I (27F) and my husband (27M) had a discussion about his best friend and says I’m putting him the middle of both of us and doesn’t know what to do.
About a month or so back, my husband received a message from his best friend that we “needed to hang out with him and his wife when they tell us to.” He also said that when they invite us to places that we cancel or aren’t able to make it. The examples he provided to us was when my husband got severely sick, to the point he wasn’t able to get out of bed and that same day we planned to go to a pumpkin patch with them and they had bought our tickets to go but didn’t tell us they did that. Another example was when they invited us to go drink wine and bread at an outdoor event but they are aware that my husband and I rarely drink and neither of us like wine.
My husband, later that day, after being invited to go to drink wine received that message and made me incredibly angry. I told him that I’m a grown adult and no one will tell me when I have to hang out with them. I told him that I no longer want to be friends with these people and they can go and kick rocks. My husband said he knew I’d react like this and almost didn’t tell me that he said that to him.
He still wanted to be friends with him and wants to talk to him in person about the situation. They did and from what my husband said, he called him out on it and told him how upset I was about that message. He says he did apologize to my husband for how that message came off and didn’t mean for it to sound that way. I told my husband that if he wants to still continue being friends with him and his wife that’s he’s more than welcome to but I would like to no longer be involved with them. They’ve tried to reach out to me as if that message never happened.
My husband told me that they want to hang out together again but I told him that I’m not interested and he is more than welcome to go and hang out with them. My husband says that I can’t do that because I’ve put him in the middle of me and his best friend. So, AITA?
Edit:
I feel like I need to put more context to help you understand why I made this post. Prior to the message my husband received from his friend, we were inviting them to places to hang out like dinner or joining us to do something we like doing. His friend always had an excuse to not hang out with us and if they did, he would use his wife as an excuse for them to either not be able to come out because she said they didn’t want to or to leave early if they did come to join us. That’s why this message upset me, because we never once messaged them about this issue and just sucked it up because we gave them the benefit of the doubt.
With that being said, in order for my husband to hang out with his best friend, he had to make an agreement with him and his wife to help with work on THEIR farm in order to do so.
I told my husband that his farm is not his obligation and he shouldn’t have to put in labor work to hang out and have fun with his friend.
NTA
Ask your husband if he understands the concept of marriage.
A friend who thinks he gets to tell y’all what to do is not a friend.
You could consider putting spaces “in between” your paragraphs
NAH – you’re not required to hang out with people you don’t like, and as long as you genuinely have no problem with your husband going alone, I see no issue.
You had no obligation to keep being friends with someone. You’re upset but you’re upset for a reason and that’s okay. You’ve made it clear that your husband can keep being friends with them. So I fail to understand how that’s putting yourself between them when your husband has more than enough avenue to keep seeing his best friend.
At the end of the day, you don’t owe them anything and they completely disregarded your husband’s health when he was sick. You’ve mentioned your boundaries and that’s it.
NTA
NTA…..his best friend apparently doesn’t know you very well if he doesn’t know you “rarely drink and don’t like wine.” That being said, If your husband wishes to maintain contact with them, I’d come to terms with the fact you may see a little less of him.
NTA this is entirely too much drama
Messages don’t convey context or mood, they are reaching out to you to apologise and you are sitting on your high horse. Seems you didn’t want to be around them anyway and this message gave you an excuse.
YTA.
Yes it sounds like you’re being a child. The friend is just trying to maintain the friendship in a roundabout way. Probably feels every time they try you guys aren’t interested. His comment about needing to whenever they invite you I’m sure is just a joke about you guys being flakes. You don’t like wine, who cares go anyway and drink something else. Lighten up
NTA…but your husband and his “friend” are. Your husband should take a step back and evaluate this friendship. Who the hell tells their friend they have to hang out when THEY say? I’d say kiss my grits to that so called friend and block them. Controlling weirdos.
Telling your friend that is so weird and unreasonable I think the tone probably just was lost over text. It’s quite normal to say things like ‘I miss you, you’ve got to come over more’ or ‘this tastes amazing, you’ve got to try it’. I feel like this has to be the energy the best friend was intending otherwise it would be super bizarre.
You’re excessively angry over some bad phrasing.
All things considered, YTA
You claim to be a grown ass woman but you’re acting like a 14 year old.
YTA. This is a major, major overreaction to what is at worst your husband’s best friend being mildly inconsiderate.
It’s completely normal for friends to have tension sometimes when there are different expectations of how often you see each other. You need to work through this like adults instead of going nuclear. I imagine that he probably didn’t realise how sick your husband was and felt stood up. I think you’re also misreading the tone of his message which was probably a very casual “hey you gotta hang out with us when we tell you man” rather than a super serious “you’ve GOT to hang out with us when WE tell you to”, which would be an extremely weird thing to say. It’s like saying ‘you’ve got to see this film’ or ‘you’ve got to try this cheesecake’. He’s not literally dictating your life, he’s being enthusiastic.
These silly miscommunications happen all the time. Burning bridges with your husband’s *best* friend over one silly miscommunication is ridiculous. Like, they want to hang out with you more and are disappointed when you can’t come? How DARE they.