Bloody ridiculous row but am I overreacting?

[carlywurly]

Been with dp 4 years. He's usually great - caring, loving, kind etc etc. he gets on with all my friends brilliantly - except one. A work colleague of mine who's on the edge of our social circle and who he just couldn't stand from their first meeting.

She's a lovely lady but can be a bit full on and dominating in group situations, mainly due to shyness I think. It is admittedly mildly irritating but grates on dp to the extent he finds her utterly unbearable. He let some mutual friends know how he feels a few weeks ago and has since subtly stayed away from events he knows she will be at.

Yesterday I organised an evening out with another couple and also mentioned it to the same mutual friend in case they wanted to join us. They did but then invited this lady and her partner along without checking with us first. I told dp, expecting him to be annoyed and pull out of going, instead he hit the roof and immediately sent a text to our mutual friend asking for the couple to be uninvited. I told him he was overreacting and he lost the plot and started yelling at me.

Although I can see his point, I was livid at the horribly awkward situation this created, and how angry he got with me as if I'd engineered it. I couldn't get him to discuss it rationally and accept that if he'd just given me chance, I would have dealt with it, I would have called the friend to figure a plan in a diplomatic way.

As it turned out, the mutual friends went out with the couple separately in the end but I had to lie to my colleague at work today about us having cancelled plans, and hate having to do that to someone I personally like.

I'm so angry with dp - I have to socialise with people who annoy me (including his mother!) but get on with it for the sake of being diplomatic.

Sorry, what a rant. Do I need to get a grip?

She does sound horrible when I just list her bad points. She isn't though.

I'd be asking your mutual friend why she was shit-stirring by inviting her along without checking with you first.

The problem is that you have seen the other side of this woman - a good friend, a nice person. Your OH has only seen the public not-so-nice side of this woman, and is entitled to decide she isn't someone he wants in his social life. She's obviously really offended him in some way. He isn't being unreasonable, he hasn't tried to ban you from seeing her, he just doesn't want to be there as well.

But he didn't just decide he didn't want to be there as well. This would have been a reasonable reaction. He rang the mutual friend to try to get the woman uninvited. This was not a reasonable reaction especially as these are the OP's friends.

OP, she sounds awful. She must have offended him. More to the point, how can you not have talked about this?

If your communication with your OH is not so good, and his reaction to a perceived problem is so dramatic, then I guess you can see the writing on the wall.

Do you ever talk over troubling events or arguments afterwards, say the next day, when everything is calm?

I think the friend was wrong to invite this woman in the first place.

I don't go along with the earlier suggestions of some form of history. I think that was a very big leap, to be honest.

Some people do, for whatever reason, really get under our skin. From what you've said about this woman, I wouldn't want to socialise with her either. She may well have really offended him at some point. He had previously done the right thing and subtly stayed away from events she is at.

I do think he has overreacted in yelling at you. I don't necessarily think he was wrong to text the mutual friends, although the wording might make me think otherwise. I invited four friends to come to my flat for New Year's Eve. The day before I discovered one of the friends had taken it upon herself to invite someone else. Which I think is a cheek anyway, but the person was someone I knew OK and didn't mind seeing occasionally in a social situation but was not someone I would want to invite to my flat for New Year's Eve. So I texted my friend and said I was unhappy, they knew I was not overly fond of this person, and I asked them to uninvite them.

Maybe your dp feels like you're putting him in an impossible position with your friends and making him feel uncomfortable though?

His reaction sounds like stress to me, reacting because he felt backed into a corner.

Interesting that you feel he needs to 'represent you' in a specific way. I don't expect my dh to 'be' any specific way. And if my friends upset him, they'd be the ones in the doghouse, not him.

He has a very old friend who I dislike. He's known him for years longer than he's known me. I find him obnoxious and avoid him. Dh has no problem with this.

I'm going to go against the grain here, and say I think your dp is bu.
What exactly has she done to cause such outrage? Nothing really, as far as I can see.

He is behaving absolutely ridiculous! We all have to tolerate people we don't want to but his reaction seems very, very extreme. He is the one who is going to come off looking like a loony. Very childish. Tell him I said, man up!

Show him this thread and get him to respond!

Exactly quitelikely.
I'm not particularly enamoured with one of dh's mates. I'd never kick off like this because he ended up being invited to something along with us, demanding that other friends un-invite him!

Unless she has done something tangible that can be called upon as causing him personal offence, beyond just not being very keen on her, it seems a overblown and inappropriate reaction to me!

It really is a massive over-reaction, and entirely unfair to you.

What I don't understand is why you didn't just go on your own, without DP? It would have been easy to make excuses for him "Oh he's ill" or whatever.

Do you need to be attached at the hip?

He really is not considering you in any of this, so I would wonder what other areas of your life together this sort of attitude would have an impact on...

Yes...when HE is the one with the big problem, then it stand to reason that he is the one who misses out.
It is not for everyone else to scurry around doing his bidding.

I don't think he is unreasonable about their being invited.

If you are invited along to something, it's absolutely rude to invite others along as well without checking, and that goes double when you know that one of the people who invited you doesn't socialise with one of your added-on people. Three couples organised a night out. One of those couples invited extra unwanted guests. Their bad.

Someone who dominates the evening, steals other peoples' food and drinks, is crude and over familiar, and is basically annoying and in your face all the time, I wouldn't socialise with either and I'd be pissed off if she were brought along to something we'd organised as a couple and NOT invited her to.

Someone I know has a husband I loathe. He's crude, dominating, and pushy, and just gets under my skin. What he does and says is actually far less 'crude' than my friends, but they are my friends so they can do it and it makes me laugh, he is not my friend so he is out of order and offends me. I no longer go to anything where he'll be around.

We take things from friends that we don't from other people. You don't mind how she is because she is your friend. She acts in this way around other people before they are friends; meaning they never become her friends as she puts them off. She's blown it with your OH. Why are you only worried about how he behaves around her - what about how she's behaved around him? Why didn't she try to behave nicely/make a good impression? She has as much responsibility as he does to get along.

Wow thanks everyone, some really interesting responses. In fairness, dp was really looking forward to the dinner and catching up with the people who did go, and I think having missed out on other occasions, he didn't want to miss the one we'd actually tried to organise ourselves. Normally he would just back out discreetly and he fully admits it's his own issue and the extent of his dislike is irrational. .

We do generally communicate well and bicker and resolve things in a normal, healthy manner. This was like lighting a touch paper though, and I've never felt as uneasy with him as I felt this weekend. We just couldn't seem to see things the same way.

You are right about the mutual friend. She should have known it wouldn't end well. His text to her was civil enough, he basically apologised for being an arse about things but would she mind uninviting them?

Not so much of an issue about that, more the massive loss of temper and overreaction towards me. I don't know what to do about that bit but we will have to talk properly soon.

Sunbathe, I think you've hit the nail on the head when you say it may have been a stress response. Despite having what I'd personally consider a massively stressful job, he doesn't handle social stress well at all.

Certainly don't understand the magnitude of your DP's reaction last night, but I do understand what it is to take a strong aversion to someone, even though I might absolutely know nothing bad about them. I can't help it and I find it very hard to even be civil to someone that has aroused that aversion.
I am normally easy going and not that picky, but every now and then I meet someone like that and I just have to avoid them, if only for their sake.