Does your DH/DP have friends?

[bennevis]

I have name changed for this.
Going through a bit of a reassessment of my marriage now the kids have gone and am wondering what the future holds.

My life/marriage has not turned out as I'd like in many ways, and one of those is my Dhs lack of friends.

My DH is no one's enemy but neither is he anyone's friend. He doesn't have any. He is very popular and highly respected at work, but has no mates. Well, he has one who he has known for about 25 years but sees him about once a year.

He doesn't need people it seems and has brought nothing to the marriage in terms of friends. We have no social life other than what we do ourselves, or what I do with my girl friends. We never have anyone to dinner or get invited anywhere- parties or anything- except by my friends.

My biggest complaint about him as a H is that he doesn't communicate beyond the day to day trivia- and I feel he doesn't know how to form relationships- get under the surface with people.

I even wondered if he was borderline Aspergers though is behaviour/role at work doesn't show this as he is very diplomatic. We did the Aspergers test online- I scored 9 and each scored 24- Aspie is 32-ish. Some blurb I read said that engineers and maths people often get his score which fits, though they aren't Aspie- but it does highlight the difference between us.

I have a couple of girl friends whose partners have few friends so wonder if in fact he is quite normal.

He doesn't have a close relationship with his family ( parents/brother) and I just wonder if he is not a people person.

bennevis I swear to God I could have written all your posts!
My DH is a wonderful, loving, kind, funny man but he has no close friends. He doesn't do the whole pub/blokey-blokey thing and relies on me to sort out our social life. I love having a home full of activity and laughs etc, he does too, he just hasn't met anyone that he connects with.
We've been talking recently about him joining a club so he can meet other people. But like your DH he's no good at the small talk and other men don't seem to warm to him even tho they all say what a great bloke he is, it just never seems to develop into a friendship. Surely everyone needs a close friend or 2?
i would love him to have at least one good mate!

can we get all our lovely but lazy/shy hubands together?

GirlWithTheMouseyHair Great idea but I bet they would all stand at the bar NOT making small talk with each other!

My DH is a SAHD and we moved away from where he lived for 50 years. He knows nobody around here that he hasn't met through me. There is no local pub and no real opportunities for him to meet other blokes. We have mutual friends but that's not quite the same. He feels pretty isolated and has lost a lot of confidence. I'm quite glad to hear he isn't the only one. I think blokes generally find it a lot harder to strike up and maintain friendships.

i don't know what else we can do though? before I came along, DH seemed to have a few close friends - he's alo moved hence the majority of our friends actually being my friends, but he just doesn't take responsibility for relationhips. He doesn't reply to people's emails or texts so they give up on him. His sister now contacts me rather than him and I've ended up becoming friends with two of his friends from uni because he just wasn't keeping in touch with them and I didn't want him to loose them.

I've encouraged him to get in touch with people (treading a fine line not wanting it to sound nagging), have gone out when we've had one mutual friend who is a bit more DH's friend but has also started contacting DH rather than me.

I just don't know what to do - my DH i generally happy on his own but does have moments when he gets upset about this and says nobody likes him. I've had friends randomly tell me how brilliant they think he is, ugh....any suggestions gratefully received but at the same time I just want to tell him to grow up and take more responsibility for encouraging the relationships in his life

As well as wanting them to have friends for themselves, don't you feel a bit short changed that theyhave brought nothing t o your marriage/relationship?
Before I married DH, the boyfriends I had- all long term- had lots of interesting friends and it widened my social circle too. When I met Dh we actually met through my friend who met his group of friends ( holiday thing) so I was under the impression that he did have a lot of firends.

In fact they were really just acquaintances, they fell away from each quickly once we all got married and the one he has stuck with is a friend and an ex-colleague- but he rarely makes the effort to contact him, and I am the one to remember his brithday/send cards etc, as he has been very kind to our kids over the years.

That's all fine- but he has worked in the same company- a huge multinational for years so he has plenty of opporunity to make firends- he just never takes the "getting on okay at the office" to another level.

I don't really care that much about him not having friends per se- what I worry about is is it an indication that he cannot create a relationship properly.

I feel he doesn't really know me, as he never talks about anything other than day to day superficial- doesn't plan for the future, doesn't think about the "meaning of life", doesn't share his hopes and dreams- I don't think he has any, and I am increasingly thinking that we just aren't right for each other. I can just see him spending the next 15 years going to work, coming home and sleeping, then dying- which is what his father did. It's not what I want- I feel I am life's cheerleader and MC all the time.

I think there are 2 seperate issues then on the thread...bennevis is this stuff you've always thought, or just now the children aren't around as much so there's just you and DH at lot of the time?

I do feel sad that all our friends are my friends and it would just be nice for DH to have a social circle created by him. Other men on this thread who are perfectly happy with this, well, that's fine then really isn't it? I'm not liking DH a huge amount at the moment, realising we need to work through some stuff (again) but we do manage to talk about everything and nothing, debate and laugh and share our dreams and plans for the future etc At leat he does seem capable of encourgaing our relationship - but this sounds like the real issue for you.

Have you brought it up with him at all?

