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Post Info TOPIC: Dear Prudie-disinviting friend's abusive husband
Balloon Animal


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Dear Prudie-disinviting friend's abusive husband
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Q. Wedding Guest Gone Sour: I am getting married in a small, intimate, and hopefully casual ceremony this summer. My fiancé and I didn’t want to do anything big, so we picked a small venue in his hometown. We invited our parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, and a few very close friends. The issue is with one of my friends. I have never liked her husband, and they were having problems at the time of the invites, but we invited him anyway. Since then, their problems have escalated, and it has come out that he has been physically violent. My other friend and I have looked up how to talk to and support a friend going through this, but she seems to be unreceptive to our help and is failing to realize how serious this is. In light of this new information, my fiancé and I absolutely don’t want him at our small wedding, as I am filled with anger over his actions. I will do whatever I can to support her and get her out of this doomed marriage, but the thought of having to play nice around him on our wedding day makes my skin crawl. What do I do? Will I only push her further into this bad situation if I say he’s not allowed—or will it help her open her eyes?

A: I agree your friend needs help, but it might well backfire to tell her that she can come to see you get married, but as far as you’re concerned, her marriage is over. Unless she separates from her husband and tells him he can’t accompany her, your disinviting him will be just seen—perhaps by both of them—as rude interfering. Please call the National Domestic Violence hotline on behalf of your friend. They will have guidance for how you can best support her in taking the necessary steps to be safe. 

 

I agree with Prudie that you cannot invite only one half of a married couple. I have said this and argued this 100 times on invisapeeps. I don't care if the other half is freaking Hitler incarnate, you have to invite both parts of a married couple or cannot invite either of them for everything except a girls only/guys only event and definitely when it comes to weddings. So she will have to figure out if she wants her friend there bad enough to deal with her abusive husband or if she is going to have to not have either of them there. Just inviting one of them is NOT an option. And honestly if you really care about this friend and you are really close to her, I would err on the side of go ahead and invite both of them and just do the "I am only being polite to you because I have to" to the husband the day of the wedding. 

If you just cannot stomach the husband then, you will have to accept you are probably losing the friend at least until she leaves him. 



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just hanging around


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BA, i agree with you. this is a wedding invitation; not a marriage intervention for the friends. either invite both, or explain to the friend that you simply cannot have her husband there, that you love her, and you will always be there for her, but it would be best if neither of them attend.

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ana


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I disagree. I know it is not the right thing to do etiquette wise but damned if I invite someone I cannot stomach to an event of mine. Nope, not going to happen. If friend thinks it's rude, he/she can not come too. I'm done paying for people that I don't care for and having to play nice. Done.

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ana: how would you feel if someone only invited your spouse to something and did not invite you and specifically left you out? Nevermind whether you deserved it or not, would you honestly not have a problem with that? What about if someone you cared about decided they did not like your spouse and left them out of invitations forevermore? Again whether or not it was deserved, is not the point. Would that honestly not bother you?

Because while in this case, abuse is a pretty good reason to dislike someone, its a slippery slope to me. You make it okay to not invite someone over one thing, then they will push it to well I don't want to invite his wife because she is prettier than me or she made me mad that one time or I don't like her or she is not true blood family, etc. So I just say it is an absolute. You have to invite both halves of a married couple or just don't invite them at all. No matter if you have a petty or a valid reason. Because what is valid to one person's perspective can be petty to another person's perspective.

Plus at least for religious people there is a religious aspect to it. As a Christian I took my marriage vows that what God has joined together no man can put asunder. That means we are a unit. We are one. You cannot love one of us and act like the other does not exist. It no longer works that way. We are our own separate persons, but you cannot disparage our marital unit. I see someone trying to do that as a straight up attack on the religious aspect of our marriage.

I also feel like if your loved one married a bad person, they have to suffer the consequences of that. Meaning they may lose friends and family. They may not be invited to stuff anymore. Thems the breaks. Either get a divorce or accept that is how it is. Sometimes societal pressure like that may be what motivates them to leave the lame spouse.

And as Prudie said. You can still be there for them and not turn your back on them, but still not invite her to things where her husband must also be invited. Just do girls only events with her or one on one events with her. Those are acceptable to just invite her.

I have had many times in my life where I did not like the spouse of a loved one. I just learned to either suck it up and deal with the spouse when necessary or just hang out one on one with them without the spouse. I won't break that etiquette rule.

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ana


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Those are you marriage vows, not mine. You can decide if you want to go or not.

