I have a problem, my friend hates my dh

[TiramiSue]

My good friend, call her jenny, arrived up to my house last night. I wasn't expecting her and was on my way out with the kids but told her to stay for a few mins anyway as I hadn't seen her since Xmas (she had been acting quite funny with me I thought) avoiding me, going out with mutual friends and not asking me along and stuff like that, I was beginning to think I had done something to her.

Anyway she broke down in tears and said she didn't want a rift between us but that she was fed up with my dh, that he had really pissed her off before Xmas and she hadn't felt that she could bear to see him ( and therefore me too) because of this.

There is a bit of a back story here. My friend is married to my dh's cousin. Cousin is a bit of an asshole at times, hasn't treated jenny very well, not abuse or anything just really selfish toward her, she suffers from a serious chronic health condition and Ivf has failed for them and throughout he has been totally self absorbed. My dh has spoken to jennys husband a few times as they are nearly as close as brothers and he can be very blunt with him and has told him to wise up and treat jenny better.

The thing is, the cousin, call him john is a farmer and has a small business. He has consistently ignored all advice and help offered to him a and has run his business into the ground and is in debt to loads of people. One of those people is my dh who has sold him animal health products over the years. He owes my dh in or around 15k and this figure has largely remained around these for about ten years, because he is family and my dh grew up with John and they are close, he has always given john a lot ol leeway, taking small payments now and again against the debt, but never actually getTing paid in full. My dh feels that John has really taken advantage of this and this is one example of johns selfishness.

My dh recently was approached by a large company who wanted to buy him out. He was delighted as the business has been very tough fro him in currency economic climate and he was happy to get out. He had to try and get all his outstanding accounts settled before a the transfer so he had to go and see john before Xmas and ask him to at least make some payment toward the debt, and try and start paying off small amount more regularity as this company wanted as clean a slate as possible taking over.

I think this is what has annoyed jenny although she won't quite admit it . She won't confront him, or tell him, or me what it is he has done, and I feel this is very unfair as my dh should be given a chance to redeem this or apologise if he has been out of order. She seems to think this should not affect our friendship, but it does, it already had, and I feel she is asking me to be her friend and hang out with her regardless of how she feels towards my dh or hw she acts toward him which is to ignore him really.

Sorry this is so long. I am not sure what to do or how to handle this but I feel that she is being unfair to both of us.

Hi Sue, this is a very interesting post. My Dad always says that there are 3 sides to every story, what one person will tell you happened, what the other person will tell you happened, and then the 3rd side is what actually did happen.

I am with you on this. It seems your DH's cousin has buried his head in the sand for far too long and let his business go to pot. That is so sad as so many businesses have been crushed to pieces over the last few years.

However your DH has every right to sell on his own business if he wants to. Fair play to him if he has worked hard and obviously been very reasonable about things, especially the debt and at least trying to establish a repayment plan. Then going round there to iron things out shows he is completely in the right.

Hope this all works out for you.

Thanks Geoff my Dh has a heart of gold but i feel that his cousin has taken full advantage of this over the years, and its been going on for so long now that its just assumed by cousin that he can just let this debt hang on and pay a bit off here and there from time to time,as it suits him.

In a way i am more annoyed at Jenny though, as she has enabled her dh's selfishness all the way, she has seen and her dh treat people like crap. including him treating her like crap, and yet she chooses to get annoyed at my dh for comments and actions he has taken, which were necessary for him to conduct his business and our livelihood, and out of justified frustration at the situation he found himself in due to johns behaviour.

Jinglets i wish i could, however my dh would not want me to do that, he is, despite all this, very loyal to john as he is family, and dh has a very strong sense that family supports family (its very one way though as all the support comes from my dh to jun, but anyway) he wouldn't want me to get involved in asking for money back as he would prefer to deal with that himself with john, he doesn't want me falling out with john an jenny.

So i have to stand back in a way. But as i said, its my friend i am more annoyed with, or disappointed in. I have known her since i was 11, she met john through me, i have seen her over the years become more and more like john in many ways in terms of thoughtlessness, unreliability, justifying things that are unjustifiable, and i just feel that she has thrown her lot in with him, for better for worse, has made her choices, and no matter what he does she will stick by him.

Thats fine, he is her husband, she is loyal to him, i get it. But i think our friendship has come to a crossroads, and while she thinks everything can now go back to like it was before because she has aired her grievances to dh and got her apology, well..i just think it can't. I don't feel that close to her any more, don't want to spend time with her really, just don't want to see her.

