarily your husband’s friend, and you wouldn’t want to go anyway! Yet you think your husband should decline? Weird.

Just to clarify:

1. I didn’t make my disapproval known to B directly as I have not seen him, but I did what I could to support his family and have been open with his wife and kids about my dismay at his behaviour

2. I understand DH still wants to see and be friends with B, but think he doesn’t have to accept being treated like a single man/paired up with single women at dinner parties to do that

3. I’m sad about the whole situation and didn’t look for this difficulty with B. But I guess damage to friendships is often part of the fallout from an affair.

Look, it’s a mixed-sex group of people. Some of the people are couples attending together, your DH is in a couple but attending by himself, and we don’t know the relationship status of the other woman. Most people don’t socialise in either strictly single-sex groups or as couples who have to go everywhere together! It’s not the 1950s!

If your DH continued contact with the friend say by continuing to attend sporting events together (if they did), or chatting over a pint, then seems ok to me. What you describe, a dinner party, is nothing like that and I can see why this offends.

You’re being way too understanding. Why your DH wants to hang out with a loser is a mystery, unless he thinks cheating on your wife is acceptable.

You need to kick off @Heartford . Stop being so bloody accommodating.

Could your husband attend the friend events with just the ‘friends’? That would be better than him attending a doubles night that you have been excluded from. The single woman thing is very disrespectful.

You can’t be openly judgemental of the guy then expect to be invited to his dinner parties.

@Waftaround Going to after work drinks, maybe, but a dinner party with other women? Really? That’s not acceptable.

The pearl clutchers are really out today! Heaven forbid unrelated men and women sit at the same table 😂

Look if it were multiple events I would say you have a DH problem.

But you’ve pissed off his friend who obviously doesn’t want you there. Your DH probably wants to avoid drama and isn’t going to advocate for you going either. You chose your side.

Weird everyone is saying the single woman is for your husband? Surely she's for B?

Why must she be 'for' anyone? Single women exist as people in their own right, they are not just there to be appendages to men.

I wouldn’t expect my DH to end the friendship and would be ok about them meeting up together or with other friends (where partners were also not present).

Where I would draw a hard line is DH going to a couples event from which I was excluded (irrespective of whether I wanted to attend or not) and especially so when it appears a “date” is being laid on for him.

This is because the later crosses a big fat red line for me in terms of how my DH respects me in our relationship rather than being about how his friend chooses to conduct himself.

All that said it’s a very unlikely scenario as DH would far more likely have ditched the friendship in support of his ex (having done so in the past in a similar situation and we are still good friends with the wife and now her new lovely partner).

Yes really. I don’t always socialise with my husband and sometimes I might spend time with other men. It’s not scandalous, it’s adults who trust each other. Sometimes a friends’ partner will be there and mine won’t or a single male friend.

I really really don’t get the issue.

I think you need to question yourself on whether you trust your husband or not. The single woman has likely been invited because B fancies her.

Exactly. As in all those threads by posters who say their friends stopped inviting them to things as soon as they were divorced or widowed?

I’m in two minds.
I don’t think you need to be invited to everything your dh is and the two of you can have separate friend groups.
However, the specific invite you mentioned where it would all couples apart your dh and a single woman would make me very uncomfortable, especially given his friend’s history.