This is interesting, as its something I worry about with my DH. He's actually very good at small talk and gets on well with my friends who all really like him. However, he just doesn't invest the time and energy in keeping up friendships, which bothers me very much for some reason (I place a lot of importance on my long-term friendships). He has very few friends - the ones he has are very loyal but he sees them extremely rarely and never rings / makes the effort. It seems to bother him on one level, yet he never does anything about it.

DH has a few casual friends that he has known for ever.

He may go for ages without seeing them and then out of the blue may get a text. Although he is a sole trader he is friends with a couple of blokes that do the same job as him and they sometimes meet up for a drink and curry and sometimes we go out with them and their wives.

Sometimes if I'm on a mates night out he may come along if he feels like and some of my friends have become his friends as well.

Interesting posts.
ds1 has been diagnosed as 'almost aspergers, so I have read up on it alot.
I am very social and love parties, chit chat, but mostly crave intimate friendships. I also enjoy my own company and crave solitude.
Dh has no close friends. But has mates of 30 years who would move the earth for him. If he has a party he could easily invite 150 people who would love to come. He negotiates brilliantly, is quick witted and loving.
But we don't go out much. He phones his mum and sisters weekly, but thay talk about the 'price of beef'.

My brother and my dad are a-socail. not anti socail. A social. By that i mean that people like them alot. But they need no one.

Is it possible that Op's dh is a-socail rather than aspergers?
After years of marriage what are you actually suggesting ? Either you go out with your own friends more. or get divorced ? surely not ?

what springlamb describes, is htta not the difference between men and women ? mars and venus ?

when dh goes out for a drink, occasionally, they seem to rib eachother and just take the piss. no meaningful talk.

when my friend comes over for a cup of tea, she tells me about her non existant sex life and the ingrowing hair she has on her boob.

when I tell dh these things he seems as horrified with his friendships and i am with his.

Is that not normal ?

So your DH is not giving you the deeper level of communication you feel you need with a partner? I can never have a ' deeper' kind of conversation with my H either. But he says that's just because men are different to women. I know that I have been called 'deep' by people in my life, and he seems to be the opposite. This can be frustrating because you never feel you get to know that person fully and you (Me) feel like they don't want to know about you/not interested.

But my situation is very different to yours in other ways, I am sure.

My H gets on very well with people at work and has one best friend he sees once a year he has known for twenty years. He gets on okay with his family, but he has told them to 'only contact him in an emergency. If he wants to contact them he will do it!'

My dh has lost touch with many friends owing to his being at work all the chuffing time. People have stopped inviting him places.(even his family.)
When he isn't at work, he wants to be at home with us. He is besotted with the DC.

This in itself isn't a problem, but BenNevis, I think you do have a problem if you can't talk to him. It would drive me insane I think, not having someone to bounce ideas off and chat to in the bath. IN fact, that is one reason I knew it would never work out between me and DDs dad.

It's very heartening though to hear my DH is not alone in being a loner.
With so many of his friends not yet settled, it seems their life is a constant whirl of parties and socialising. He, and I forget he's quite young (26) to be married with 3 dc and a senior job.

Interesting thread. My dh is very sociable, likes meeting up with people but leaves all the arrangements to me. He does have about four friends he had known since teens but none of them make much effort with one another, prob meet four times a year and have a great time when they do. When I suggest he arranges it more frequently if it is that good, he just shrugs!

I do think men have a diff kind of friendship. My dh does go out with a group of school dads once a month, (he obv doesn't organise it!). Last month he told me that one of the guys had split with his wife and was living alone. The following month they all met again and after I asked how this guy was getting on, was he back with his wife etc and dh looked at me blankly. App not one bloke had even mentioned it during the whole eveing. Very odd, can you imagine a group of women being like that.

I think it boils down to men not needing the emotional attachments women often get from friends.

I asked my DH how many people he knew that he would class as friends last night, the answer was two. One guy he has known since he was a child and the other guy he has known for over ten years. Both of these friendships are maintained via telephone.

I then got to thinking how many friends I myself have....two, both ten year plus friendships again maintained via the telephone.

I just don't think either of us need any more deep and meaningful relationships (two friends and one marriage)than we already have. We are both sociable people, like to chat, pass the time of day etc but don't want/need or even think about taking things any further than the 'chit chat in passing' stage.

I think OP maybe you need to cultivate your own friendships, as it seems your DH is more than happy with the level of friends he already has.

I think assuming that people with Aspergers don't have friends is pretty wrong.

My cousin has ASD and loads of mates, whereas I'm 'normal' but have struggled to make friends since I went through a very traumatic period in my early 20's.

bennevis "I feel he doesn't really know me, as he never talks about anything other than day to day superficial- doesn't plan for the future, doesn't think about the "meaning of life", doesn't share his hopes and dreams- I don't think he has any..."

My DH doesn't discuss the above either, simply because he just doesn't think about that stuff. The only time we talk about the meaning of life etc is if I start the conversation.

It's not that he doesn't care or ought, the 'ponderings' I do everyday just don't even start in his head!

That's why I need my girlfriends to discuss the 'big' stuff!