I am going to have to be honest with her about all this and how i feel about everything, which is going to be an awkward conversation

You sound exhausted by the whole thing, it sounds exhausting just reading it. Distancing yourself from her might be for the best.

Upthedamnwotsit you can say that again! I am tired of the whole damn business and i do feel like just staying well away from her, and them, for a while, rather than getting further into debate with her, she is always going to be on his side anyways.

i would meet for coffee. i would also defend your dh if she tries to slag him off. say that her dh's debt of 15k has put you both in a bad position and that actually your dh has been very supportive of john.

i guess you could play this both ways.

point out how your dh has helped and supported them both and how much he loves them. how you would hate for there to be ill feeling etc.

or

you are sick of her shit and she can go jump in the lake.

think about what outcome you want. jumping in the lake might be cathartic, but if you still have to see john for the rest of your lives because he's family, it might be better to superficially get on.

just to update, i saw my friend jenny on saturday night, we were all out together in a group of around 8 people, for a few drinks. We have mutual friends so we are always going to be in each others company from time to time no matter what plays out between us.

My dh got on fine with his cousin John, they were chatting away cracking jokes and bantering, (john can be really hilarious at telling stories and jokes etc).

I, however, found myself avoiding john completely, and being friendly toward Jenny, but keeping her at arms length, and never getting into any one to one conversations with her.

This is because i still feel annoyed with her and john, at the way they have treated dh, and at the fact that dh was the one who had to go to them and apologise, even though i don't think he actually did or said anything wrong.

My SIL, who is married to my dh's brother told me that john sidled up to her in the pub and asked her was it true the rumours that were going round the town that she was having a lesbian affair with another guys wife, (an acquaintance of all of ours). SIL sort of laughed it off as she knows John and this is the sort of thing he comes out with, he's trying to be funny, but she didn't find it that funny, just a bit juvenile and irritating, like you can never have a really serious or even normal chat with him about something, he always has to have the chat descend into piss taking and really juvenile VIZ style humour.

As SIL pointed out to me, she could easily have taken offence at this comments to her, but just shrugged them off cos he is a bit of a tit sometime, but she has no doubt that there are many other people out there who have probably been spoken to in the same manner and who have taken offence at his comments, as not everyone shares his sense of humour, and yet ironically it is my dh who is the one who has to go up and apologise to them for his genuine attempts to resolve a situation that was threatening his and our livelihood.

It makes me so so angry.

You keep writing that, how angry you are, but chose not to take any action.

Either do something, or let it go. Stewing on it is just going to lead to resentment and an eventual confrontation anyway.

It sounds as though you are most pissed off by the idea that he thinks he's untouchable, so feels confident enough even to provoke people, who somehow won't properly snap back at him.

You and your DH have the power to "touch" him and call him to account, so do so. In fact, you are in the best position of anyone, since your (major) gripe with him is about something as objective as money, which is something the law can help with (whereas he has "only" damaged other people's pride and reputations, which the law doesn't help with much until it gets beyond the point of "pub banter").

Get it straight in your head as to what you want (or don't want) from her and put it all in writing. It may take several attempts for it to say what you want, but it is an incredibly effective way of not getting drawn into an argument and saying what needs to be said.

Then draw a line under the whole sorry business - socialise in groups where necessary but I wouldn't invite them/her into my home again.

John and Jenny both sound quite selfish and self absorbed and very involved with themselves - I don't see why your DH had to apologise to a quite unreasonable person for no very good reason.

All I get from these posts is 2 nice people getting pissed around by 2 horrid people.

I wouldn't bother with either of them, and no more money lending - those 2 are parasites.

I assume Jenny was nice until years of exposure to John - she is just a mouthpiece of his by the sound of it.

Your DH is too nice for his own good and you really need to say "piss off you selfish git" to John or Jenny - or both preferably.

Your SIL shouldn't have laughed it off, she should have told him to grow up. My neighbour is a bit of a wind up merchant and it annoys me, instead of getting cross with him or laughing it off, I tell him to stop being a wind up merchant. He knows I don't find it funny, nor am I getting aggressive, but I won't put up with that crap and neither should any of you!

Jinglets you are right - i am avoiding tackling this. Unlike my dh, i really hate and avoid confrontation. i guess i know that it is all going to come to a head between me and jenny sooner or later, but i am reluctant to precipitate that discussion, mainly because i feel that i will say some home truths that will not be appreciated by jenny and will probably signal the end of our 30 year friendship, as naturally, she will side with her dh and defend him.

