I recently learned of an out-of-print book called Please Read This For Me: How To Tell The Man You Love the Things You Can’t Put Into Words. I haven’t read it, but I heard an interview with the author on This American Life. The book, from what I understand, gives scripts for various difficult conversations. Ten of these scripts, according to Ira Glass, are about “dealing with each other’s friends.”
I wish I could get my hand on this book because I would love to read those scripts. Not that Matt and I have any problems with each other’s friends—we’re lucky in that area. We each like each other’s buddies. At least we both pretend to.
No, I kid. We really do. We’ve been together so long that most of his friends are my friends and vice versa.
I imagine not liking your significant other’s friends would be really tough. We’ve discussed here about what happens when you don’t like your friend’s man. But what about when you don’t like your man’s friends?
Ugh. Just thinking about it gives me jitters. I can’t decide what’s worse, being forced to hang out with someone who makes you want to gouge your eyes out, or having the conversation where you tell your husband/boyfriend/whatever that you can’t stand his best friend.
Friendships are, obviously, very personal. Telling someone that the guy they’ve known and been friends with for years is a jerk? It’s a little bit like saying he’s a jerk too. At least it can feel like that to him.
Since I don’t have the pre-written scripts, I’ve been trying to imagine what they might say. Or what would I say? I’m thinking something along the lines of “Noah and I just don’t seem to click. It’s nothing about him in particular, we just never hit it off. So why don’t I stay home while you hang out at his place? It might be better for everyone that way. I can do some of the stuff I’ve been meaning to get done and you guys can have quality time watching football/playing cards/enjoying your mancave without my barrage of chatter.”
No matter how much you hate whoever it is you’re avoiding, keep this one piece of advice in mind: Do not make your partner choose between you two. Because he may choose you, but regardless he will almost certainly resent you for forcing such a decision onto him.
There’s no reason that a friendship and a romantic relationship can’t co-exist peacefully. Bonding time without the significant other present is important for the individuals as well as for the relationships themselves. And yes, sometimes you may have to suck it up and see your nemesis—at important functions or couple’s dinners—but that’s just part of the gig. It’s what you do.
Have you ever disliked your partner’s friends? How did you handle it? What did you say?
We have been very lucky in that we generally like each others friends. There are one or two that we haven’t, but we are very tactful about it. Actually it’s the look on the face or the tone of voice, and the other knows that so and so is not liked. Then we let it drop.
Never do things that lead to rensentment. That is so true !
My ex-boyfriend’s friend–OH MY GOD–YES!! He’s also his cousin. The type who is very condescending to everyone he meets. Puts down anything you like too. I mean, OK, regarding putting down what a person likes, that’s all fair game because afterall, it’s not the person he’s putting down, but no one likes when a person goes on-and-on, ad nauseam, why he HATES what you like, constantly making insulting jokes about one’s interests/passions. His passion was looking for a negative reaction from people–that’s his cousin, and I’m glad I’m now thousands of miles away from him.
Anyway, I would just avoid him as much as I could, when dating my ex-boyfriend. But when I was around him, I pretty much took his insults, since they were best friends too….while being pissed off about it…But I’ve grown emotionally/spiritually tremendously since then and would have handled him in a much better way now, like for instance not letting him get to me AT ALL. I can do that now, but it’s no longer necessary with me not being around him anymore.
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I c a n ‘ t stand my boyfriend’s friend. I wish he would disappear or worse. He’s a good for nothing. I don’t respect him or his girlfriend. Like you said, feeling so strongly about him, I can’t help but lose a bit of respect for my boyfriend. Never mind it sounds like that, I think that! What does he see in him? Historical friend? I just think useless and full of trouble friend.
I’m a newlywed and my husbands best man at our wedding doesn’t live near us, and didn’t come to town until the day before our wedding. So I’ve spent nearly no time with him. He showed up 5 days ago wanting a place to stay. Let me also mention our “guestroom” is in the process of being converted into a nursery – I’m 4 months pregnant! DH tells his friend to stay as long as he needs (the friend is on disability, walks with a limp, blah blah sob story). My husband and I have been fighting since he got here. He does NOTHING. He leaves his dishes out wherever he ate, doesn’t pick up, doesn’t even shower! I asked for help painting a wall and he acted like I had made a joke. I told my husband I was going to go stay at my parents til his friend moved out because I can’t stand it. Putting up with a lazy a** all day and then fighting with my husband about it all evening (we have never had any big fights before). Well, DH finally admitted his friend needed to “get his butt in gear” and told me I was making him choose. I told him I didn’t want him to choose or kick someone out in need, but I’m hormonal and busting my butt all day and I just can’t be around him (plus the friend’s smell makes my morning sickness worse!! He’s so gross!). DH found the friend a place to stay in a matter of hours and helped him pack and gave him a ride. I came home from babysitting my nephew to find my home back to the way it should me: just the two of us.
