My friend is just on the verge of buying a house with her partner of five years. He comes with a couple of kids and an ex-wife who he has just got divorced from.
I have known my friend for 20 odd years. She's lovely, has always worked hard and has done well for herself. I'm really glad that she is moving on with her life and has found a great new house, etc. However, both DH and I absolutely cannot stand her DP so much so that we have purposely avoided him for the last two years. On the rare occasion we did see him prior to that it got to the point that he had absolutely nothing to say to us (i.e. going for lunch and giving one word answers/not engaging in conversation, sitting on his mobile phone while she is standing near the door chatting as we are leaving after staying the night, etc.).
We're in a very good financial position but you wouldn't realise it to look at us (think small house, two older cars, etc.). Also no one is aware that our mortgage is paid off.
In contrast, he likes his wealth to be visible (car, clothes, house) and his friends we have met are very similar. A lot of this attitude has rubbed off on my friend and when we met the other day everything we discussed had a value attached to it and she will only ever buy brands (i.e. Ted Baker, Joules, Barbour, etc.) when she was previously a bit of a Next girl.
She had a really lovely group of friends where she is (a bit of a distance from me). They were all different and really down to earth but they all seem to have disappeared (new DP wasn't really interested in them and referred to them as the 'oddballs'). She now only ever seems to socialise with his friends and occasionally me.
It possibly sounds like sour grapes but I am actually quite concerned for her as I think the fancy trappings are a bit of an illusion. She is putting a huge chunk of money into the house (about half of the value). She gave me an indication of the monthly mortgage payments/interest rate which would equate to the other half of the value based on 25 years. I can't really ask her if he is actually putting any equity in (had house with ex-wife). He loves going to Las Vegas (at least once a year), going to the races, etc. and I'm really concerned for her that he doesn't actually have a pot to piss in.
In addition to all this I am absolutely dreading having to go to their new house. DH has told me to just go and wear a tupperware smile when the time comes. However, he is the nicest, most rational and accepting human being you could hope to meet which makes the fact that being in agreement on disliking her DP even worse!
What would you do? I'm on the verge of letting this friendship drift because I just don't know how to deal with it. 