personal light bulb moment, trivial, just wanted to get it off my chest

[vezzie]

I have a friend with two children the same age as mine. We've spent a lot of time together on 2 maternity leaves. I find her husband difficult, but who cares - I don't see him nearly as much as I see her and I didn't marry him, she did. However I have always been a little puzzled by the strength of my reaction to him - how apparently trivial interactions live on in my mind, riling me for far longer than necessary, and I have often tried to talk myself out of this. I have sometimes wondered why he doesn't seem to like me and what I have done that might have got us off on the wrong foot.

FINALLY I have realised that it is nothing to do with him not liking me.

Everything he has ever said or done to me makes complete sense if you look at it through the prism that he doesn't regard women (he does this to all his wife's friends) as fully human. He talks over me, tells my friend to do other things, in or out of the house, as if I were not there (me and my dcs having been invited over by her to spend time with her and her dcs), he sits down in a chair I have momentarily got out of to wipe a nose, leaving me standing or looking for another one, appears when "working from home" and tucks into food that my friend was about to offer to me, etc. All this is pretty rude and I interpreted it to mean he didn't want me around and wondered why. He is superficially friendly, says hello, etc, so why does he behave as if I were not there or he wishes I were not? I suddenly realise: if you imagine I were a dog, all this would be normal. In his mind it would be ridiculous for you to imagine that his wife's time or attention is taken up by an ignorable entity like a woman, a mere other mother.

That is all. I feel clarity now.

I find prioritising one relationship (to that extent) so much to be a weird idea.

I share a home with extended family. We're obviously a family unit, and very close. But no one would suggest that my relationships with them should take such precedence over my other relationships. So that friends should leave if one of the came back unexpectedly from work. Yet they still provide the support and care (going both ways I hope) that one romantic partnership would in many ways.

I'm not saying people shouldn't place their romantic relationship at the top of their own hierarchy if it suits them - but to the extent that you can't have other people around if you're both home? That seems bizarre to me!

i think it is a feminist issue because women, i find, tend to make an effort to be friendly and welcoming and accommodating to their male partners friends, colleagues etc yet on many occasions i've had to put up with the discomfort and shock of someone's partner being really bloody ignorant and rude. the thing is i felt less offended for me than i did for the female friend because the male in question obviously didn't have enough basic respect for her to give thought to how he was making her look in the eyes of her friend.

Wait, what? You can only have friends over when you are home alone? Why? I don't do any such things with my friends I should keep secret from the rest of the family members.

rubyrubyruby, no it didn't occur to me at first either, partly I think because it is natural (egotism!) to assume that the person is responding to you in a way that is all about you. I did. However, it just makes a bit more sense if I look at it in this different way.
Your comments are interesting though. It is interesting that you use expressions like "hanging around" and imply that the presence of someone else shows disrespect for the family unit. Maybe this is how he sees it.

I see it differently (of course): my friend has two children who are absolute physical livewires (in a way that mine are not) and so I let her call the shots about where we meet and do whatever is easier for her. I give her a lot of support with her kids (she gives me a lot of support too, but I need less physical back-up with mine, who will let me make a sandwich without danger of death and destruction happening behind my back), and when I am in her house on a day when we have arranged to do kid-wrangling together, I regard us as colleagues in a work place. (Yes, this is pompous, but dammit I work as hard on maternity leave as I do in the workplace and I value strong team mates as highly.) When he decides to work from home (on the day, without telling my friend in advance and she has already made arrangements with me), I see it as: we are now sharing the workplace, he is going to use his home office which is in the same building as where we're working. He seems to see it as: now this building should be set up to meet my needs, as should everyone in it, because I am here. And he doesn't see me as a worker using some of the same space (not that he needs to work in the kitchen when we're in it, he just drifts in - surely if he actively disliked me he wouldn't?) he just - doesn't quite see me.

Anyway, that's a work day, not family time. Please elaborate on why having friends over in family time is disrespectful? Many of my friends work hard in the week, is it wrong for me to ask someone over for coffee or dinner on a saturday? (I mean clearly not, for us, but would it be in your house?)

btw I do think it is a feminist issue, because I think he isn't respecting us as workmates, because we are women doing women's work (looking after small children).

He sounds like a prize wazzock. There are a lot of them about. I would imagine he also treats 'lesser' males in the same way. Bollock-swinging gorillas generally do. Pull him on it and watch his look of befuddlement. Just for giggles. He'll resemble a dog presented witth an algebra problem.

I don't expect my friends to leave when DH gets in
It has never occurred to me to leave when my friends partners get home
I always have a nice chat with them
Am I doing it wrong?

I think that vezzie is best placed to sense where his behaviour is coming from.

There are some men I have met (usually at work) who basically do not feel that women should be there apart from in a support capacity and to look at. Most of them try to cover it up but they always give themselves away. In the way they behave / speak.

i think actually people commonly don't invite friends over at weekend or on an evening if they're married. as a single parent it is pretty apparent that those times are out of bounds even with people who are clambering to spend time with me in the week during school hours.

