Do you like your friends' husbands?

[notasize10yetbutoneday]

A good friend is getting married soon. We went for dinner with her and her DH to be last night, as we do every couple of weeks and I suppose the fact that the wedding is looming has got me thinking that to be honest I'm really not keen on him. He's always putting her down in a 'jokey' way, takes numerous phonecalls when we are supposed to be having dinner (not work related), never asks anything about anyone and barely responds to any questions we ask.

I suppose the bigger issue as well is that in his last relationship he had two affairs, the last one being with my friend. He split up with the woman he was with to be with my friend. He is a very 'closed' book sort of person, doesn't give much away and bottom line is I don't trust him.

Now obviously I'm not about to share my opinions with my friend- its none of my business and for all I know he could be charm personified behind closed doors.

But it just got me thinking, how important is it to like your friend's husband? Can a friendship survive if you aren't keen on them?

Yes, it can, but you have to be careful IMO. I loathe a fair few of my friends' husbands in all honesty, but I suppose I don't ever really socialise with them as couples. My friends are my friends not their extended add ons. In the same way dp sees his mates too and moans how Stepfordy most of their wives are.

I suppose your friend knows her husband to be is likely to a greater or lesser degree to have affairs as she started off as one of them, so she knows what she's getting into on that front.

I think there are many, many red flags with regards to this man.

I would stay in touch with your friend after they get married. The scales will fall from her eyes soon enough.

As for him I would be and remain civil towards him in her company. You do not need to be friends at all, your friendship is with her.

Would be very careful what you say to her when alone if he is mentioned; she may not take at all kindly to anything negative re him and she likely won't listen anyway.

I cannot stand either of my two best friend's partners, they're both a couple of arseholes. One has manic depression and the other is bi-polar which makes them very difficult to live with. Aside from their mental problems they're also just unpleasant people who treat women like crap and are rude.

My two can't stand them either though, one has split up and the other is in the process of kicking out her partner. Thank goodness.

It does make our friendships different to how you might expect other friendships between people in couples to be. We never socialise as couples, only ever just us women and our children but we have all been friends for more than 20 years so it hasn't affected the longevity of friendships just how we spend time together.

I do think it's a shame that we can't all see each other together(they both like my DP) but hopefully they'll both find, new, nice men and we can, if not we'll carry on as we are.

I think it's hard. A good friend really didn't like my husband when we first met. It made things awkward. Twelve years on, DH and I are very happy and I don't see her any more.

I was suspicious of another friend's fiancee. She supported him through college after only months of being together. They have been married for 16 years now and are about as happy as any couple could be. I'm so glad I didn't share my reservations as I still have my lovely friend and have grown to like and respect her husband too.

I like most of my friends' husbands/partners but, in most cases, they are second or even third significant others. I actually can't think of a single one I don't like. Now, some of my male friends' wives are a different matter do not mention money grabbing weirdo mantra.

I'm fortunate, I suppose (without being smug), that my friends are either in good, healthy relationships (now!) or are single. I suspect, however, that most of my friends despair of my taste in me but are all too polite to say anything until we've finished!

You can't win though. I had one very close friend who was with a total arse for about two years and I loathed him. I expressed my reservations early in the relationship and, for unrelated reasons, they then split but then made up. Two years down the line, he's ripped her off for over £30k and left her in bits. She gave me hell for not telling her what I really thought of him. What can you do? Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

I used to loathe my sister's husband when he was her boyf. He was arrogant, argumentative and acted superior. A real arsehole. Since they got married he's a much nicer, much softer person. It's almost like he doens't feel he has to prove himself anymore iyswim.

I also don't like the husband of my best friend from school. He's also very arrogant and all he ever talks about is work or football/golf so we have very little conversational common ground. He also always seemed very suspicious of my influence of her and would often inivte himself along on girl's nights, which was bizarre given that I've been with my partner for 20 years and she as always the wild one. I guess this is one of the reasons why we've drifted apart and I haven't seen her for about 3 years.