There is a local woman who I’ve never been friends with, but I always been friendly and polite to her. My husband is more friendly with her then I am. I’m not threated by this or anything. It’s never bothered me.
Recently, she and I had a disagreement, it wasn’t a personal one at first. Until she said some very nasty things of a personal nature to me. I was upset, I stood up for myself, but did not return insults to her. My kids were nearby and I didn’t see the need for them to watch their mommy get nasty too. My husband wasn’t there at the time and I told him about the incident.
A few days later, we ran into this woman. This time my husband was there. I only said hello to the woman and walked away. My husband stood there chatting with her.
When we came home, I asked my husband not to be so friendly with her anymore. I don’t mind if he said hello, but I really didn’t want him to spend an hour chatting with her anymore.
He’s pissed at me. He thinks is wrong for me to ask that of him. He says all I want is for him to start a fight. I don’t see how it would be starting a fight.
Well, on the one hand, your husband should acknowledge your hurt feelings and perhaps say something to his friend…but on the other hand, just being married to someone doesn’t give one the right to dictate who someone can or cannot talk to. Mr. Jar and I have plenty of ‘separate’ friends that we know are not necessarily appealing to the other party. But our marriage is made up of two individuals with two different tastes, not one meshed unit.
IMHO…yes, you’re asking a lot. Alienating your partner from someone they view as a friend, or even just in casual aquaintance kind of way is an imposition. It can be a slippery slope towards a kind of enforced dependance, which will often breed resentment.
I know it would bug me if my SO asked it, especially if I hadn’t been around to witness the initial confrontation.
Okay, I guess I’d need to know exactly what was said. If she just didn’t like your dress or something, I’d say you’ve overreacted. But if she was a serious jerk, that’s another story. C’mon…let us know the extent of her bad behavior.
If she didn’t break into your house, molest your son, kill your kitty cat and pee on your cottage cheese, you’re out of line here.
She hasn’t traumatized you, she’s just pissed you off and insulted you. His being conversational with her should not constitute rubbing salt in your wounds or anything.
Well, for me, a disagreement is one thing, and a personal insult is another.
My SO and i generally like the same people, but this is not universally true. We realize that we have slightly different reactions to different personalities, and accept that as inevitable.
Furthermore, i would never judge someone simply for having the temerity to disagree with my SO. People disagree all the time, over both trivial and important things. Hell, my SO and i disagree about some things.
But personal insults are another matter. If someone was extremely insulting to my SO, saying "very nasty things of a personal mature to her, i’d find it hard to be friendly or polite to that person.
I guess that, like some other Dopers, i’d really like to know more about the substance of your disagreement.
I’m with Kalhoun here - it depends on what was said of a personal nature.
Snide or ironic comments that can be taken personally = no big deal
Comments about you as a person / parent / neighbor that are somewhat judgmental, but not necessarily meant meanly. Maybe they are trying to point something out in a constructive way, but doing a bad job of it = no big deal; get past the conversation and move on.
“You are not a good person/mother/neighbor” = might start to cross the line; I would expect my SO to not want to be around that person. If they feel that way about me, surely they can’t think highly of my SO either, who is choosing to be with me.
“You’re a bitch/ugly/an idiot, etc.” = crosses a line. If someone said this to me, I would expect my SO to say hello to the other person in social settings, but if further interaction was required, I would expect them to ask for an apology, from that person to me, before they would resume normal social chit chat…
The woman and I were discussing the possibility of school uniforms. The school board is considering it for next year. She thinks is a good idea and I don’t.
I told her that I thought a lot of families couldn’t afford the uniforms and as long as they were dressed appropriately for school, it was OK by me.
This is what she said “You and your kids look like slobs all the time, do you think that is appropriate school clothes ?”
I thought it was very uncalled for. My kids are 9 and 11. They don’t wear designer clothes every day, but when I send them to school they are clean and neat, no holes in their pants. By the end of the school day, my kids are a mess. They are covered in ketchup from lunch, paint and markers from art and dirt and grass stains from recess. There’s not too much I can do about it.