But the woman has invited vezzie over.

But if you thought your partner would be working, and in fact (s)he supposedly is, but from home, and you invited someone over and the partner appears unexpectedly to drift around picking at sandwiches etc, should the guest scurry away? Even if asked to stay? If the friend said, "I'm sorry, I know we had planned to do such and such together today, but now your husband has appeared I had better make myself scarce," and you said, "no, stay, he's working, we've got plans" would you say: "NO DON'T TRY TO PERSUADE ME TO STAY, I WILL TEAR MY CHILD AWAY FROM THE TRAIN TRACK SHE IS BUILDING WITH YOUR CHILD AND GET OUT AT ONCE SO AS NOT TO SHOW DISRESPECT FOR YOUR FAMILY UNIT"

of course it is about them. if you have respect of your partner you don't show them up by acting like a rude, inconsiderate arse in front of their friends. you are polite and welcoming even if you don't really like them out of respect for your partner.

I nearly started a thread similar to this. TOTALLY see what vezzie means. My experience slightly differs but very similar. I know two couples where the wife is an old friend of mine, one from school one from university. Usually we would always meet just women as we lived nearby but as now we don't circumstances dictate that we go and stay. On the two occasions we have done so the DHs make it very very clear that we are not welcome. In one case by going out the whole time, in the other by sitting there mute and then going to play computer games in the same room. This guy is not shy by the way. The message is loud and clear. Super rude particularly to DH.

This can only because we are the wifes friends - DH and I don't know the DHs enough to have caused offence or warrant this treatment. We are easy likeable people (in our opinion ). In the car on the way home both times we concluded that its actually not us but the way the DH views the wife. He can't be bothered with her friends or family. Evidenced by other friends or family getting the same treatment. But in both cases I know that if it were his friends staying for the weekend the wives would be perfect hostesses. It makes my blood boil. Nb DH and I have lots of other friends with normal relationships where the DH who isn't the main original friend is friendly and normal. Needless we don't see much if anything of the two friends with wankerish husbands as DH refuse to go and stay again because he thinks the guys are weird and rude. Sorry abit of a ramble but OP made me think of this!

I think it is a feminist issue because even if this guy has reasons other than his attitude towards women that contribute to his attitude, to me the interesting thing is the way vezzie and others who've had the same experience have had to experience a 'lightbulb moment' dealing with someone who is unpleasant towards them.

Women are expected to be so nice to everyone, to bend over backwards and to hide their real feelings so much. So it is a huge feminist issue when a woman says she had the realization they'd been accommodating someone and now she can stop.

Btw, I say that having read the OP and thought 'oh, yes, that sounds familiar!'.

i just feel desperately embarrassed for the wives in these situations that their partners would show them up like that and have so little respect for them and their friendships and how their marriage is perceived for their friends (and what dignity they're left with) that they'd behave like this. then i have horror when it turns out the friend doesn't notice or see anything funny about it

it does sound familiar - i bet loads of us experience it. i also loathe it when a husband/boyfriend can't even be arsed to be nice to his wife/partner in front of her friends but treats her rudely and awfully - you just think what an utter arsehole what on earth do you see in him and how on earth does he behave when he hasn't got an audience?

tbh i only really know one marriage that is genuinely respectful and equal and healthy seeming not surprising i never got married is it?

Exactly - it is deeply disrespectful to act like this in front of this woman's friend so what must he be like when no one else is there?

Must say swallowedafly that in my experience though it does happen most couples we know are not like this - which is why the 2 that are stand out for us. In both these marriages I know that the DH has been verbally abusive - one of the wives dumped him before the wedding but they got back together [sad}. She was late for the wedding and DH was getting really excited that she wouldnt turn up to marry such a git but sadly she did.

kerala - yes i do tend to hope that what i've seen of marriages is not representative of the norm

so are you going to challenge him on it? if he takes your chair, turn round and say 'oh, i guess guests get to stand up then' or if he starts eating food, 'ha - you're worse than the kids they know to wait while we're working. would you like me to leave it out so you can make your own in a minute?'

i'd love to see his face if you did.

ha ha, I might. he called me a witch once because I said something slightly pointed in unison with my friend.

(He commented on how nicely our two were playing and taking turns, which we had been plugging like obsessives recently, taking laborious turns over bloody everything and exploding into raptures every time they did it. He said something a little patronising about how nicely they were doing it, as if it were an accident that had come about of its own accord, and we said in unison "yes, we've been working hard on that" and he said, "you two are witches." Witches! It's a classic.)

Omg

He really does have an issue. You're helping to raise his kid, and he insults you.

Sounds like he doesn't want his wife having any close friends. In fact, he sounds pretty controlling. He's done everything but piss on each corner to prove his dominance when you're around.