Am I wrong for feeling let down?

[PawsAndReflection]

I recently held a landmark birthday party for my SO with all his friends and family, which went off (largely) without a hitch.

However, a couple who we are both very good friends with (he went to uni with the husband, and the wife is my best friend) are currently going through a divorce. It’s largely amicable, however, the husband has started drinking quite a bit more and can get very aggressive. He’s 6”4, loud and quite broad. He’s also quite traditional when it comes to gender roles, but this only ever seems to be picked up by women and not the men in his life.

I’ve always had an odd relationship with the husband, I’ve tried to get on with him and always thought that we did quite well but there have been times when I pulled him up for how he’s spoken to me or his wife, particularly when we went on holiday with them last year. However, by and large I considered him a friend- we have a lot in common and have had some great times together.

As soon as the couple arrived with the party, he started drinking quite heavily and being quite loud and obnoxious to other guests. I was doing the rounds and making sure everyone had enough food/ drink and when I approached his table to check in on them, he turned to me, told me to “fuck off” and with both hands shoved me so hard I almost lost my footing. Only a couple of people saw this and checked if I was okay, meanwhile, he had already turned his back on me to continue his conversation.

I was so taken aback I didn’t mention it to my partner until we got home later and I was a little disappointed at his reaction. He said obviously, it was completely out of order, but “he’s going through a divorce, his mum just died, et cetera”. I said there was no excuse, and I could have been seriously hurt and if he wasn’t going to raise it with his friend then I would, as I deserved an apology.

My SO has always been my biggest champion and is a wonderful person, however I know he really struggles with confrontation. It’s now been two weeks and he’s yet to do anything with it, I’m assuming he’s hoping he’ll just go away but the longer it goes on the worse I feel.

Last night I told him his response showed how he’s prioritising his friendship over me, and that if he’d just dealt with it immediately then we would have already moved on. But I’m still not convinced he even gets my perspective on this, and it’s really making me rethink our relationship for the first time in a very long time.

I’m at my wits end with it, and the fact I’m even having to ask him is giving me a case of the ick- what the fuck do I do?

I agree we don’t need other people wading in to protect us from verbal altercations, but do people really tell their partners that it’s nothing to do with them when they are assaulted.

No amount grief or stress makes it acceptable to put your hands on someone, even a shove.

Your SO I either a coward or craves acceptance from other people, regardless of their character, so much that your feelings and wellbeing mean nothing to him

It is most likely to be shock, and op froze. It is very common. The reason it is niggling is probably because she was unable to address the terrible and violent behaviour at the time, and her dh doesn’t seem to think there is anything wrong with assaulting women.

She has two problems now, one being the lame response and lack of support from her own dh. It says a lot about how little he values her.

If you drive badly, it’s really not ‘the man’s job’ to sit scowling or hurling verbal abuse from the passenger seat. It helps no one, and makes him look like an idiot. If you are regularly attracting ire and horn-blowing from other road users because of your inconsiderate driving, I really don’t see why you think your boyfriend telling passing drivers to fuck off or that it’s ’not happening’ (when it clearly is) is some kind of white knight.

It just sounds like a carload of bad driving and secondhand road rage.

It was a bad example and you wasn’t in the car to know what had happened. He still
wont allow a man to do that ok beep once and show you’re there or annoyed but someone literally didn’t give in but would he have done that if it was a male driving? Probably not. And another example a tractor nearly hit me once with our newborn in the car I was at lights and he was trying to enter into the road from a field or something and he didn’t care that I was already there before he appeared.

my point is in relationships we should be backing the other person to the ground and then saying what we thought in private hence why he has said to me before you shouldn’t have done this or that was your fault
but I wasn’t going to allow that to happen. Imagine attacking someone on
a thread completely missing the point. @ChickenEggChicken

@ChickenEggChicken i hope you don’t make silly mistakes while
driving like everyone else on the road does.

TBH I was shocked by what this man did to you so it's not great that your partner doesn't seem bothered by this behaviour at all.

I agree that you should set your own boundaries and refuse to ever be in his presence again and that it is not necessarily up to your partner to fight this battle for you, but he should be furious with his friend who actually physically assaulted you. I would be re-thinking your relationship.

If he’d shoved me on my birthday and told me to fuck off id have told him to get the fuck out there and then. I appreciate I have a low tolerance for men like that and I’m used to having to stand up for myself. As for your SO he sounds like a weak useless twerp.

Everyone makes mistakes, sure, but the idea that when you make said mistakes, you keep an angry man in the passenger seat telling people overtaking or using their horns to fuck off is the oddity here!

