I don't like my friend's husband but we are "family friends"

[Anonymous]

I have a good friend who has same age kids as me. We became friends when our oldest were babies. Our friendship was initially just a mom friendship, with us both on maternity leave and then returning to work around the same time. Our eldest then went to the same daycare and preschool and became good buddies. Our younger kids aren't as tight but all the kids play great together and get along really well.

So the friendship has naturally segued into more of a family friendship, and most of our hangouts are her whole family and my whole family. The kids want to see each other and we're both dual-income families so this just makes sense. Our DH's get alone fine though they are not friends outside of these hangouts. Very occasionally my friend and I will get together 1:1 but it's incredibly hard with little kids, plus we both have other friends and are already seeing each other at these family meet ups, so it often just feels like there isn't time.

The issue is that I really don't like her husband, and the more I get to know him, the less I like him. I also do not think he likes me. I think we've both put in the effort to get along, but it's like oil and water. He comes off as so arrogant and condescending to me, and I always feel like he's lecturing me about things. He's also incredibly presumptuous -- he always just assumes we're available to babysit their kids or to do favors for them, and when we do those things (out of my love for my friend and her kids), he rarely says thank you and when he does it sounds curt and not grateful at all. I don't know exactly what he doesn't like about me but I definitely feel that vibe from him -- he probably has a list similar to mine about how my personality is bad from his perspective, I don't know.

But other than him, I love this family so much. How do I manage this? I always tell myself to just detach from whatever he's saying, to view him from kind of a distance and just not take any of it seriously. But it's hard to do that and enjoy my time with the others. If he were a guy at work I'd know how to deal with him, but this dynamic makes it hard and he really gets under my skin. What should I do?!

[Anonymous]

Had a very similar situation. He was not just a jerk to me, he is just a jerk. He was awful to my friend and they divorced. I don't get to see him at all, yay. Before that, I organized “moms and kids” outings or suggested Dh goes on “dads and kids” playdates.

[Anonymous]

Have meets ups only with the kids and the friend.
Otherwise just dont talk much with him at get togethers.

[Anonymous]

How does he treat his wife? Is he complimentary toward her or does he disregard her too? Does your DH like this guy? All of those answers would lead me to a decision of how much time to spend with them. Is it possible that he is a sarcastic guy? And, he asks you to babysit? That seems odd.

[Anonymous]

Fire back at him when he’s arrogant and condescending to you. Shut his a$$ up!

[Anonymous]

As the kids get older it will become a lot easier to do 1:1 stuff (or kid/mom) stuff only. I’d mostly just wait this out and do what you can to plan as many things not with the dad as possible. Can you start meeting up with mom or mom + kid in stroller for a walk before/after work? Find some other standing weekend morning activity the dads aren’t interested in? (Eg you and mom get a coffee while kids go to gymnastics, or you, mom, kids have a library/coffee date every two weeks). By late elementary we were naturally spending more time with personal friends than family friends - especially in situations like this where we mostly got along with one person.

We have a friend like this and we tolerate him a fair amount but also avoid him some. It helps that I think he comes from a good place but that he just has poor social skills (comes off as arrogant, needling, unable to read the room; we’ve long suspected he was on the autism spectrum and wife has confirmed). It’s easier to tolerate his jerkiness as a disability than a character flaw. DH and I are pretty much able to internally role our eyes and move on

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As the kids get older it will become a lot easier to do 1:1 stuff (or kid/mom) stuff only. I’d mostly just wait this out and do what you can to plan as many things not with the dad as possible. Can you start meeting up with mom or mom + kid in stroller for a walk before/after work? Find some other standing weekend morning activity the dads aren’t interested in? (Eg you and mom get a coffee while kids go to gymnastics, or you, mom, kids have a library/coffee date every two weeks). By late elementary we were naturally spending more time with personal friends than family friends - especially in situations like this where we mostly got along with one person.

We have a friend like this and we tolerate him a fair amount but also avoid him some. It helps that I think he comes from a good place but that he just has poor social skills (comes off as arrogant, needling, unable to read the room; we’ve long suspected he was on the autism spectrum and wife has confirmed). It’s easier to tolerate his jerkiness as a disability than a character flaw. DH and I are pretty much able to internally role our eyes and move on

New poster. +1 to the post above, especially the first paragraph. OP, this is a phase where you all have young-ish kids; as the kids get older, if the adults are going to remain friends with friendships beyond just "We have kids at the same school" etc., you will much more easily find ways to see just your friend and not her DH.

