Dear Prudence,
What’s the etiquette when you don’t like your friend’s husband? I have a good group of girlfriends from college, and I love all their partners … minus one. He hasn’t done anything, I just don’t enjoy his company. When he’s in a bad mood, he pouts and snipes at my friend. When he’s in a good mood, he tells long, boring stories. One way or another, he wants to be the center of attention (he’s the guy who has a great voice, and so always wants to do karaoke when we’re hanging out). Our friend knows that we don’t like it when he makes a big production of sulking. But there’s also not a ton she can do about that, and he insists on coming even when he knows he’ll be a killjoy,
So far, our strategy has been to do more and more “girls’ nights,” but that sucks because I miss the rest of the other halves. One of their partners is also nonbinary femme, so it feels weird to divide the group along gender lines—but since half of our husbands (mine included) were also in our friend group in college, saying we were doing “college friends only” would mostly just be excluding the guy we don’t like and catching another partner in the crossfire.
Any tips? Should I talk to my friend again? Should we try to manage his behavior better?
— Keep Him Home