DTMFA

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence, 

First, I wanted to give a little background on what happened. My husband and I have been together for two years, and before we started dating, he dated a girl for seven years. Within that time, he had become really close with her friends. When we started dating, he was still very close to her group of friends, which is just fine for me. I did very well in befriending them, and I’ve become very close to a lot of them. It was always inevitable that she and I would be in the same place together, and I had no issues with it.

The other night, we had plans to go to one of his friends’ birthday parties, and we knew she would be there. All day, my husband said that if I felt uncomfortable, we would leave immediately. No questions asked. He said that it’s me and him and that’s all that matters. I really appreciated his approach because I truly don’t do well in awkward situations as it is.

Well, we are there for about 2.5 hours. She’s been there as well and it was getting progressively more awkward because all of the people gravitated towards her, and it was just my husband and me standing near each other. After a while, I told him I felt uncomfortable and I was ready to go home. At which point he said that I “half-assed” this, that I should just “get it over with” and say “hi” to her, that he thought that I would be the bigger person, that he thought I would be stronger in this situation, that if we left it would look like she “won” … and then got visibly angry with me because I wanted to leave.

Eventually he storms out, and we walk to the car. I’ve begun crying and started defending myself saying that made me feel safe by giving me an out if I felt uncomfortable. He then yelled at me really loudly and got out of the car and slammed the door. He went back to the party without me while I drove home.

I have yet to hear an apology from him. What upsets me the most is that he’s told me that the opinions of those friends matter a lot to him. And it’s important to him for them to see us in a good light. He chose their opinions over how I felt in that moment. Keep in mind that we have nothing to prove with these friends, we have been around them for years, they were all at our wedding. The drama was only because his ex was there. He told me that if I went up and said “hi” to her, it would make things less awkward for the whole group. And it was my job to do that for everyone else. He obviously went back to the party and told people what had just happened because people started texting me asking if I was okay and asked what was going on.

Since talking to him, he has only gotten angry with me because I raised my voice and was angry at him while in the car … all while defending myself because my husband just made me feel so terrible and inferior to this group of people.

Please help. All I feel is resentment and anger towards my husband. Obviously I love him very much. But this is not how I imagined my husband treating me at all.

— Disrespected

charlotte989875

It’s your job to make all of them feel better? It’s his job to make you feel comfortable and to tell his friends to be welcoming to you. To help you feel comfortable. 

Also I think he set you up. He said you could say when to leave then actively did things to make you uncomfortable or looking like the bad guy then yelled so you would go home and he could go back to the party alone. 

banana468

Your husband gaslit you.

Be quite clear: You are under no obligation to extend any civilities to his ex and he vowed to be with you til death.  If he's insisting that the friends matter more then get out while you can especially if this is his pattern of behavior. 

CharmedPam

Yikes, his mood changed very drastically didn’t it, LW? I wouldn’t go to any future parties knowing she’d be there. Ask him how he’d feel if a very close sx of yours was at a party?

climbingsingle

This guy is a gaslighting emotional abuser. It will only get worse. 

Casadena

get out get out get out

mrsconn23

Oh LW, you did nothing wrong and he did everything wrong.  And the fact that he doesn't see it pretty much tells you all you need to know.  Please start making your exit plan. 

If he tries to get you to stay and you want to consider it, I'm team ultimatum "therapy or divorce".  But I'd put that process on a short timeframe for him to turn it around because this situation as described in the letter is completely inappropriate and almost a fundamental crack in the entire relationship that doesn't feel fixable unless he's 100% invested in doing so and even then I have my doubts. 

short+sassy

One part that struck me as odd about this situation is it seems like nobody, including the H, bothered to introduce the LW to the ex.

He kept saying she should have walked up and said "hi" to her.  Sounds like he was being the "awkward" one that he didn't go up to his ex-g/f and say, "Hi Jane!  It's been so long, it's good to see you.  This is my wife, Susan.  Are you still working at Acme and sending giant mallets to Wil E. Coyote?"

Plus, 2.5 hours is a respectable amount of time anyway.  Not that I want to take away from the LW because she is definitely the one who was wronged by her H.  But I do find it hard to believe that everyone at the party was only talking to the ex, the whole time.  That's not usually how parties work.