Dear Annie: Husband has a Night in with Someone Else

[cereta]

Dear Annie: I was recently out of town for a long weekend with some girlfriends. When I returned home, I opened the refrigerator and commented to my husband of 30 years that based on the leftovers, he must have prepared a nice meal for himself. He responded that he had invited my best friend, who is single, over to have dinner and watch a football game. He had not mentioned this to me during our text correspondence over the weekend. They are also good friends. I would not have minded if they had gone to a public place for a meal or a game, but I feel that the intimacy of their having dinner in our home was inappropriate. My husband said it did not occur to him that anything was wrong with what he did. I know nothing intimate happened between them. My girlfriend and I have been best friends for 25 years. Am I being too sensitive? -- Surprised

Dear Surprised: Yes, you probably are being a little too sensitive about where your husband and best friend had dinner. But if your wish is that he have dinner at a restaurant and not your house, you should tell him. You were unable to tell him because the real issue is that you were gone for a girls weekend and only communicated with your husband via text. Marriage is about intimacy and communication. Had you or he picked up the phone, you probably would have been more reassured to hear his voice, and he most likely would have mentioned to you that your friend was coming over to the house. At that point, you could have said you really would prefer that they go to a restaurant. Relationships are all about verbal communication, and we invite trouble when we expect our partners to be mind readers.

Comments

Oh Annie, so OLD

[movingfinger]

...how is texting not communicating?

And I disagree with the substance of Idiot Annie's advice. Two people close to the LW got together while she was out of town, at her house, and cooked and ate dinner together and allegedly watched a game, and neither of them texted her, say, a photo of the food? Or shared a joke? Or even mentioned that A had asked B over? No, there is indeed a problem, and it's with the husband, and going out to a restaurant is not the solution.

[conuly]

I don't know, I feel like there's some serious doubletalk going on here. If she knows their relationship is platonic, then I don't see the issue at all. If she doesn't, then she needs to have a more serious conversation with him and possibly with her friend.

Re: Oh Annie, so OLD

[conuly]

Yeah. It seems to me that there is a reason she's twitchy about it, despite assuring us repeatedly that she knows nothing happened.

Re: Oh Annie, so OLD

[jadelennox]

That's ridiculous that texting is not communicating. When we are in separate places, sometimes my partner and I don't communicate at all, except about issues where we need to (e.g. arrival times). Sometimes we have long text conversations. Sometimes we just send each other photographs of cats. That has nothing to do with our level of intimacy.

Relationships are all about verbal communication is ableist bullshit, as anyone Deaf or with a verbal communication disability would be able to tell Annie. We absolutely invite trouble when we expect our partners to be mind readers, and it is absolutely true that if the LW and the husband have a disconnect about appropriate behavior, they need to communicate. But verbal? That's garbage.

Re: Oh Annie, so OLD

[jadelennox]

I'm not sure I agree though, that there is necessarily a problem. If the LW and the BFF and the husband don't have a culture of casual texting, then I can see why this might not have gotten mentioned.

It depends whether their text conversations over the weekend were "hey honey? where do you keep the plunger?" Or were more "OMG it was hilarious when Valerie and Mizuho tried to drink a yard of beer at the Bellagio!" If they were more the former, then I could see how it might have gone unnoticed. If they were the latter it's definitely weird.

but, I mean, the LW tells us that the husband and the BFF are good friends. She is single. I think it's reasonable, especially if the husband entirely doesn't think of the BFF sexually and so doesn't it occur to him that there might be an alternate interpretation, that the husband thought to himself "well, my wife is away for the weekend with her good friends, so I want to do something fun with my buddy, BFF. We love watching football together!"

I'm just thinking that if this happened in my relationship, and I were out of town and my partner decided to go over to one of my single BFF's house to watch football (one of my BFF's) or baseball (a different one), he wouldn't necessarily tell me until after the fact, and I would absolutely not think anything hinky of it. So it really does depend on the couple.

Re: Oh Annie, so OLD

[movingfinger]

I may be twitchy on this one because it happened to me too, and there was in fact something going on besides friends being invited in for supper parties while I was away. It's not the event that's the alarming part. It's the silence about it, in the midst of communication about other things.

