To feel like I was made a fool of by DH again

[MonicaGeller010203]

Almost nine years ago, DH started getting mentionitis and a pretty obvious (to me) crush on a neighbour of ours. We frequently hung out together and DC's played. Got really awkward, she knew how I felt and I always believed it highly entertained her and gave her a sense of power. She was unemployed, cash strapped and with both DC in kid , she was under pressure from her H and family to find a job. She used my DH for a lot of small favours and help and used me and the DC at times too.

Cutting to the chase, moved to a new neighbourhood to upsize to the suburbs 4-5 years ago. Lost touch with them. Last week was our 20th wedding anniv and I decided to invite them too.

H had always maintained it was a good familial friendship that i ruined with suspicion even though there was nothing there. In our new community I have a fab gang of girlfriends while he has struggled to make any, he gets along like on an acquaintance level only with their husbands, and hasn't made any other friends

I genuinely thought we had moved on from all that re 8-9 years ago low key drama. But no. He swears when I tried calling him inside to plate up his food that I was seething that he was talking to her (I swear I did not even notice who he was talking as they were sitting out in the garden in a circle, everyone else had their BBQ, and other food on plates, only he had not started yt). His friend asked me why H was not eating with the rest of us. I wish to God I had plated up food for him and taken it to him rather than call him in (for just a minute to take his food).

Later for the rest of the party, he avoided me - I had planned games in the garden for the 6 couples - like musical chairs, a couples duet singing competition that our teen kids were meant to be judging us on (all in fun) - he bailed on the whole thing , took the husband of this lady (not the other men, though one tagged along behind, and the other 2-3 were at a loose end) for a walk, and left us ladies to it, though I had told them the plan was going to be couples stuff, maybe even a little music and dance.

He sulked for the next couple of hours, though was back to something like normalcy by the time the last couple who stayed back (not the ones from the old neighbourhood) to chat and share silly stories, tea and some laughs before leaving. But for me the afternoon felt spoilt

I am not sure what my question is I think the main one is Am in AIBU to feel I was trying to do something nice for him , to show him I was more secure now or I trusted more and to feel like I was made a fool of again. Or was he somehow in the right.

Oh dear! I really hope you're sleeping this off now.

You need to apologise to DH. You need to stop drinking. You need some counselling for yourself and maybe eventually as a couple.

Mostly, you need to never have an anniversary party again! Coming up to our 39th anniversary here. Never had a party, never really involved others (maybe family dinner with our kids when they were little). This party with duets sounds completely naff.

If you're still planning revenge, then he needs to leave you!

Listen to your kid and stop with the drama.

I wouldn't be able to socialise with someone my husband had a crush on which he clearly does. It's not about whether or not you are insecure. I could never believe it was me he wanted. I've been there unfortunately.

This is like a scene from Motherland when Amanda and Johnny’s marriage is unravelling

Oh dear OP, I mean this kindly but it seems like a lot of drama over not very much. Yes, you shouldn't have invited her and he shouldn't have left the party to go for a walk. But that's it really.

I hope you feel better this morning and can have a proper conversation with your husband today. You both need to put this woman behind you and move on.

Oh dear. I hope this all looks better in the morning.

You did set yourself up rather. 😢

This is less Monica Geller and more Lady Monica Baddingham.

This whole thing is so toe curlingly embarrassing, how old are you? We're hurtling towards our 20th wedding anniversary and I'm mid 40s. If I went round my friend's house for a party and they were doing musical chairs, I'd fuck my ex neighbour to get away from it too.

There’s something I’m not quite getting here. It sound a bit odd to me to invite couples over to celebrate your 20th wedding anniversary, with a plan to do couple games and to include this woman. I am not judging you as you’ve said what you consciously had in mind, but I guess maybe the thing to reflect on more deeply is what were you trying to prove, to whom, and why did you feel this was necessary. On the one hand you say you thought you were past that ‘silliness’ from before but also say you wanted to sing your couple song with your DH in front of her.
I think there’s a lot of unresolved stuff from that time that you need to work through so you can figure out what you want. It might be worth having therapy to help do this as it’s hard when we get trapped in our own thinking loops. It also doesn’t sound like you both had a frank open conversation about what happened and found any resolution for yourself or as a couple. So this has been niggling at the background. Perhaps you felt that him singing the song with you would give you resolution? But the issues remain there. I’m sorry and I offer you a hand hold. Best wishes x

Why are you talking to your CHILD about this?

Yes - and loads of couples at karaoke. A predictable choice.

You’re reinforcing what your son told you that you do. Building a big drama where you are the main part, and someone else is always the villain, even if you made the misstep.

Leave him, if you want. It seems silly from where I’m sitting but it’s not my marriage. Perhaps it’s the only way you’ll be happy, if it’s consumed you to this extent for a decade.

Whether you were right or not nine years ago, it was in the past. You bought it to the future, so that you could let someone who is married, who you think had feelings for you nine years ago, sing a couples song and try to make her feel shit. Even if he’d belted out Islands in the Stream à la David, and she was madly in love with him, all that would have done is suggest trouble in paradise. It would be remarkably difficult to be jealous of that.

And then you were too anxious to see that plan through anyway, so you called him in and he detected the funny atmosphere and decided he was not being tested on this. It was a dickish move to leave but it was a dickish move to plan a whole party of couple events to try and give the middle finger to someone from nine years ago anyway. I can see why your children saw straight through this.

