DH's anti-social nature causing resentment
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Anonymous
| Also, events "off the cuff" are hard because I have not had time to mentally prepare for them. Maybe the driveway event was too spur of the moment for him. |
Anonymous
| Don't give him a number, OP. That is like waving a red cape in front of a bull when it comes to someone like your DH. |
Anonymous
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OP does he act grumpy if you do stuff by yourself, or just if you ask him to go? I think that's the key. If you can go by yourself, or take 1 or both kids, while he stays home and he is fine with that, then you should just do that and get over your vision of doing these things together as a family all the time. You can even tell close friends that he is just more Iran introvert so he stays in more (unless that soils make him mad).
But, if he acts grumpy when you go out too, then I don't even know what to tell you, I would not be able to handle that. |
Anonymous
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I just tell my friends how my DH is. He is the same as you - work wears him out, etc. We probably miss out out social stuff with couples sometimes because of him, but it is what it is. I go alone and tell people/joke that I am the social one. It works fine.
You really can't change someone - and the trade-offs of switching for another partner would never be worth it. Seriously. Enjoy what you have and accept the loss of a couple social life. No big deal. |
Anonymous
My husband is similar. If he doesn't want to go to parties I go by myself. |
Anonymous
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^here. There are also a couple people in my circle whose spouses have never gone to a social event. One goes to bed at 8 pm. I only met her because we overlapped at the office for a week. No one takes it personally.
I do think my husband has social anxiety, and maybe yours does, too. But you need to stop pressuring him and wishing he was different as you will only make yourself miserable. |
Anonymous
| Extrovert married to an introvert (with an extroverted child). Just go yourself! My husband gets alone time and I go out! Win-win |
Anonymous
You don't seem to have much empathy for your husband's position. He is an introvert. Socializing is tiring. He went to the guys' event and the wedding, he just got his fill of socializing earlier than most. He probably wanted his weekends to have some unscheduled down time, which is in short supply when young kids are in the picture. He also might be feeling pressured by you to go to things, and that might be why you are getting a negative reaction any time you bring something up. Have you tried saying, "The kids and I are going to X event this weekend; we would love it if you joined us!" Leave it at that. It's a no-pressure invitation. As an introvert myself, I found myself dodging the people who always wanted to badger me into socializing with them. But you also have to accept that he may not ever want to attend as many events as you'd like, because what truly recharges him on the weekend is low-key time at home. Let him know how happy it makes you when he accompanies you, rather than criticizing him for being different. |
Anonymous
Your mental issues involve worrying so much about what your neighbors and friends think you feel you need to send fake texts to them rather than 'disappoint' them with the perfectly acceptable truth. You care more about what these people think than your own husband. This all indicates you need to feel you and dh maintain a certain social status in order to feel good about yourself, and, frankly, your husband is obviously less insecure in this way. I'm sorry if this seems harsh, but you are claiming you really love him and he's so great, but this obession with status will drive him away. Who knows, maybe you will be happier. You won't have to be 'ashamed' of him anymore. In my view it's your loss. Your husband works in an open office, interacts w/ you and the kids well- he is very far from 'anti-social' as any therapist would tell you. Instead you are the one lacking self-awareness. You say you miss him when he won't come out for group events, but I don't believe that. Why would you want him out with you while knowing he's miserable? I suspect what you want is his appearance, not him, to put on a show for the others. I recommend therapy to figure out why you are so dependent on peer opinions. And as many pp have suggested, they care much less than you think they do about his down time. |
Anonymous
I haven't read the rest of the responses but I'm going to give it to you straight. You either have to get comfortable going to couples and family events alone, get new friends that don't always want to do couples things, or get a new spouse. The problem sounds like the bulk of these social events are things where you feel out of place without DH. If your single BFF hosted a game night with just the ladies it would have been 100% fine that your DH enjoys staying home, even better because you don't need to feel guilty about him having all the childcare duties that evening. Suddenly if for the exact same game night your BFF makes it a couples thing you now feel pressure to have DH attend because everyone else's DH will be there. I can get why DH doesn't find it enjoyable. I honestly hated going to most couple with kid events when the kids were young. Usually one of us had to make sure our kids weren't running around crazy, had food to eat, weren't having a meltdown etc, and while you were doing that it was hard to have more than a five minute conversation and actually enjoy yourself. It was not relaxing to me at all. I can understand why you don't want to have both kids on your own but at the same time it can't be enjoyable for DH to have his options be to run around after the children the whole time (probably easier to do that on your home turf), make small talk when he would rather poke his eye out, or try to talk to you which again he could do at home. I think about those social communities where people drop by and have happy hours at a home etc. While my DH is friendly and we like our neighbor's and talk to them, he has no interest in being social like that. I think if I wanted to socialize like that I would need to be comfortable going to mostly ladies only events like book club and bunko and saying my husband couldn't make it to the couples events. |
Anonymous
I am this PP. Since a lot of people jumped on this, I thought I'd clarify. Yes, obviously, opening a conversation by saying, "Your attitude is a problem" is not going to be successful. But it sounds like OP has tried to talk to her DH about socializing, expectations, frequency, etc. Those aren't the real problem. The real problem is that he's making her so miserable about every invitation that she can't wnjoy the times he DOES join, and it's causing a lot of tension. If she can explain that her goal isn't to have him socialize more, or to have him do things on her terms, but that her main goal is to stop fighting about invitations, then they can hopefully engage in some positive problem-solving. My solution was an example. If he mainly wants time alone, then being assured that he will only have to sacrifice 9 hours a month of alone time might be great for him. If he wants her to stop going out and stay in together, then they can include that. That's how a solution-oriented conversation works, kids. |
Anonymous
PP here, I agree they need to stop fighting about invitations but maybe her husband's goal is for OP to feel comfortable going on her own and not ask beyond a courtesy invite. As far as we know the OP's husband doesn't resent her going to social events he just has an issue with her pressuring him to go and making it seem like there is something wrong with him that needs to be fixed/he is falling down on the job proving he loves her enough to go. Seriously, if he isn't excited to talk to neighbors he likes in the driveway, why would you think he would be all a flutter about game night? It's fine for you to think its cool and him to think its not something he wants do as long as you aren't making him go and he isn't making you stay home. |
Anonymous
But her goals are to have him socialize more and on her terms. |
Anonymous
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You know, honestly, I kind of lose patience with the "He's an introvert! It's so hard for him! He needs his space!"
He's an adult. Part of being a married adult with children living in a community is participating in that community. Part of being an adult is doing things that you don't want to do in order to participate in that community and with your family. I am married to an introvert too, and there are times when I find his attitude toward social interaction to be very condescending. Sometimes it seems like he prefers to hang out alone because nobody could possibly be as interesting as he is and the social interaction is so very pedestrian and he just has better, more lofty things he'd like to be doing. Like DD and I are shallow for wanting him to come to dinner with us and our family friends - people who he professes to like! It's not trying to remake him in my image. It's participating in family life, where that family life includes spending time together with other families. So yes, OP's husband needs to suck it up a bit. So do some of the other PPs for whom it's sooooo difficult to spend 3 hours at a BBQ or whatever. These are the things that we do for the people that we love, and part of being an adult is recognizing that and not being a jerk about it. |
Anonymous
So how does your DH get his socialization in? Mostly without you? I hope you are getting therapy so you are no longer scared and uncomfortable "to the core." |