Re: Oh Annie, so OLD

[jadelennox]

I'm so sorry this happened to you. :(

I know other people it's happened to as well. It really depends on the relationship. I think it's like conuly says below. If LW knows, really knows nothing is going on, then LW is being weird about propriety or whatever. If LW feels twitchy, than they absolutely need to follow up on that.

[ayebydan]

LW needs to evaluate both relationships. She seems so sure that nothing happened and that it is fine yet wrote to an advice column. It is not like husband hid anything. He did not say anything until prompted because he did not think it was something he needed to say anything about. I know plenty of married friends who would not mind such things and others who might be a bit more ruffled. tl;dr I think LW needs to look more at herself than those around her in this instance.

[minoanmiss]

Oh hey I've lived this one, kinda. I mean, I'm not single, but I am friends with a couple where I've hung out with one spouse while the other one was away. And so, we had told the other spouse beforehand that we were doing this. One time we spontaneously had dinner and told the spouse right away, as part of the spouses checking in with each other like they do. I think the husband should have told the wife before/during hanging out with the friend, not Because OF Course This Is Suspicious but just because people with interlinked lives should keep each other appraised.

If I were hanging out with this friend and found out they hadn't told their spouse I'd feel weird about it myself -- I wouldn't want the spouse to feel like maybe they couldn't trust me after all. But then I probably would have told their spouse by then anyway, since the spouse is also my friend and I think "I'm going to be in your house while you're away" is a sensible thing to let my friend know.

So, more communication, everyone! And texting totally counts as communication! (WTF was that part of the response).

[ayebydan]

Wouldn't you want your friends to trust you not to jump their spouses though?

[minoanmiss]

I do, but I also want to be seen to be aboveboard in order to help my friend trust me. Everyone gives a little and we all end up with more than we started with.

[ayebydan]

In some instances sure but this just feels controlling to me. Controlling her husband, controlling her friend. She is insecure and that cannot end well for anyone involved.

It is not fair on the friend to be expected to meet the husband only outside the home. Can they financially do that? I do not agree with spouses putting limitations on their SO's friendships unless the friend is dangerous in some way ie drugs, crime ect.

[the_rck]

I wonder if this is a bit generational and/or dependent on sub-culture. I'm 51, and I know that my aunts and uncles would absolutely flip over the idea of either me having a guy over for dinner while my husband was away or him having a woman over for dinner while I was.

There was a considerable to-do twenty years ago when a male friend drove me to visit my grandparents after my grandfather was diagnosed with terminal cancer. (My husband couldn't get time off of work, I can't drive, and getting there by bus takes 10 hours longer than driving does.) Everything became okay once they discovered that the male friend played cards with my husband every week so that he was my husband's friend (from their POV) rather than mine and was doing my husband a favor.

It hadn't occurred to me, my husband, or our friend that it would be an issue, but I suspect that, for a fair percentage of the people I went to high school with, this would still be a big deal. Not necessarily because of mistrust in the relationships but because of local gossip. I haven't lived in a small town in decades, but the size of the community changes things.

It might be as much about the neighbor making judgy comments at the grocery store as about the event itself. Which is a completely different sort of thing to be sensitive about.

[minoanmiss]

Oh, yeah, I don't agree with the "only outside the home" bit. But/and ... that's what I mean by "everyone gives a little". They make sure she's never blindsided by this, and she doesn't draw such a stringent line in the sand, and everyone can be happy. At least, I hope it would work as well that way as it does for me and my friends.

(I hope this makes sense, there's a lot of background noise)

[mommy]

I don't see the problem here? LW went on a Gendered Weekend Out, and their husband invited a shared friend over for food and spectator sports. This seems like a perfectly reasonable thing for the husband to do.

[likeaduck]

I had no idea texting counted as ESP.

[shirou]

There's an easy compromise here. The LW says she's sure nothing intimate happened, so the statement that dinner at home is inappropriate seems far fetched. However, a request to be told in advance (even by text!) would be totally reasonable.

Trust is essential in a relationship, but communication is essential to trust.