And then when people have tried to explain how you created this problem, you bought the trouble back into your home, you’ve decided he must be madly in love with her so you were always destined to fail and you’ll leave him instead.

Do what you want to do, it’s your life, but you need to own your own part in it, and you’re going to need to explain what you’ve done to your kids.

For what it’s worth, I think skipping the games probably worked out better for you. I’m not sure you’d have coped if her and her husband had beaten you and yours. Planning a while anniversary around showing another couple that you’re better than them is a risky, and somewhat obvious, choice.

I would say not, judging by how the friendship developed into him going to her house for tea(?) and to discuss the ‘club’ and the increasing hours they spent together.
my DP did the same, snd I posted on here about it.

I feel awful this morning @Sparkletastic , so embarrassed and angry at myself

He said for 9 years he felt nothing but I still wrecked their friendship @Loubelou71

Indeed. I couldn’t tell where my DP’s head was.

Okay, for argument’s sake, let’s say he did have a thumping great crush on her nine years ago and that was very upsetting for you. But since then… crickets. There has, by your own admission, been no issue with him sneaking off to see her, no secret calls or even sexting, no having a full-blown affair. They worked together on this club and then they didn’t. So you had a choice back then - let it go and repair your marriage or hold onto your anger and let it rot your marriage from the inside. Based on what your son said, it looks like you’ve done the latter and both he and your DH are sick of you developing mentionitis about it. You say you are going to make your DH pay - well, I’m afraid you might find he makes that choice for you and after yesterday’s fiasco, he calls time. But hopefully you’ve had some sleep and have woken up in a better frame of mind. I suggest you consider solo therapy to deal with your feelings towards this woman before you make any drastic moves regarding your marriage.

Yes I wanted to turn the page on it......

I remember when I first semi-ghosted her in 2018 and she realised why.

I was shocked , utterly so, when i saw her reaction was not a sheepish silence but she called my best friend to 'gloat' as my friend put it that she had gotten me so insecure. My friend said she came across as ' I am just all that, I break up long standing marriages just by being me', and oops I did it again without even trying, men fall over like bowling pins

My friend asked me to ghost her completely and not let her back in, I lost that friend when I didn't......I continued trying to help her get a job so she might not have time for the club and he would snap out of his trance state - ughhhh.

I am so ashamed of myself

I don't understand why you invited this woman to start with? You've moved away from that particular area, there was zero need to invite her.

You're saying you invited her to prove to your husband that you're no longer insecure with her presence. I'm not convinced that's the truth, to be honest. I wonder if deep down, you wanted to prove to yourself that you were right with your suspicions.

Your husband clearly thinks he was set up to fail, with you inviting this woman. At that particular moment you asked him to come in, you weren't aware he was chatting to this woman. He obviously feels that you were aware, and called him away deliberately.

Your husband's reaction afterwards was childish. He ruined the BBQ, by refusing to participate, and it must have been awkward to say the least. However, in his mind, do you think he may have thought, 'well if I'm not there, she can't accuse me of anything'???

I don’t get what you are ashamed of?

So it's a run of the mill argument yet you want to divorce him? Fucking hell I'm sorry if this is harsh but you sound like an utter nightmare.

You stupidly invited her to make a point and test your husband. You try and make him sing crappy cheesy songs that he is probably mortified by, and now you are threatening divorce for something entirely of your own making. And you are upset with him? Honestly on the scale of nuts this is pretty high up the list. I'm hoping you're just drunk and you sleep it off or something.

Your poor child as well, getting dragged into it.

Mon mon would never.

I think you've been really unfair to Lady Monica here.

@MonicaGeller010203 you may have got it wrong op and you probably did.
However your dh needs to acknowledge his part too.
Unless you're generally an insecure person your dh made you feel jealous and insecure originally.
He's openly admitted he had a crush 9 years ago.
We all get crushes but your dh went further, he set up a club with this woman and banned you from helping.
I'm not surprised you carried this for years.
The ndn is only guilty of going along with your dh's crush, your dh actively disregarded your feelings for a sordid thrill.
Dont let him gaslight you here. He damaged the foundations of his marriage and he has to take some responsibility.

Mid forties too .... :(

i feel for you op as you seem genuinely distressed- but I can not work out what is going on here.

And then even weirder your friend stopped being your friend because you didn’t ghost someone?? That just sounds unreal . It’s like some suburban nightmare that you live in with weird friends and weird parties.

I hope you get it all sorted soon and as pp suggested maybe see an independent person and talk it out with them.

The fact OP is using a celebrity marriage which has famously involved decades of cheating and a breach with the eldest child as some sort of benchmark of durability points to how warped her perspective is on healthy relationships.

Never mind the fact that if you are singing a duet you go with the original, not the knock off…

How old are you OP? This thread is one of the weirdest I've read on MN. Your social life sounds really strange to me and I would have been super-uncomfortable playing party games at your BBQ with people who I did not even know. You invited a couple from a different area and time of your life to mingle with you and your DH and another couple who are your current friends to play silly games and sing songs all so that you could "prove" to your DH(?) or yourself(?) that something that probably didn't even happen nearly a decade ago wasn't still "a thing"? Are you serious? And now you're "spiralling"??? And want a divorce???

You've got some quite odd ideas of how people are supposed to be interacting with you and your DH. Your marriage probably is quite strained, but I don't think the problem is your DH and who he is or isn't friends with. I think you've got some deep insecurity issues yourself.