If someone that I thought was a friend of mine did that, I would think about why they would do that. Are they really a friend or someone trying to manipulate me or my husband? If his friend invited only him, he is a grown man and can do what he thinks best. Ditto for me. We are not joined at the hip and have our own minds.

If someone who I thought was both our friends did that, I would consider whether or not I wanted to continue the friendship.

No one gets to decide MY guest list but me. I only invite people I enjoy into my home.

I've given a few chances to my dh's over-the-top friend. After what I felt was an inappropriate actions at a party of ours. Next shindig, I had dh call him and tell him he was welcome but that kind of behaviour had to stop as it made other guests uncomfortable. Dh didn't just want to not invite him, so I insisted on the talk. He passed on the party but did come to the next one, with much better behaviour.

I've had a friend in an abusive relationship. I told her I was there for her anytime, but I would not tolerate her husband. I still invited her to everything. Most times she couldn't make it, but once in a while, she came. As a grown woman, I gave her that choice.

Etiquette was designed for the smooth functioning of polite society. It is not a moral imperative and I refuse to see etiquette rules as anything but as suggestions.

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Ana: I just hope you realize that only inviting your friend and not her husband could have caused a lot of marital strife between the two of them. I would not be willing to start that fight between a married couple. I would just invite both of them or invite neither but I don't want to have any part in them getting into a fight over invitation exclusions and whether or not they should go alone or not go.

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OpheliaDev1


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I see both POVs here. I agree with Ana that I'm sick of putting up with jerks at my events and I agree with BA that you can cause a lot of trouble if you invite one half of a married couple. My POV is that, if the Nice Spouse is okay with not bringing Jerk Spouse, then invite Nice Spouse alone. But if Nice Spouse is not okay with that, why cause a problem by just inviting them. I think it's okay to say, "Look, I love you, but your spouse did X, Y and Z and I'm can't tolerate that anymore. If you want to come by yourself then I'd love to have you, but I can't host your spouse anymore."

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Because even if Nice Spouse is awesome and wonderful - they are choosing to be married to Jerk Spouse. And I think a) others need to respect that choice and b) if their spouse is a jerk, then they can suffer for that choice as well.

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I agree with Ophelia that if you do invite just one half that is the only way to go about it, but personally I just err on the side of not invite them at all and if they ask why, explain that as the reason and then go from there with what they tell you to do as far as invite me alone or just don't invite me then at all.

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This makes me wonder if as a couple if DH and DXH and I were excluded because of my bad behavior. But I have to say I would never invite half of a married couple. I have been known to be a naughty guest by Internet standards.

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Forty-two wrote:

This makes me wonder if as a couple if DH and DXH and I were excluded because of my bad behavior. But I have to say I would never invite half of a married couple. I have been known to be a naughty guest by Internet standards.

 Tell me more. biggrin



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ana


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It takes a lot for me to write off the spouse of a friend. I use that term sparingly. Being a friend is just that. My friends pretty much know where I stand on everything so if I have a problem with their spouse, it wouldn't come out of the blue.

My abused friend knew where I stood. I loved her but her husband was a grade A jerk. Nope. She can choose to be married to him but I am not hosting him in my house. Nope, no way, no how. But she knew she was always welcome in my home. She was my friend. It would only cause a fight if she shared with him that I had extended an invitation to only her. She never did. She came if he was out carousing, and didn't if he wasn't.

He once showed up after a bunch of us went to a concert and then out for drinks. I excused myself, said goodbye to my friends and was off. I did not even acknowledge his presence.

Same with my sister's cheating ex. She would be so hurt if I ever invited him in even for a drink when he came to collect his boys. So I would not do it.

I guess I have a code of loyalty. My own code. It probably doesn't make sense to anyone but me.

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There was a situation on Etiquette Hell a while back. The poster was getting married, and her mom's BFF had a horrible husband who regularly sexually harrassed female guests at any party he was invited to. The BFF only stayed married to him b/c she was a devout Catholic, but they basically lead seperate lives. In this situation, Bride's choice was to not invite her mom's BFF, invite BFF and not HH (horrible husband), or invite both and basically set up all of her female guests to be sexually harrassed. In that situation, BFF often attended things without HH. That was one of the few situations where I think it would be okay to invite 1/2 of a married couple. A) it was a very close relationship. B) HH's behavior was extremely bad. C) BFF often attended things without HH. In this situation, Bride's parents wanted her to invite both and basically suck it up. While technically it would be rude to invite BFF and not HH, in this situation it was the lesser of 3 evils, I think.

