"Husband thinks it’s fine friends didn’t invite us to a party"

They're mean to her, and he doesn't care.

Original column: Asking Eric, October 22 2024

My take: This is AdviceObsessed’s first critique of a column by Asking Eric, which replaced Ask Amy in July. Exciting!

And our verdict, if I may cut to the chase? Middling, unfortunately. Eric’s answer isn’t wrong, as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

Let’s recap. The letter-writer’s husband is friends with a coworker, and spends a decent amount of time with him outside the office. The LW has met the co-worker’s wife, but the two couples have never gotten together “just the four of us.”

Recently the husband helped the coworker and his wife with a backyard project. When the backyard was finished, the couple threw a party. The LW and her husband were not invited.

Later--in a conversation that should never have happened--the coworker told the LW’s husband they were originally on the guest list, but got removed. Why? Apparently some friends of the coworker’s wife said if the LW came to the party, they wouldn’t. Soon after sharing this hurtful information, the coworker and his wife asked the LW’s husband for a favor (a pickup from a bar late at night), and he “dropped everything and helped them out.”

The LW is “angry and hurt” that her husband helped people who had insulted her. Her husband “doesn’t see what the big deal is.” She wants Eric to adjudicate.

Eric says for a husband to have friends who are “actively anti-social” to his wife is neither normal nor healthy. He says the LW is entitled to her husband’s empathy.

Eric is also disgusted, appropriately, by these “catty” people. He writes: “I’m presuming you know the backstory here, but it sure raises my hackles.”

That’s all true and correct. AdviceObsessed also adds the obvious point that none of these people are the kind of friends the LW ought to want, anyway.

But does that settle it? Her husband should be kinder to her; he should take a step back from his work buddy; she should be entirely through with this couple and their nasty little friends; and everyone should move on?

Sorry, Eric, but not quite. AdviceObsessed thinks the LW might also want to figure out why these people dislike her so much.

Think about it: This couple knows people who will not attend a party—they actually will not go—if she’s going to be there. They won’t be in the same space with her.

They might just be bigoted over something or other. In that case, to hell with them. But it’s also possible they have their reasons. And if it were me, I’d want to know what those were.

Has the LW unknowingly made herself obnoxious? Does she talk too much? Corner people so they can’t escape from her? Browbeat people about her politics?

Or is it personal—did she unknowingly insult or injure them?

No matter what their reasons were, the people who said they wouldn’t come if the LW were there, and the hosts who accommodated them, were all unpardonably rude. The LW should absolutely not seek this information in the hope of winning her way into their good graces.

But if she’s been antagonizing people without realizing it, she might want to know, so she can avoid doing the same thing to other, nicer people. This is a principle applicable to us all: It’s almost always a good idea to consider what role, if any, we may play in our conflicts with others.

The LW can’t ask any of the perpetrators, but maybe she should ask her husband if he has any idea what happened. Bet you anything he does. No way he didn’t get at least a hunch, when he had that inappropriate conversation with his friend, about the people who don’t like his wife.

Regardless, as Eric said, the LW’s husband should dial back his intimacy with his coworker and the coworker’s wife. These are mean people. If their friendship is more important to him than his wife’s understandable feelings, then the party they got dropped from is the least of their problems. Their marriage itself is in trouble.