As for myself, if there’s a school meeting, I try to look nice. But if I’m home all day cleaning the house, I don’t dress up just to get the kids from school.
Well, if someone said this to my SO, not only would we cease to be on friendly terms, but i’d give that person a piece of my mind next time i saw him or her.
Well, it wouldn’t be the Hatfields vs. the McCoys, but the coffee-klatsching would definitely cease. I think your husband should be polite, but not chatty anymore. Regardless of whether your kids do or don’t look like slobs, she should not have brought it up.
And uniforms blow moose udders in hell, by the way. And you can tell her I said so.
Acquaintance with your mother is forced upon you by birth, and the closeness of this relationship generally allows for greater tolerance of such things. Acquaintance with some random bint who lives in the same neighborhood is a choice, and statements like that are out of line for that sort of relationship.
I think you over-reacted. Granted, anything regarding kids can set off a mother’s protective instinct. No parent wants to hear bad things about their kids or be thought of as a lazy mom. Was this woman rude about referring to your children as slobs? Yeah, but she probably doesn’t have an edit button on her brain or maybe her’s was faulty at that moment. God knows mine goes haywire about 900 times a week.
You did the bigger thing of not resorting to name calling and rude comments. Let it go and let things cool down. There is no reason you cannot be polite to each other. Who knows, that lady was probably having a really off day or maybe she is just an idiot.
Expecting your husband to be miffed with this woman is petty. Yeah, he can be annoyed, but unless this woman slurred your name all over town with ugly personal remarks and did great financial/physical harm to you, really, he is entitled to make his own decisions. Your honor really isn’t at stake, your feelings got hurt, so there isn’t any dragons to slay, unnerstand?
You argued over something rather stupid in the Grand Scheme of the Universe.
( which most arguments end up in this catagory anyway.)
Look, the fact is, people say stuff, sometimes it’s mean. If that’s the extent of the ‘nasty’ comments, I’d like to live in her Utopia. And in any case, I’d certainly not demand my husband cut off contact with her as a result.
I’d say, “just know, that woman said I looked sloppy,” and let him proceed at will. Folding your arms and saying “you’re not allowed to talk to her” smacks of eighth grade.
Does your husband think you and your kids look like slobs most of the time? If he does, in his mind this woman did little more than tell the truth, albeit tactlessly. He doesn’t see why he should stop chatting with his buddy just because she wasn’t as nice as she could have been.
I think you’re asking too much in this case. I can understand conveying your feelings to your husband regarding her words and telling him that you no longer want to remain friend with her. At that point it’s up to him to decide whether he considers her statement to be a buddyship ender or not.
jarbabyj - you’re telling me that if Person A called you a bitch, you would be okay if your SO still talked with them? I know, that is not the example that dragongirl cited (more on that in a sec), but you were commenting on my post, which listed the “bitch scenario.” Really? Man, if someone called me a prick or something fairly harsh in a social setting, I would expect that my wife would be minimally cordial to the person, and if the person wanted further interaction, I would expect her to say “look, I would love to talk, but you really did say something inappropriate to my husband and I would need you to apologize to him before I just pick things up like nothing happened.” After that, the ball is in their court. If my wife socialized with that person (assuming that I was really offended by what they had said) I would be frustrated. I don’t see that as 8th grade at all - just partners sticking together.
as for dragongirl - first of all, I am sorry - she was offensive. The question is, was what she said offensive enough to cross a line? To you, yes - hence this post. You need to check in with your husband to see if he judges it to be equally offensive, per JTech. It would seem he doesn’t.
If he doesn’t think it was offensive, you should talk about that.
If he does think it was offensive, but doesn’t think he should stop talking with her, you should talk about that.
If he thinks it was offensive, but not offensive enough to stop talking to her, once again, you should talk about that.
Bottom line - you two need to align how you are perceiving what happened and how to react.
As for me - I would be inclined to look her in the eye and say “well, that was rude - did you really mean to say that?” But that moment has past. Beyond that, I would be stiffly cordial to her in social settings, but not inclined to socialize much. I would expect my SO to behave the same way…