Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Weddings

Chat to other Mumsnetters on our Wedding forum.

My husband wasn’t asked to stag do

63 replies

Bizbybee · 17/06/2025 11:47

My husband wasn’t asked to our friends stag do, we do class them both as friends as she has been our bridesmaid and mine/our long time friend of 20 plus years. He wasn’t asked to her partners stag when her other close friends partners were. We waited but no invite as extended. We have always been there for them both from babysitting to building bunk beds. I know my husband and her partner wouldn’t be supper close or anything but he’s always there when needed. It feels crap because she has me planning and doing her wedding decor because that’s my thing but now I’m feeling like shit and have her hen do next weekend. I don’t let things go and I do hold onto things so I’m trying very hard to not let this consume me as I don’t want to wreck the experience of my friend getting married. They decided to get married quickly a few months ago and we changed our summer holiday as it was booked so date of wedding. Obviously we didn’t want to miss her wedding but now I’m like why did I even bother if that’s what he thinks of me and my hubby who have always been there for them.

OP posts:
DontTouchRoach · 17/06/2025 14:42

SecondWoman · 17/06/2025 12:22

You’re a people-pleaser with poor boundaries, and you’re doing the classic people-pleaser thing of trotting around after someone providing services while seething with suppressed, possibly unconscious, resentment that they’re not reciprocated. Now you’ve realised that your services haven’t bought you what you thought they were entitled to. You being ‘too nice’ hasn’t got your boyfriend a stag invitation from her fiancé. He clearly just thinks of him as his fiancée’s friends’ boyfriend, rather than a friend of his.

Exactly.

You and the bride are friends. Her fiance and your husband are not friends.

There is absolutely no reason why your friend's partner should feel obliged to invite your husband on his stag do just because you've made a martyr of yourself with your friend. Your husband is just a bloke to whom one of his girlfriend's mates happened to be married.

You're being really weird about this whole thing to be honest.

MoistVonL · 17/06/2025 14:43

He’s not the groom’s friend, he’s basically your Plus One. They don’t have an independent friendship. “Fiancée’s friend’s husband” isn’t a close relationship unless they’ve built a bond, and it appears they haven’t.

Don’t let the lack of closeness between the husbands get in the way of a long-standing friendship with your mate.

And definitely remind her to send the money for the wedding decor.

justkeepswimingswiming · 17/06/2025 14:54

id be giving her the bill for the decor you brought and be giving her the wide birth from now on!

Bizbybee · 17/06/2025 14:59

No I don’t think it’s that, my hubby is a joker but it could be that the people going would be up to stuff my husband wouldn’t do…would be more like it. But he also wouldn’t give a shit what others do that’s their business lol

OP posts:
SecondWoman · 17/06/2025 15:01

Bizbybee · 17/06/2025 12:27

Yeah I totally am all of the above, I’ll not be running getting any of other wedding decor for her. It’s her problemo

And sorry, OP, I didn’t intend any of that nastily — I was running out the door and it came out more trenchantly than I intended.

See it as a learning moment. People-pleasing fundamentally doesn’t work.

You can’t exchange services for friendship, and you certainly can’t exchange your services for overtures of friendship to be extended towards your husband by the fiancé of the person you’re performing services for. That’s a pretty complicated set of obligations and services there.

Look at exactly what your expectations were here, and ask yourself why you were doing these things for your friend, and what it is about your husband not being invited to the stag that has made you realise that other people see the set of relations differently. I mean, you say ‘we were there for her’ before she met her fiancé, and that she was your bridesmaid, but she’s not the one having the stag do! You say her other close friends’ partners were all invited, but presumably the groom thinks of them as his friends, not hers. He doesn’t think of your DH that way. That’s not anything your DH or the groom are doing wrong. They’re just not friends.

ETA And if this has upset you, you should think hard about why you are doing things for your friend. Do things for others because you want to, and not unless. Doing them with implicit conditions attached that only you’re aware of isn’t going to work for anyone, including the bride, if you’re clearly upset on her hen do because you think your services should have elicited an invitation to the stag for your DH.

Bizbybee · 17/06/2025 15:03

Yes i can see what you saying is correct if my personality. And I have suffered childhood and adult trauma that has led to fibromyalgia in my late 30s which is all linked. I’m trying to change my mindset and slowly it’s happening.

OP posts:
ChandrilanDiscoDroid · 17/06/2025 15:09

SecondWoman · 17/06/2025 12:22

You’re a people-pleaser with poor boundaries, and you’re doing the classic people-pleaser thing of trotting around after someone providing services while seething with suppressed, possibly unconscious, resentment that they’re not reciprocated. Now you’ve realised that your services haven’t bought you what you thought they were entitled to. You being ‘too nice’ hasn’t got your boyfriend a stag invitation from her fiancé. He clearly just thinks of him as his fiancée’s friends’ boyfriend, rather than a friend of his.

All of this.

If you do anything as a result of this situation, let it be reexamining your martyr tendencies and cutting them back, not, repeat NOT, having a go at the couple for accurately recognising that your partner isn't one of the groom's close friends.

Bizbybee · 17/06/2025 15:13

Don’t worry I didn’t take it harsh at all, I’ve been trying to set boundaries with friends that I’ve been burnt with previously and working on myself and how I view things differently than others. She knows me so well and how to play me down to a fine art.. truth be told she’s my/our friend and I know she loves my hubby for different support over the years. I can see our partners don’t have much in common.

OP posts:
Bizbybee · 17/06/2025 15:16

Hardly she asked me to sort out the decor she was away for two weeks.

OP posts:
CarpetKnees · 17/06/2025 15:21

Have to agree with everyone else.

Stags don't generally invite 'fiance's friend's partner' on their stag do. It is an even for the people he is closest to.
Same as a hen do. You want to spend the time with people you love and people you laugh with, not feel obliged to ask your dh2b' mate's partner who you might get on well enough with as a couple, but with whom you have no history.

You have now (at 15.13) even said "Our partners don't have much in common" so there is absolutely no reason he would be invited.

The decor thing is separate. When she asked you, you needed to say "Oh, I'd be delighted to - you know I love that stuff. What's your budget?" It's not difficult. She was asking for your artistic eye / creative flair not for you to be out of pocket.

BlueandPinkSwan · 17/06/2025 15:42

Bizbybee · 17/06/2025 12:17

Yeah she knows I’m too kind and go over and above for my friends, like I’ve purchased decor she wanted as well she didn’t offer to pay for it and I know it’s a rush wedding and finances are tight. But if I didn’t order the stuff we talked about she wouldnt have she’s kind of left it all to me.

She's being a bit of a cf in not paying you.
'Can't afford it? You can't have it, or wait and save, if you still want it then go ahead, if not you've got the money in your pocket' has always been my go to.
As a result I've hardly ever been in debt, bar mortgage and that finished early due to my go to belief.
Don't let people keep taking the piss out of you OP, people like that are NOT your friends.

ChandrilanDiscoDroid · 17/06/2025 18:11

Can you please just... ask her for the money for the decor instead of stewing on it? It's one of those annoying bits of admin that can easily be out of sight, out of mind for people who are perfectly happy to pay when prompted. Yes, she "should" proactively offer to pay, but part of being a grownup is also asking directly for what you need rather than hoping people guess and then stewing when they don't.

winter8090 · 17/06/2025 18:50

I think you summed it up. The husbands are not close friends and are friends by virtue of your friendship with the bride.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page