This is interesting. In so far as your dh has no friends, I don't think he is that unusual. My dh has no friends, or none that he keeps us with anyway. He is not from this country. When I met him, he clearly had a bunch of mates from school/university and there was some irregular contact, but this stopped gradually. Since he has lived in this country, he (we) have moved around a lot. Again, any friends he has had, he loses contact with. We have lived where we are now for 5 years and I would say dh has no friends from this area.

He clearly has people he gets on with at work, but this never spills over into a social context. Also, he is a member of a tennis club, and he sometimes refers to one man he sees when he plays tennis - the father of a friend of our son - but that contact is very superficial and mainly just involves swapping information about our sons' education.

We have only ever been to one dinner party - and that was through a friendship I formed - and we have no social life to speak of. we do talk about this occasionally. I do feel slightly cheated because when I met dh, he impressed me with his easy going charm and ability to talk to anyone about anything, and, as I am difficult to get to know, I thought he would introduce lots of people into my life, whereas in fact he has introduced virtually nobody, and certainly nobody we have sustained a relationship with.

Dh is also mathematical/engineering, also senior management so obviously able to manage people (though he had to do a course to teach him how to improve his people management skills) and he definitely talks about being high on the aspergers scale, though he does not actually have aspergers.

So far, so much like your dh. But where he differs is that I can get him to communicate with me and I am mostly happy with the relationship we have. Sometimes I wish I had a man more in touch with his feminine side, other times I wish my man was more Neanderthal. Most of the time, I realise that my man is pretty average by men's standards and that means he is not going to meet the same levels of sociability that I as a woman can.

I wouldn't worry about whether your dh is normal or not. I would worry about how you feel about it and what you should do.

My engineering husband has no current friends and is in his fifties. We have had 25 house moves in 30 years of marriage because of his job and spent a lot of time abroad. His last friends were probably sailing friends from university. We are his friends (me and our 7 kids!) I love it that he is continually calm and non reactive to life's little ups and downs (my cancer, miscarriages, choking on a roast potato - didnt even stir for that one - luckily his sister did the Heimlich manoevre on me.) I love it I can flare up and he doesnt react - I burn out in one big gust then back to normal. I hate dinner parties (giving and going) - I relate to my girl friends in a different - more analys-y, more in depth stuff - this would prob. bore him rigid. Perfect all round.

My DH sounds very similar to yours in some ways, and yes, it bothers me too bennevis. He is competent and well-liked at work but has almost no friends except a couple from childhood who live at the other end of the country who we rarely see. He makes no effort to make new friends and has no interests that he actively pursues outside home and work.

I also get frustrated by the lack of real communication in our relationship, and although I can push him to talk to me properly sometimes, I find it exhausting. Sometimes I feel our interaction in the evening is limited to 'what shall we have for dinner?' and 'what's on TV?' - it really depresses me. I feel I have to initiate any real conversation, get very little back in return and end up feeling very small as a result.

He has been depressed and is on antidepressants and I try to make allowances because of that, but to be honest I feel I have made too many allowances. I also miss my old social life (though I recognise that its demise is partly due to life moving on, the arrival of children etc, as well as my DH's unwillingness to socialise) and I wish that our home life was 'sparkier'. My DH will quite happily, without any embarrassment fall asleep in the corner of the lounge when we have my family to visit - he doesn't seem to think it's rude - WTF!!!

I am embarrassed and increasingly angry about the situation, but I don't really know what to do. I don't want to disrupt our children's lives by leaving him, and I guess I do still care about him and hope we can salvage the relationship, but right now I feel I do most of the work for very little return.

There, its turned into a post all about me - sorry bennevis, but you really struck a chord with me.

Ob, I have no idea whether he's normal or not. Too far along the line to worry. He is what he is, I am what I am. We definitely get on very well together. He's not the sort of bloke to even try to stifle me in any way. He is keen and proactive as regards the dc socialising.
Maybe it helps that I can take or leave socialising myself. Sometimes I have a few days when I post numerous times on Mumsnet. Then I will have a month where I can't be bothered. This pretty much reflects my RL. I am quite content with my own company but I am quite lively, love a good (saucy) laugh with the girls, etc.
So perhaps we are after all deeply compatible.
The aspect I find annoying is this thing where he spends 48 hours camping in someone's company but learns nothing about them other than their favourite Porsche.
Maybe I wouldn't like a social DH - I might be a mad jealous bitch, I don't know, never been tested.

My dp doesn't have any friends though he goes to the local pub and has aquaintances there. Dp is sociable though he just doesn't need friends.

I'm the opposite I have a lot of friends who all like dp so in that way he does socialise. I don't do dinner parties though just parties as some of my friends are single so wouldn't want them feeling the odd one out. Plus I don't like the formality of dinner parties tbh.

Does your dh know how you feel OP?

My H has lots of mates (acquaintances) from up the pub, but no close friends that are really involved in our lives on a regular basis, any social events that we have done with others have always been my friends, where he has got to know her husband but they never maintain the friendship independently of me organizing a night out, he also seems to have work colleagues that he chats to on phone and meets up with at the Xmas party, (he works away alot) but again no close friends, i don't know whether this is a man thing or no??