Husbands Hate Me

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is a problem I’ve had all my life.

When I was a child, my friend’s parents disliked me. As a teenager, they began to hate me. Now, all of my friend’s husbands hate me.

I’m trying to figure out why. The reason I keep hearing is, I’m a bad influence on my friends. To me, that doesn’t make sense. I’ve never done drugs, I’ve never been arrested, I’ve never gotten drunk and drove home and I’ve never encouraged my friends to do so.

My friends did all of the above when they were kids. I was always the one watching over them, I always did what I could to keep them safe, I was grounded many times for coming home late, so I could drive a drunk friend home. But that’s a long time ago.

Now my old friend’s and my new friend’s all have husbands that dislike me. The husbands are saying the same thing, I’m a bad influence on them.

As a poll, I asked my friends why their husbands feel that way. The answers were:

  1. I’m entirely too independant
  2. I’m too honest
  3. I’m too opinionated.

Still, I’m not getting what the problem is. I don’t find those qualities to be a problem. Maybe the third one, but I don’t offer opinions unless I’m asked.

Anyone got any theories on this ?

2

I’m most definately not in this camp but.

Suppose their wives started displaying these traits. They are afraid you will infect the wives with your strong sense of self. Then where would they be? They might have to even be, <gasp>, partners in their marriages rather than, “the man of the house.”

3

[wild supposition]

Maybe they don’t like the way you convey your honesty and opinions? Or maybe they just don’t like your opinions?

[/wild supposition]

::shrug::

4

Don’t take this wrong, but are you cute? Flirtatious? Dress sexy? A lot of times in my opinion women can feel threatened if their husband/boyfriend has an attractive female friend.

5

Honest and opinionated can be bad things…

To give an example.
I know someone who after everything I say… will say…
Well that’s ok… maybe you should do it this way…

Not that I mind help or advice on some things… but this happenes with everything. I brought it to their attention, and they didn’t realize they were doing it.
and they kept doing it, and I pointed it out every time. They are starting to get better.

6

I am a husband, and I don’t hate you. Yet.

But seriously, without knowing you personally it would be really difficult to pinpoint what it is. Or knowing what your friends’ husbands are like.

7

Sounds to me dragongirl you have a bit of a problem accepting others opinions. If this has happened for more than a few years wouldn’t logic say that there is something about your mannerisms/attitude/influence that some people do not like.

If it is the males who are predominently the ones not liking you, I would say you are doing something that makes them quite uneasy. If I were to bet, I’d say you were being consciously or unconsciously flirtatious with a male who finds it objectionable. It really doesn’t matter if it is conscious or not, but the fact that this has been happening for quite a while would connote that you get some kind of rise out of it, be it you enjoy your own behaviour, or you enjoy the reaction you are getting from the people who don’t like you.

I’d further venture to say, enjoyment of a prescribed response can be construed at being slightly manipulative. I’d be careful if I were you Dragongirl - just by your very username, I have a sense you like yourself very much…

8

Dragongirl said:

Rysdad said:

Emphasis mine.

While I freely admit I do not know the OP, I have found that the majority of people who define themselves with the above terms tend to be generally without a clue about why some (many?) people dislike them.

Hint: Notice the use of the word “too” in their descriptions? Too independent, too honest, too opinionated?

MeanJoe

9

I have a niece who is very opinionated and forthright about her opinion, but also gets argumentative if someone else presents their own opinion. She comes off to others like she’s the only one whose opinion is correct, to the point where she can really irritate people at times. My father-in-law can be that way too - he’s irritated my husband to the point where he’s told his own dad, “Opinions are like assholes - everyone has one, and no one likes having someone else’s thrust in their face constantly.”

As to why you might only be making men annoyed, perhaps it has something to do with the stereotypical ways in which men and women tend to communicate (stuff like women want to commisserate about troubles, while men want to offer solutions). Without knowing you I can’t give any more concrete advice, except to monitor your conversations with people and see what’s going on. Not everyone needs to know your opinion on something, and most conversations probably shouldn’t involve debate or challenges of some kind.