For now, try more to think outside the usual "Time is short so we just get together as entire families." As PP points out, there are other ways to get together with just your friend, maybe her plus you plus all the kids. PP's suggestions are good ones and doable even with everyone working during the week. They just require a little more initial effort to schedule a coffee date in advance, or find a kids' class that works for you/your kids and for her/her kids.

I've been where you are, OP, and if you value the friendship with the DW, just make an effort to see her, occasionally do the all-family get-togethers (while ramping those back in favor of other ways to see just her), and give it some time. It actually is a help here that your DH isn't super interested in this man as a guy friend for himself, so you don't have your DH telling you he wants to see your friend's husband more (right?). I'd start asking the woman about getting any similar-aged kids into some activity together and then you and she will see each other at that, if you arrange it so you and she are the ones taking the kids there. And so on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:he always just assumes we're available to babysit their kids or to do favors for them, and when we do those things (out of my love for my friend and her kids), he rarely says thank you and when he does it sounds curt and not grateful at all.

How does your friend respond after these favors? Are you sure he's the one driving the requests, or could it be that he's the messenger?

[Anonymous]

Sounds a lot like my BIL (Dh's brother). He has SUCH arrogant, condescending one liners towards my SIL who is just a wonderful human being. Overall, he's a great dad and carries his weight with both house and kids, but he can just get into these moods where he's a real arse. I call him out on it and in a weird way I think he respects me for that.

[Anonymous]

Use their bathroom and dunk his toothbrush in the toilet? Idk just ignore him and move on is probably the answer. There’s nothing you can do about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Had a very similar situation. He was not just a jerk to me, he is just a jerk. He was awful to my friend and they divorced. I don't get to see him at all, yay. Before that, I organized “moms and kids” outings or suggested Dh goes on “dads and kids” playdates.

+1

Going through this right now - awful as he is, it's worth it to have maintained the friendship with the mom (now more than a mom friend, of course) all these years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:he always just assumes we're available to babysit their kids or to do favors for them, and when we do those things (out of my love for my friend and her kids), he rarely says thank you and when he does it sounds curt and not grateful at all.

How does your friend respond after these favors? Are you sure he's the one driving the requests, or could it be that he's the messenger?

Are you sure these are favors? There are plenty of things I do with and for friends without bean counting each one as a favor. Maybe he has a different idea of what is normal and reciprocal than you do.

[Anonymous]

OP here. The husband is not rude to my friend, from what I've seen. I think he can be a bit curt generally and I know they sometimes have issues reconciling their careers (he has the "big" career and I know that can cause some friction when there are time conflicts or parenting conflicts). But he's not condescending to her the way he often is with other people, including me.

The thing with the favors is frustrating because I truly do not mind doing this stuff, and also my friend does it for me. But when I interact with my friend over this stuff (watching each others kids during random days of school, loaning items for a dinner party, carpooling from activities, etc.) we have the same manners -- we always ask if the other person can do it (never presume) and we say thank you. He doesn't get this. So like I'll arrange with my friend to take their oldest for a school holiday so they can work, but then he'll be the one to pick their kid up and he won't even acknowledge that I literally just took care of his kid all day for free. No thank you, nothing. Once I did this and he asked how it went and I said "great, they play so well together that I was even able to get a few things done around the house" and he said "oh I guess I assumed you guys would do an outing or a craft or something." Like my free babysitting wasn't enriching enough? My friend would never say that, she would have said she was glad it went smoothly and the kids were good, and thanked me for being the one to take the kids this time. It's not a huge deal but it's also not the kind of thing I enjoy dealing with over and over -- if it were just him I would simply not do these things because he's rude about it.

But she's great and he's not, and I guess I have to decide if I'm willing to take the bad with the good. My DH feels the same way about him as I do, and he also really likes my friend. But I think the husband doesn't bother him as much whereas he really gets under my skin. I try to just have DH deal with him more since I find him so irritating, but it doesn't always work out that way. I don't know. I guess I'm mostly just complaining. I don't want to give up this friendship of this, it's just a bummer.

[Anonymous]

You are actually very lucky if he doesn’t like you because then he likely is avoiding you which makes it so much easier avoiding him!

[Anonymous]

Sounds like my friends hubby. In my case I feel like he actively sabotages the relationship and as a result my friend and I aren’t really as close anymore. I’ve been grieving the loss for about a year now because she was really a dear friend and now we barely see each other unless it’s one on one which is hard with young kids. Her husband has made it clear that he thinks I’m too liberal and too feminist. He used to make small talk but now he doesn’t bother. It’s really sad because I love my friend and her kids but of course I’m not going to get in the middle of someone else’s relationship. No advice OP, just chiming in to say it’s tough.