You sound quite mad, @angelco, if your idea of ‘backing someone to the ground’ involves a backseat driver whose job appears to be swearing at other road users when you make driving mistakes.

Kick them both to the kerb. Misogynist wankers.

I have a mental image of angelco's other half and it's of a rather primitive individual.

I think fine on the night not.to respond perfectly but your partner should be sticking up for you here. It's one thing for this man to be a bit obnoxious but another for him to get physical.

I don't think you have to manage this alone. I think you're a united front, if anything its your partner's primary friend,.not yours, and you've managed his behaviour hitherto but this is a step to far.

if this man is too much of a machoist tosser to apologise I think your partner should approach it rationally but be willing to lose the friendship over it. Pushing people around is not acceptable.

I would have another conversation
No deflection. You want his support in approaching this friend about his behaviour and you'd like a genuine apology..I don't see what argument he would have about that. If not, he can explain himself bloody thoroughly.

So this guy swore at you and physically assaulted you. The guy has not apologized meanwhile your SO is making excuses. Your SO may want to brush it under the carpet but I think you need to set boundaries so both the guy and your husband realise this is disgusting behaviour. I suggest you go no contact with this “friend” and tell your SO you won’t socialise with this man. If it had been a genuine stupid drunken moment the guy would have apologized, he didn’t and by others making excuses it just condones and encourages this behavior.

This is exactly it. I’m usually a very assertive person but as it came completely out of the blue and he’s quite an intimidating person (physically) I just sort of went into shock and pretended everything was fine. Trust me, I would have loved to say I kicked him
in the balls but addressing a hypothetical circumstance and actually experiencing it are two very different things.

So forgive yourself for pretending everything was fine, which is a fairly common response to trauma, and consider whether part of your anger at your husband is displaced anger at your own initial lack of reaction. The thug in question is a ‘friend’ of both of you — of course you should be the one to raise it with him. You were the victim of his attack. I would approach it more in terms of letting him know exactly how outrageous his assault was, rather than hoping for a genuine apology or any kind of validation, which may not be forthcoming. I wouldn’t want you to feel even worse after talking to him, and unfortunately, it’s a possibility if his response is ‘Oh, you can’t take a joke’ or ‘Can’t remember, I was drunk’ or ‘You’re imagining it’.

That wasn't my point. I was asking @PawsAndReflection for more details of how this actually happened as her post lacks in detail about the actual event.

make it plain to your SO that you will have nothing to do with his abusive friend and that you are disgusted by his lack of support to you and you are seriously assessing if you want to continue the relationship with him. His friend bloody pushed you! That should never be acceptable.

He pushed you and swore at you and your oh did nothing?
Pathetic.
He should have been kicked out immediately.

This ^^

Posts suggesting otherwise should be ignored.

OP has been assaulted. I don't understand why people think she should have to deal with her assailant.
Of course her DP should tell his friend the thug that the reason he won't be seeing him again is because he can't and won't condone violence against women. And the way these thugs work, trying to position themselves as the alpha male, if DP hasn't said anything to him, it's as if he is accepting his own position as less, as submissive to the bully, who will feel that he can insult and attack his friend's woman with impunity. Sorry,I haven't explained it very well, but the bully will see himself as superior to DP, it's showing a lack of respect to DP as well as to OP.
It's pretty shocking that no one stood up for OP at the time.

I would feel very let down and I’m more than capable of standing up for myself - usually. It’s not ok for him to make excuses for this guy and I totally get that you’re looking for a bit of support here. If I was in that situation with one of my girlfriends I would of course support my husband and wouldn’t be able to resume a decent relationship with that friend until we’d come to some sort of resolution. To suggest it’s nothing to do with your SO is ridiculous. It’s not a work colleague or someone you know independently of him. Perhaps you could ask him how he’d feel if it was the other way around.

I had a similar situation many years ago with a family member, who was drunk, screaming, swearing in my face and waving his fist at me in front of my husband and sons because one of my young sons had accidently broken his fishing rod. My husband, who, by the way is in law enforcement, stood by and watched it happen. I swear to you that I have never looked at him in the same way since. We are still married 20 years later but I would never depend on him to stand up for me or protect me. Ever. He is so obsessed with people liking him that he would never make waves.

What a wimp I can tell you my partner would have thrown him out there and then. You must have been really shaken up. Don't socialise or speak to him again.

Not if he didn’t know about it. The OP didn’t tell her partner until they got home.

It’s just odd because he’s stood up for me many times before, even with his friends, but there’s just something about this situation where he just seems so eager for us to move on.