10

Wow. You know my wife has a number of friends and the only one I feel that way about is a particularly Sadistic Sociopathic Bitch who likes to see if she can make us fight. Little things like if I clean the bathroom, why its not to her expectations? “Stan” scrubs his twice a week. Or how come my wife’s paycheck doesn’t go into her personal ‘mad money’ account while I cover all the bills? Or if I make $XX,000.00 per year, how come I don’t make $XXX,000.00 per year?

Look, she is who she is, and without trials and tribulations life would be Boring. Besides, I could never worry too much about her meddling , because I’ve always known a Karma Mack Truck was heading her way, slowly but surely.

The thing is, I Know you’re nothing like that. So why don’t they like you?

11

Good point on the ‘too’ item.

Nothing wrong with being honest, independant, and opinionated.

But being too honest means you have no tact.

Being too independant means you don’t recognize or respect inter-dependance.

Being too opinionated means you don’t offer enough respect for the opinions of others.

Your friends like you (the girls, that is). So they’re not exactly going to say you are a tactless person who doesn’t respect the value of interdependance in their relationships, and who tends to value her own opinions above those of other people, regardless.

Here’s a tip I got from my mom. The value of a relationship is reflected in how it affects your other relationships. A good relationship/friendship will improve your relationships across the board - and will highlight any bad relationships/friendships in pretty strong light. A bad relationship/friendship will make your relationships across the board worse.

So, if being friends with YOU affects ALL your friends’ marriages negatively, I would say you have a real problem. And it isn’t theirs. Not that I don’t like you - so far as I know you on the SDMB, I do like you. But you may not have the skills to manage your friendships without damaging their other relationships.

I don’t know where you are hitting the system in a bad way, but I’m going to say that if it is as universal as you say, it is definitely something you are doing. Perhaps, if you value your friends enough to value them having good relationships aside from the one with you, you could sit down and ask the husbands in what way you make their relationships worse. Do you make the wives doubt the value of interdependance? Do you insult their intelligence and thereby reduce their wives respect for them when you don’t take their opinions seriously? Do you highlight errors of judgement or actions that they were just letting slide for the sake of harmony when you speak too honestly?

Those would be my best guesses, given that I do have a friend who is too honest and too opinionated, and while not too independant, she is not sufficiently INTERdependant. When epeepunk is crabby with me for a moment, I let it drop as unimportant - I know him, and I know his intent is not to wound. But if she sees it, she MUST highlight it, and compares it to other experiences in her life, and makes me feel bad about ‘taking’ it without fighting back (even though I know it is momentary and that he will come back later and either explain why he was crabby, or apologize on his own). She says what she thinks, but it is inappropriate to our situation, and is more about her opinion than about my reality. Because I am very certain of myself in my relationship, I let my angst be directed back at her, and not inward, so I don’t wonder ‘does he gripe at me too much, am I being a doormat, is she right and my willingness to overlook minor moments is wrong?’ - but I am also unusually strong, and if I were not, I might well let her opinion damage my relationship. She does not grasp the dynamics of my marriage, and cannot comprehend me not using every negative moment as a case-in-point to be used in some later disagreement. She also tends to try to get her opinions color my choices. To some degree, this is a good idea. She convinced me to try midwifery - but that was with the input of other people, as well. If it had been just her, all I would have felt was derided for selecting an OB, instead of encouraged to explore alternatives. She thinks I would be better off trying for an illegally-assisted homebirth (midwifery homebirths are illegal in my state) than go to a birth center I am strongly attached to, and birth with a midwife I like but she does not. It is a struggle to keep her overwhelming opinions from pushing me to a place that I personally, in my own opinion, do not want to go. I have to be rock solid to keep from being knocked into a place that is closer to hers than mine. Not terribly surprisingly, she and epeepunk are not the best of friends, though they respect one-another as far as they can, and he, I am sure, is thrilled that I am strong enough not to be moved by her ‘too’ strong opinions, honesty, and lack of comprehension of interdependance.

Does that help? Is it relevant to your situation? I’ve no idea if I’ve hit it straight on, but I suspect I’m not too far off, even if the degree is much less intense on your part. (trust me, she’s got to be way worse than you! There’s a reason I haven’t invited her here, she’d be banned in short order.)