How would you feel if your husband’s friends left you homeless? My husband shared a place with his friends (a couple who he met when he first moved into a house share before we were married) – he still had 8 months of lease left when we got married so we agreed that I would temporarily move in (all parties agreed). The nature of my husband’s job involves a lot of traveling, so most of the time I was left for days alone with his “friends”. From the moment I moved in, and he went on his first business trip, his “friends” would start verbally abusing me. Saying that it’s their place, that it was all in harmony before I moved it, that I’m an interruption in my husband’s life, that I should let him be and leave, that he was better without me (that’s after I have known him for 3 years, and they only 1 – but I studied overseas so didn’t really get to know them). They would do drugs (which I don’t approve off) and even offered me a line of coke once, which I found appalling. I don’t want my family to be surrounded by people with no morals. After I tried nicely telling my husband of how uncomfortable I was living there, nothing had changed (he thought we needed MORE time to know each other and that we will eventually learn to like each other – didn’t happen). The abuse continued, I spent nights crying myself to sleep, and they were telling my husband I was making things up and just wanted to ruin their friendship as I wanted him all to myself. In truth, I absolutely adore the 99% of my husband’s friends besides those two bad apples. It went on for 4 months, until I finally stood up for myself (with everyone present) telling them that I will no longer tolerate this abuse and attitude towards me. The reply was – Get OUT! You can’t stay here – go sleep on the street. I left, and my husband and I now live in a small flat of our own, but he still sees those people and calls them “friends” (he sees them secretly and then lies to me – until I somehow discover the truth – through other people), but for me just hearing their names sends shivers down my spine. I ABSOLUTELY HATE THESE PEOPLE AND DON’T WANT THEM ANYWHERE NEAR MY HUSBAND OR MY FAMILY! Is this wrong?!
My husband and I got together about 7 years ago. His friend ( I’ll call him tommy) was living ou t of country for a year teaching English so I didn’t meet him until we’d been together for about a year. When I initially met tommy I had an uneasy feeling about him, like he could snap at any minute. I pushed this feeling down out of respect for my husband, but it never went away. Over the years my girlfriends started intentionally avoiding gatherings that he would be at ( they only later fessed up to this but it had already become apparent to me). I had good times with a group of friends including tommy but he felt like a loose cannon and came accross as intensely dominating, verging on aggressive in any type of disagreement between him and a women or person of a different race. He thought English as a second language at the YMCA and was fluent in mandarin, I had heard in passing of him sleeping with his students. He had a girlfriend for a while. An Asian girl who told me she was abused by her father. They did a lot of drugs together so I never knew what to believe but she did tell me that he shoved her against walls. Once when he found her confiding in me about her father he flipped out and screened at me so close I could feel his breath. He went away to teach English in anoth country again for a few years and had returned the last two summers for a couple weeks. The first return he told a story about hiring a prostitute in this 3rd world country he now works in who after they did the dead tried to steal his cash and so he beat her up, he later drove him home. I kept thinking how scared she must have been on the ride home that he would kill her. The second return he was bragging to a new girl friend of mine how many of his ESL students he had slept with.
During Tommys last visit we were meant to go up to a music festival at my husbands home town with a bunch of friends including him, however my husband and and I had planned to do the 14 hr drive on our own leaving a day early to spend some time together and meet the group up there.
I had vocalized my uneasiness regarding tommy to my husband over the last year.
All of our friends ditched and tommy was the only person aside from us planning to go and he wanted a ride with us. I told my husband that it was not my idea of a Holliday to drive 28 hrs for 3 days at a festival with tommy as our 3rd wheel the entire time. I asked if there was at least someone else he could find to come to aliviate the 3rd wheel ness of the situation. He said no.
I told my husband that I didn’t want to go with tommy.
He got angry at me and told me I was putting him in a harsh situation. And left without me, just with tommy. They stopped at a friends house on the way out of town and that friend decided to go with them. He never called me until they were 2 hours out of town.
This was this summer and he still thinks that I was being unreasonable. I’m, not sure what to do. I question our future and having children with him because it seems to me that he doesn’t respect me, or care about my comfort or safety.
I would appreciate any advise.
Lisa, I know it’s been a few months, but what did you do? Your situation is very similar to mine, though my SO’s best friend is slightly less criminal. Still, drugs, drinking, bar-brawls, name-calling, screaming meltdowns, and a man I love who is really unwilling to deal with it, to the point that I feel hurt and betrayed when his best friend’s insanity is directed at me. Worse, he was our roommate. After the last meltdown, I told my SO him or me, and have left for a few months (as in, physically relocated hundreds of miles away) so he can figure it out.
A lot of people say don’t make him choose, but I feel like I’ve got to live my life, and I can’t have this guy in it, even peripherally. He’s too much bad energy, and I don’t trust him. Also, I think he’s abusive to my boyfriend, who just takes it. I can’t live with someone who lets himself get screamed at like that.
I’ve always thought that one of the advantages of not having kids is being able to get out and move on. Whatever happens with me and my guy, I know that I will never have to see this other guy again, and wow that feels amazing. I feel like I escaped from Alcatraz.