Wife says I have a problem. More arguments

[DadSpeaking]

We have some friends that we regularly meet up with 6/7 times per year. His wife is lovely and her husband is too..except when he has had a lot to drink. My wife says he just very friendly and what he does is just banter and I over react. But I feel he oversteps the mark and he makes me feel uncomfortable each time. But it seems now to be getting a little worse each time.

This week we attended a funeral and went to the wake where there some.drinking after..I was there with my wife and not drinking. His fiancee was very busy with the people so we were left more with him chatting. He was his usually multiple huggy self but nothing I was concerned with at that point. He always focuses his chat towards my wife rather than engage both as a couple.

I left to get the car and move onto the wake house. His fiancee went in another car and he came out with my wife and 3 other from the wake going back. We didn't really know these other so realtive strangers. He always seems to manage to be in a position where he is near my wife but this could be me of course. There was too many for the run, 5 but instead of my wife going in the front of her own car. He manoeverd his brother in law to the front(who was going to walk the short journey) and sat in the back saying to my wife she could sit on his knee. She didn't but thankfully but squeezing in on the end of the seat but they were all squashed together her sort of tilting into him sort of side on.

As we drove on he announced to me and the 3 strangers. That he could feel all my wife's bumps and he was really enjoying it. I was dumbstruck and the joke as my wife calls it was met with complete silence In the car.

We went into the house and I didn't want to say anything or cause a fuss at wake house. We stayed for maybe another hour. Where he kept coming up putting his arm around my wife and hugging etc saying how lovely she was. His fiancee was off again so not around as normal (to keep him in check). He did this again only this time telling me I was punching above my weight. Done in a jokey way but I felt less jokey and more of a dominance show. He the. Turned around to fa e her front showing his back to me and was almost in a kissing position where he proceeded to whisper into her ear. I thought this all very strange but could not cause a fuss at such a sensitive place.

He did this a final time again up close and personal. I don't know what he said in her ear..but my wife was slightly taken a back. Before saying "you wish." We announced we were leaving to collect our kids.

I was quiet on the way back and as this normally would result in argument I said nothing. But as time passed I began to get more upset l over..so I raised it with her and said I wasn't happy about all that gone on with him and asked what he whispered to her. She said that he had just whispered a joke that she couldn't remember now. It was nothing hardly worth remembering. It made no sense to me that a. She couldn't remember and it could have been a few words which would have been difficult as a joke. Maybe insulting but that would invoke the surprised and 'you wish" response.

I really wasn't bothered and held my wife at no fault at all, I just felt he was taking advantage of my wife's good nature and wanted to know what was said. By the reaction and words I was already guessing exactly what he said..If she just told me we could have just moved on..

I now started to get concerned and pressed more, I felt her diversion, gulps and lack of eye contact were seemingly untruthful. I may went to far and said I felt she was lying to me that she did know because she could recall everything from the evening except this specific bit. She just kept brushing off as a joke she couldn't remember or why she had said that to him.

Cut to now. We are really arguing, she is telling me I am totally blowing this out of proportion it was all just banter and screaming at me to drop it. Now she denies even saying you wish and being shocked at all, despite admitting prior she had said it to the joke he had whispered.

This has gone from her being totally not to blame for anything to now having major concerns by me why she may or may not be lying to me.

She is telling me just drop it. But there is this nagging instinct as I had witnessed first hand it all was not right.

We are going away with them in Easter and I don't want to go..she is now saying I am being ridiculous. Am I..I am at a loss what to do!! I feel I can't ask her anymore but I feel I need to get to the truth.

Help

Your poor wife, stuck between your obnoxious lechy friend and a husband flexing his territorial muscle.

Look: your friend is horrible. But your wife is handling it her way, doubtless because she doesn’t want to cause a scene for the fiancée, or have you charge in on her behalf and punch him. Metaphorically or actually.

You keep saying you are not blaming her but you are pressuring her

She hasn’t asked for your help. It is patronising and sexist to presume to act on her behalf.

However his behaviour is horrible. Tell him, as a friend, but on your own behalf. The ‘Mate’ campaign had its drawbacks but the truth is that you should challenge his behaviour because of what it is and whoever is the target.

Then it’s between you and him

it you don’t have the deciding factor over how your wife chooses to deal with it.

Women are not objects to be fought over.

Is he like this with other women too, or just your wife? It's odd that she doesn't seem to be putting up any resistance to his blatant sex pesting. It would have been pretty easy to avoid sitting next to him in the car, or to manoeuvre herself away when he's cosying up to her in the house. That she doesn't even seem to see his behaviour as inappropriate suggests she's completely fine with it. Are you certain they aren't having an affair?