12

Atrael said:

I’m not cute or flirtatious and I don’t dress sexy at all. I tend to be more of a tomboy.

Phlosphr said:

Actually the only reason I go by dragongirl is that the name I wated to use was already taken and Dragon was the title of a book I was reading at the time.

Thanks for the opinions so far.

13

The other thing that comes to mind is a general lack of kindness or compassion in the application of opinion, independance, and honesty. Not that you are unkind or non-compassionate in general, but just when applying those traits. All three, in extreme, cannot be applied with either kindness or compassion (both are moderating influences). That may contribute to a tendency for your friends to be less compassionate with their spouses after they’ve been around you. You tend to be pretty passionate and logical, a good combo for many situations. But not for relationships, where subtlety, kindness, flexibilty, and emotion may play a larger role than facts and certainty. At least you need to use them in layers - not drop the passion and logic, but not use them exclusively in all situations.

A lack of subtlety may be a big factor. You may not have the skills to assess when a situation calls for your passion and intellect, and when it calls for a raised eyebrow and a smile. Hard to tell on a message board.

Using another example, we’ve got some friends we love dearly, and see seldom. They are NYC folk, who have definitely adopted the cynicism and sharp-edged humor of the Young Hip subculture. For ages, when we were around them, everything we cherished was taken apart verbally, explored in the worst possible light, searched for signs of selfishness and bad motives. Done in an utterly witty style, enough that we had to laugh, even through our discomfort. Ugh. We finally told them why we didn’t spend much time with them anymore. They have since moderated their behavior (at least for us), and we plan to visit them soon (two weeks or so). They had lost all their kindness and compassion in the pursuit of rapier wit and style. They’ve since become more mellow, less sharp-edged, and more likely to say something positive just because they want to pass on something nice.

Again, don’t know if that applies to you in person. But it is another option. I still think talking with the husbands would be a good idea - just say you hate to feel like you are damaging things for your friends, and you are looking for IDEAS (not saying you’ll necessarily be able or willing to change any item in particular, but without ideas, you can’t start). This will also probably give the husbands reason to respect you, even if grudgingly. And that is never a bad thing. :slight_smile:

14

It could be that the husbands feel threatened. Not in a sexual way, but that you question their “authority”. That also might be the thing with the parents.

Could your friends be classified as “blind followers”? Nice quiet people who are totally different when you are with them? Then you’re seen as a “bad influence” because of how they react to you.

Just a thought…

15

I don’t know about now but if when my kid went out with you they always came home drunk or stoned you would suffer guilt by association. Maybe you just naturally bring out the worst in people.

16

Do you want people to like you for who you are, or for how you make them feel? Seems the latter is not working for you. Damn, seems the former isn’t either, as you describe it.

17

Just an observation, but in high school I had the problem of being disliked by my friend’s parents as well. Like you, Dragongirl I was actually the good one, my friends would partake in alcohol and recreational drug usage, while I generally was the one abstaining and looking after them.

I came to find out that my friends were using me as a scapegoat to their parents. They would blame any trouble they got into on me. I suspect that it’s quite a common occurrence at that age.

18

This is similar to the “girls don’t want nice guys” threads that pop up often around here.

People see traits in themselves that others find objectionable and redefine them as positives. Just as guys who define themselves as “nice” are often spineless lapdogs without ambition, people who see themselves as “independant” and “honest” are often meddling and annoying.

When someone sees a cute kid in an Easter bonnet and says “ooh, how cute” they are just expressing an emotion, and do not want to hear a screed about how kids are whiny and annoying, nor a lengthy discussion about the patriarchal nature of the church, and all the evil things religion is responsible for.

I do not know if this is how you are or not, but my radar pinged as soon as I read your description of yourself.

19

So start dressing sexy and flirt with the husbands. They will begin to love you and your friends will hate you.

[ul]:frowning: [sup]Another one of those Catch 22 situations[/sup][/ul]

20

Have you considered the possibility that what you consider “independent”, “honest”, or “opinionated” is actually “confrontational”, “rude”, and “intolerant”?