John has said many stupid things to me over the years, mostly him cracking off colour or insensitive jokes, or sexist remarks, thinking he is being funny. I always brushed it off, even when really irritated, because i didn't want us all to fall out over it, but now, when i look at the whole picture, the debt, the taking my dh and his father for a ride, the way he treats people in general, the amount of people he has upset or offended, not to mention the string of creditors inc my dh, i just think life is too bloody short to spend it with people like this.

My friend jenny was, still is really, a nice kind girl, but she has become over the years more and more like her selfish, arrogant dh and defends him over and over again against any criticism, so our friendship really is at an end, it just hasn't been acknowledged by either of us yet.

With all due respect OP, nice kind people don't act the way you have described Jenny's actions. I think you mean, she was a nice, kind person when you met.

Why the hell not fall out with them, and especially with him?

Well she has changed i think in the 9 years since she has been married to John.

I am going to find it hard to be in their company, but my dh still feels affection for and brotherly responsibility for his cousin john, as johns father died when john was only around 8 or 9, so my dh always makes excuses for john and tolerates stuff he would never tolerate from anyone else.

I am going to ask for this thread to be moved as i think it is more pertinent to relationships.

Sounds like she's playing passive aggressive to get out of paying. Watch her.

If it goes into Relationships, you may have to hear rather harsh things about your DH's indulgence of John. It sounds as though you are more willing to let go of emotion and hold J&J than he (DH) is: could that bring the two of you into conflict? It would be a shame for the two of you to be played off against one another.

(Although, if he really feels brotherly responsibility for John, surely it's best to have a payment plan in place before the business is soild, in order to protect John from more stringent bailiff measures for recovery of the debt?)

I think one way if another you really need to cleAr the air with jenny, you still don't know what DH actually has done to upset her (or what she thinks he has dine). Only when it's all out can you decide if you want yo move forward or take a different way.

PlusCa yes you could be right about that, i suspect it will be an issue between me and dh if i find that i don't want to socialise with them or being in their company much and yet he is still happy to see John.

The business has already been sold, john now owes the money to my dh as a personal debt so, i feel he is even in a weaker position now to ever get the money back as john has no threat of bailiffs etc, and anyway dh would never have gone to court to enforce the debt. I can see us never getting this money back.

notapizzaeater basically jenny took issue with my dh calling up to them back in november to ask them politely, but firmly, to try and settle at least some of their debt, as it was way over what was reasonable, and it was threatening the successful sale of dh's business. Jenny feels my dh was just out to "humiliate" them by his actions. Which is ludicrous really, john has always run up debts of 10k plus from year to year, never ever fully settles his bill, and back in nov actually owed the company 16k. Any other company would have gone to court against john and obtained a judgement order and ultimately got a charge against his property or sent in the bailiffs. I think my dh was, and always has been with john, way too easy on him.

Oh, no, I hadn't realised your DH had taken the debt on himself! That's terrible! Have you two got children, a mortgage/other debts? Is your H going to just let them have 10,00 and potentially more?

Time to take financial advice, for yourself and possibly DH, too, if he's willing. Also, get someone whose opinion really counts eith him (sorry, it seems he's used to your "bias"), to get him to lock up the flow of money to John. As a feminist, I hate to suggest this, but can you get a popular, solvent man to find out about the 10K and call your H a mug?

As for Jenny, it's possible she'll "fall out" with you, now that it's clear you won't pressure DH for you, but hopefully that will just mean no more fake socialising!

Right, taking aside the complex family relationship between your husband and his cousin (x)... And taking aside your tinted view of your friendship with jenny (y) these appear to be the bare facts to strangers:

X and Y owe you a personal debt, which you have carried for years.
When your husband requested partial payment l, Y took personal offence to his request and involved you in it, blanking you for months, then claiming your husband offended her.

Your husband then apologises to X and Y for asking them to partially repay their debt.

jinglets yes thats about it. It sounds like we are being totally pathetic when put starkly like that.

If it were up to me, i wold never have allowed this sort of debt to accrue in the first place, but it all goes back many years, to when my dh's father was running the business and i suppose out of pity for his nephew, having no dad alive etc etc, was very easy on him and accommodating to his not paying bills. (my dh's father and indeed dh are incredibly generous and loyal, and this has been taken advantage of)

When dh took over from FIL, dh continued this style of dealing with john, and i suppose it was even harder to come the heavy about it with john as they had grown up together, are the same age, share the same friends etc

But yes, to look at it objectively, my dh and his father have allowed, through their own misguided kindness, this situation to develop.

PlusCa my dh is hopeful and optimistic that cousin John will eventually clear this debt. Going on all experience to date, i am afraid that i think this is wishful thinking on dh part . i feel it will never be repaid.

Hullo,

We're just going to move this to relationships at the request of the OP.