It does sound like he's trying to provoke a response out of you - he wants to make you get angry and aggressive towards him, and then he'll act all innocent and try and make you look like a plonker or the bad guy. But equally, being totally passive is making you look like a right chump too. You need to come across as confident and unthreatened by his advances on your wife. So the solution is to call him out in humiliating ways. For example - when he puts his arm round her/keeps hugging her excessively, tap him on the shoulder and ask if you can get him a drink when he's finished suffocating your wife. When he tells you you're punching above your weight reply that she's lucky to have a husband who isn't your typical perv/womaniser. Maybe throw in the odd joke about her flirting with him/got him under her spell. When the two of them are being cosy and cutting you out of the conversation you make jokey comments about partner swapping and pretending to approach his wife. Your aiming to give the message that you (and everyone else in the room) is well aware of what he's doing, but at the same time taking the higher moral ground.

If your wife has anything about her, she'll join in with you and joke at his expense too. However, as I said above, I suspect she actually likes his attention so don't be surprised if she sides with him (massive red flag right there).

How ridiculous most women don't say anything. It's embarrassment not wanting more fuss or to be accused of leading him on, conditioning over years etc....but most men always say you must like it, be having an affair it's your fault you led him on etc. .....and guess what your attitude is why they don't say anything.

Just say to him I don't like the way you treat women it's not acceptable and is the exact misogynistic shit that is being complained of in the news and belongs in the 70s

Ignore the man haters on here who reveal themselves by calling you names for being bothered by some guy insulting you and sleazing on your wife. You are not wrong here. Btw you don’t mention your ages.

You need to reframe the issue, his fiancé is your friend. He is along for the ride, if that relationship ended it sounds like you would happily cut him out.

Your wife’s behaviour is unusual, in making excuses to you about inappropriate behaviour from another man. There is a reasons people are flagging the issue of her enjoying it/having an affair.

You should be concerned with her behaviour towards you over this, it is not normal in a healthy relationship. The obvious starters is the lying and gaslighting. Beyond that if you express concerns about how someone is treating both of you she should be able to see your side, even if she considers a student rugby team environment as “normal” for grown adults.

What others have failed to understand is who is entitled to decide how to act in this situation. Obviously, his whispering something to her is her choice of how she would like it addressed. However, her keeping it a secret is weird. The way he speaks to you is entirely up to you to decide how to respond. It doesn’t require some kind of “approval” from your wife.

I suggest you simply tell her that you have decided you will not be going away at Easter. Tell her you will speak to the actual friend and explain that her fiancé’s inappropriate behaviour has made this necessary.

If your wife has any issue with this, trying to minimise the behaviour as “banter,” inform her that on future occasions when you are in the same social environment you will be referring to him as “sleazy [John]” or creepy/pervy/etc. as you feel like. If it is a teen boy banter situation you ought to play your part. If she has an issue with you “bantering” but not him then she has shown something that needs addressing.

I would also point out that his behaviour of sleazing on women with the plausible deniability of “it’s just banter” is the sort of behaviour which would be a way for him to test the water with women if he were looking to cheat on your friend.

An additional question.
You suggested he is a problem when he is drinking not sober. But this behaviour between the funeral and the wake sounds like it would be an odd time for him to be drunk (you didn’t mention he is a known alcoholic). So is his behaviour like this when sober as well?

That's a rather 1950's attitude to it. Most women I know would certainly say something - they'd shut him down in a millisecond. Many would humiliate him for good measure. But even for those that wouldn't, it's easy to kill it subtly just with body language or discreet behaviour (e.g. making a polite excuse to get away from the situation). Especially with their partner and other people there to have her back - it's not like in a lone situation where a woman may well feel more vulnerable.

It's similar to any other social interaction - doing nothing (not even leaning back or turning away in this particular example) conveys the signals that you're receptive to the situation/conversation. It's a basic adult social skill to be able to indicate that you aren't.

That would depend on how you have been conditioned to respond. Age and experience I've known 20 something's who are not confident enough to react as you say, I've known 50 plus who just accept they shouldn't cause a fuss and it's what men are like. You can't say it's an affair because of how she reacts she will also be thinking of her friend and not upsetting her.

Exactly this!

we had a creepy guy in a mutual friend group he always made a beeline for me and made comments ect I always used to try to avoid him/ redirect his conversation I am not very confident and definitely not one for confrontation but my now DH would always say in a jokey loud voice something along the lines of bit tight on personal space there John or how’s your wife today or he would simply come and put his arm around me.

always made him crawl away I was always relived.