Dude: are you 50 or 15?????

So I have a friend who I’ve known for 30 years and last night we make plans to watch the Super Bowl together at his favorite sports bar. When I come home and tell my wife, she says actually she would like to see the Super Bowl but wants no part of this sports bar. It would include showing up 2 hours before game time, lots of noise, etc etc. Said friend insists on seeing the game at said sports bar because he is a Patriots fan and is his “good luck” bar.

I call said friend and leave him a VM that I am making different plans for the game because my wife wants to see it just not there. He’s also 50 and married, which means of course he can understand, right?

This is when I’m reminded said friend is still a fucking teenager.
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Text One: Well, you are a Pats fan and she doesn’t care about football so isn’t this about what you want???

OKAAAAY, Mr. Homewrecker . . . .

I reply what I want is a happy marriage, one I’ve had for 23 years, and if my wife wants to come out and root for my team even when she doesn’t like football, that’s pretty important to me.

Text Two: Oh, well I was looking forward to watching the Patriots tie the Steelers 6 win Super Bowl Record with my best friend, but I don’t want to get in the way of your 23 year marriage! (emphasis added)
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Bro: Passive aggressive much???

  1. A “best friend” wouldn’t try to drive a stake between and my wife like that

  2. Actually I’m not your “best friend”. Artie is your best friend: you’ve gone to Vegas, Cancun, Atlantic City about 25x without ever inviting me, not that I care; just don’t use the “best friend” card with me when I’m clearly not! SURELY your REAL Best Friend will join you for the game.

  3. I get the underlining message: I’m pussywhipped and should just abandon my wife because she is not convenient to YOUR plans.

This from a guy who when single was fucking everything that walked that would allow him to settling down and marrying a woman with a daughter, and now I can’t go one week without a Facebook post about taking her and her daughter out for tea, going to see an orchestra, a romantic dinner, even weekends at a bed and breakfast.

I have no problem with any of this: you’ve found a good woman who you are madly in love with and would do anything for.

Just because I do the same, don’t act like a child.

Dude you are FIFTY years old. So my wife kaboshed your super fantastic Super Bowl plans. Don’t act like a teenage girl over it.

You want to try and drive my and my wife apart? Maybe I should show YOUR wife these texts. Maybe then she would reconsider how much YOU respect marriage.

I won’t do that of course. But yes, I agree with what most people here are probably thinking: you just aren’t that good a friend after all and after 30 years, it’s about time I reconsidered the difference between a true “friend” and what turns out at the end of the day seems to just be an immature passive-aggressive User.

I don’t know you or your friend, so I must ask for context.

Are you both polite adults, who use coasters and never burp out loud for fun? If so, your buddy is being rude.

Are you both loud jovial ball busting buddies? Like if said buddy refused to do shots, would you tell him his tampons fell out of his purse or vice versa? If so your being a bit of a buzz kill.

My whole point is you are making guy plans to do guy stuff in a guy place and you want to appease your wife. That gives your buds an opening to razz you.

Being a good husband is never wrong, but sometimes it’s time to be a dude.
Not when she needs you, not when she sick, but maybe it’s ok to be a dude on Superbowl Sunday.

I am a chick and a wife. I think your wife crowding in on super bowl plans might be a tad passive/aggressive on her part. You have a right to do whatever you want, of course. Does your wife like fooball or shown any interest in it during your marriage? I am just saying, it seems out of left field.

I’d take it as good natured razzing but without getting into the history with this guy, trust me it’s not. His feelings are really hurt and he’s taking it out on my wife.

As for getting to be a dude on Super Bow Sunday, I’m not being forbidden from seeing the game; my wife is offering to go to a very suitable sports bar to see the game and help me root for my team.

Maybe but what is better? Satisfying my passive aggressive so-called self proclaimed “best” friend or my as you say “passive aggressive” wife?

As a wife-chick you know the answer. You KNOW the answer.

The answer is please the wifey, duh. Or opt out of both and go do your own thing. I personally try to avoid everyone/thing on big sportball days.

Well okay, you know the situation better than I could. Have fun. Personally I won’t be watching, but Mr.Wrekker and Son will watch together.

Ok, he’s actually bummed, I get that.

You said you made plans, then bailed because of your wife.

As I said before…suite and tie, polite people don’t act like this and you are off the hook.
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If you’re less than polite/housebroken, beer drinking, burp out loud bros and value the bro code…take your lumps.