Generally, though, I think inviting 1/2 of a couple is not only rude, it's pointless and it causes a lot of bad feelings for no reason, unless you are in a situation where the 2 are living seperate lives.

In the LW's situation, I don't know what I'd do. I would be very conflicted. I would want to support my friend. I would NOT want to see Abusive Spouse. I would not want to make Friend's situation worse.

If Abusive Spouse had made threats or been egregiously rude to myself, my fiance or other people present since I had issued the invitation, I think I would disinvite the couple. But if not - I think I would just suck it up as best I could. Tempting as it is, LW can't really "punish" Abusive Spouse as long as Friend chooses to stay with him. I think disinviting them from the wedding would be a friendship ender, and I would be willing to put up with him in order to maintain the friendship so I could help her get out.

But I wouldn't fault somebody who chose to disinvite the couple, or had a private conversation with her and asked if she wanted to come without him.

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Over the years I have gotten really good at playing nice with people I don't like in social situations. I can kinda put them on ignore so it is almost like I am looking right through them but can still be technically polite. It is not an easy skill. It took me years to hone it. And I can't do it all the time but the rare times I need to do it, I can. So for something like a wedding where I know my good friend would be hurt if I did not invite them, I would probably suck it up and invite the spouse and just hope they decide to be busy that day and my friend comes alone. Might even go as far as to plan the wedding at a time when I knew the spouse would be unlikely to be able to attend like while they are at work or out of town or something. I am sneaky like that.

I had a good friend whose husband was just the worst. He was being a dick and trying to keep her away from me already because he did not like when she came to me for advice I told her the truth such as its not okay for his parents to park their butt on her couch and eat all the food she bought in her cupboards all day when she just had a baby. I told her they should wait to be invited over and should bring their own food or replace food they ate and they should not camp out at her house all day getting in her way. He did not like that one bit that I was not okaying his family's horrible behavior.

So I knew as long as they were married I was fighting a losing battle. As her husband he would win and make me go away if he wanted to and of course that is what happened. She eventually left him and then I struck our friendship back up a bit. That is just life. Married couples are kinda a package deal. But for the record, I never failed to include him in invitations and I was always polite to him when I saw him even though he did not deserve it. Let him look like the jerk and I was taking the high road.

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OpheliaDev1 wrote:
Forty-two wrote:

This makes me wonder if as a couple if DH and DXH and I were excluded because of my bad behavior. But I have to say I would never invite half of a married couple. I have been known to be a naughty guest by Internet standards.

 Tell me more. biggrin

 in all serious ess when DXh and I divorced many friends chose sides there was a draught in my calander but that was many years ago. From being on the various boards I know that the level of sensitivity I see here would probably exclude me from an invite but in real life my parties are well attended and peArellano about their enjoyment  months later. I think food,liquor , and a colorful host is not hard. The issue with me may be how much color you want.  If you want beige I am not the one for you I am a technicolor raincoat.  The last party I had was a planning party with a bunch of moms and their teens. We are all going on a cruise to Italy. One kid will be going off to college and the group was planning a tour of Pompeii and he had never heard of the place nor could say it while reading the name. I said to the mom no wonder you are balking at the price of the trip when you obviously has to pay a huge bribe to get your son into college. I know comments like that would not sit well with many people in cyber land 



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ana


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I would probably find you hilarious 42. But we enjoying ribbing and a quick wit! And we are not that sensitive....

And obviously I care nothing for etiquette :D


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Balloon Animal


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If that was my super close friend I joked with all the time in fun that comment would get a laugh. If it was someone I did not have such a relationship with then that comment would offend the hell out of me.

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OpheliaDev1


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"One kid will be going off to college and the group was planning a tour of Pompeii and he had never heard of the place nor could say it while reading the name. I said to the mom no wonder you are balking at the price of the trip when you obviously has to pay a huge bribe to get your son into college. "

*gigglesnort* That's hilarious, but also pretty offensive! (But true.)

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Forty-two


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Yeah my group if friends are pretty obnoxious even if we haven't seen each for years. A few months ago when I through my DXHs bday party a friend that I haven't seen in many years grabs me and picks me up, swings me around and says damned girl you've gained weight.

Now the danger of this is that I have one friend who told me one of my kids was somewhat less than attractive. Two of my friend won't even engage with her anymore for saying it even though she is my BFF

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