If you guys are mismatched I feel for you, but you know your bud and you know your woman. You made plans and bailed, he’s really let down.

If you want to make it better, buy him some booze/weed (if legal), take him to a titty bar or the drag races.

that’s the great thing about buds/bros…yes they will toast you with the macho bullshit/ bro code stuff…but

They can be bought off with booze/broads and bumper cars.

So are you a bro or a polite adult?
Neither is wrong, hell bros can be a pain in the ass.

But you cant be one and get credit for the other.

Completely on your side OP. Even if you’re fart-lighting, beer bros with this bloke, his response is just whiny BS.

Personally, my wife takes little enough interest in my sports interests, so on the off chance she expressed an interest to share a big match experience with me, hell yes I’m changing plans to Watch the game with her.

Yeah, this sounds an awful lot like “Bros before Hos” which I thought was lame in my 20’s, and think it’s even more lame now.

If you feel you need to side with your wife in order to keep your marriage happy, well yes, go ahead with her.

I have to say though, and I say this as a woman, it ill-behooves her to agree to join you in an event, and then insist on a change in the event’s location.

If I were your friend, I’d be disappointed too. And leery of making future plans with you.

Good grief, it’s not like these were long-established and anticipated plans that are being shot down at the last second. The teams were just decided.

Then again, I’m not much for football. Or bars. So maybe my opinion doesn’t carry much weight.

Still, I think you’re right and he’s wrong. For whatever that’s worth. :wink:

How often does she do things like this? If the answer is seldom then he is being an ass. If the wife jumps in the middle of your friendship regularly then she has a problem with him and you being together.

Yeah, my opinion is pretty much this. I mean, sure, the friend’s reaction is a bit immature, but I think the wife’s is a tad dickish, too, especially if she doesn’t give a damn about sports. I’d say the same thing with roles reversed, and with people outside the husband-wife dynamic. I mean, my wife is a Bills fan. If the Bills made it to the Super Bowl and she made plans with a good friend of hers to watch it at a particular bar and invited me along, I’d be an asshole (IMO) to insist on a different bar (even though I actually like the Bills and football in general, and would love to see the game.)

I’m on your friend’s side and think your wife is being the passive-aggressive one.

Your friend is out of line, but I’m jumping on the bandwagon that he’s got a point. This is what happens though, since the Super Bowl has become a big social event instead of just a championship game. You spend year after year watching football every weekend with other fans, but when your team finally makes it to the SB, you find yourself going to a lame Super Bowl party thrown by one of your wife’s friends where half the attendees don’t even know what a first down is.

Too late to edit - OP, I’m not criticizing your decision to watch it with your wife, of course you are free to do whatever you like. And I missed your later post that you’ll be going to a different sports bar, so you probably won’t have the “forced to socialize with your wife’s friends instead of watching the damned game” experience that I was referring to. But it definitely happens.

I’m shocked by some of the replies here. Regardless of who is right in the “where do we watch the game” challenge, the texts that the friend sent OP are just snivelling little cry-baby stuff.

This. DesertWife and I were traveling toward home one evening and stopped for dinner at a place recommended by a friend. This was about 6pm Sunday evening and the friend had not mentioned it was a sports bar (the name of the place, oddly enough, gave no clue). We stepped in and were hit in the face with a wall of noise. Without even glancing at each other we took two steps back and eased the door shut; they never even knew we were there. I can only imagine the pandemonium had been the [del]Super Bowl[/del] Big Game.

Now, I may be prejudiced because I am not a football fan. I am a fan of horse racing and last year spaced out making reservations at the track where we watch the Kentucky Derby until it was too late. There was a sports bar nearby with OTB but it didn’t take reservations. We arrived what I figured was plenty early but took the last table, a four-topper. About twenty minutes later a couple horseplayers came in (we could tell because like us, they were carrying their DRFs) so we invited them to sit with us. We spent a couple hours with them chuckling at the clueless (Awww, too bad. Maybe he’ll win the Derby next year.) but the place was really noisy.

I can understand your friend being upset - you made a commitment then you broke it.

What confuses me is that you made the commitment without realising that your wife would (a) want to watch the same event and (b) wouldn’t want to watch it at this location. If you’ve been married for 23 years, wouldn’t you already have an inkling on that?