I believe there was, but not being Alice or Cathy in this scenario, I don’t know what went on. I do now that when Bob and Cathy started dating, Alice tried to talk Cathy out of it privately. Whether that was for Alice’s benefit or for Cathy’s benefit is an open question.
I was wondering how long it would take for that question to come up - I was hoping there’s be some good discussion before it came up, and it seems to have.
I’m the Bob in this scenario. I tend to agree with a lot of posters that Alice is understandably not enthused about inviting the happy couple along, and Ernesto did nothing wrong by wanting to continue going to the parties. We had a lot of fights about this topic during the engagement.
As far as Daniel, most of what I know about him comes through Cathy, so there’s obvious bias. The few times I talked to him I never really got along with him. Most of his friends were through his church, and I got the impression they felt that Jesus would disapprove of them excluding one of their own.
I’m a little surprised I didn’t get more heat in the discussion. Multiple FWB and ‘stealing’ Cathy away from Daniel has gotten me askance looks in the past. (I mean, I don’t think it was really stealing since I insisted they break up first, but I can see where that’s a leading demand).
As far as Cathy… well, she is my wife, and I do love her. I did think she really overreacted to not getting party invites. Part of the issue is that she is slow to make friends, and therefore felt the lack of parties more acutely than a more outgoing person. As for us not throwing parties: We threw a couple, but part of the change was that I started grad school and she was trying to finish up her degree, so we didn’t have a lot of time to plan something. Later we had a tiny (and I mean tiny) one bedroom apartment that really wouldn’t have fit more than 3-4 extra people, so hosting would have been difficult.
I appreciate the insight from the 'dope, but I hope this doesn’t end the discussion. Always get something new to think about when I read a thread here.
Now that I see you married her I hate to call Cathy the jerk.
Alice is under no obligation to even throw a party let alone invite everyone who wants to be invited. It’s her house, her party and she gets to decide who is welcome there. What kind of person thinks they are entitled to go another persons party?
I don’t know why anyone would think Alice has done anything wrong.
I wouldn’t invite an ex and his new squeeze to my party. I wouldn’t want to take my new squeeze to a party thrown by my ex.
Alice is not responsible for giving Cathy a social life.
Daniel was a dick, he deserved to be dumped and the day I think it’s okay to satisfy a mans needs while he denies me mine is the day I need my head examined. How so called religious people twist things around to make it okay to do what they do is just so much bullshit and not worth my time. Besides I like sex too much to be with a man who isn’t going to give it to me.
Ernesto can be friends with whomever he wants and he can go to whatever parties he wants. He’s doesn’t owe Cathy a damned thing. Why is she trying to control his social life?
I agree with Typo Negative that it seems like there may have been some confrontation between Alice and Cathy prior to Cathy and Bob being uninvited from Alice’s parties. It also seems plausible to me that there were other factors involved in Alice’s decision to limit the number of additional party guests. Allowing any invited guest to bring along anyone else they like, whether Alice knows them or not, seems like something that could get badly out of hand. Aside from just overcrowding, Alice might have wound up having to deal with total strangers who were obnoxious, belligerent, or damaged/stole her property.
I can’t answer for FrankJBN, but it did strike me that you were including details about Daniel that had nothing to do with the party drama that was central to the story – e.g. how Daniel didn’t participate in party games and no one wanted to be his friend, Daniel’s expectation that Cathy provide him with oral sex – and Daniel is the only character you describe in derogatory terms: he’s a “wet blanket” who becomes “a functional alcoholic and slutpuppy.” This particularly stands out since, again, Daniel wasn’t involved in the drama around party invitations and wasn’t even in the same part of the country as the others for much of the story.
Now that I know you’re “Bob” I better understand why so much information about Daniel was included. You must have heard a lot of complaints about him from Cathy, and you may even subconsciously want to make Daniel sound bad to avoid being criticized for “stealing” Cathy away from him. But had you been “Fred”, a friend of the others but not involved in any of the drama, then I doubt you’d have said much about Daniel at all aside from him being Cathy’s original boyfriend but that things weren’t working out between them.
Do you expect your girlfriend to give you blowjobs but refuse to perform oral sex on her?
If you are Bob to be frank you were way too precious with your OP, especially peeing all over your ex’s BF hapless Daniel who is kind of beside the point in this scenario as he really had little if anything to do with the core question of the appropriateness of Alice not including your wife in the mix. Your setting him up as the lame, disliked pinata with a list of his bad points was kind of petty and self serving.
Alice had real a emotional attachment to you. Regardless of how cool with an FWB scenario many women will profess to be, the reality is that they will tolerate it because the alternative is that the man leaves them entirely, and that is not acceptable to them. Another woman then comes along, a ring appears on a finger and the gut reaction is “WTF why her and not me?”.
Does your wife not understand that no matter how sophisticated everyone wants to be Alice is going to have a visceral reaction to you two together as man and wife. Cathy needs to respect Alice’s feelings on this issue. It’s not all about her.
I would rather have your honest opinion than the opinion you think I want to hear; the dope is generally good about that. It’s the main reason I didn’t say who I was at the beginning.
Besides, I love her and still know she has faults I have faults too.
Like I said, it’s a topic pretty impossible to not have bias with. In retrospect I probably should have just made Daniel an unnamed character in the story. You’re right that I don’t like him for a variety of reasons.
And I stated earlier that I agreed that Alice was perfectly ethical in ceasing to extend invitations. But, I find it healthy to question my conclusions and bounce those off people.
As all this happened years ago, it’s not like I’m going to go up to any of the participants and say “you know that thing that happened years ago? You were totally right/wrong/whatever about that”.
I think you’re making excuses here. Socializing doesn’t have to take a lot of time or have to involve more than one other couple. Nor do you have to host something at your house. It literally takes 30 seconds to invite another couple to join you someplace for dinner. 2 minutes to send out 5 texts asking friends to meet you at BW3 for wings and beer for Sunday’s game. If your place is too small, go to a local park and have a picnic.
**
Re us not being harsh on you/Bob: You had relationships with consenting adults and abided by the guidelines you both set. If other people raise their eyebrow at your story, perhaps it’s because they think it’s odd that a person in a long-term, committed relationship is talking about how he had a series of FWBs before his marriage. It’s none of anyone’s business and, frankly, comes off as you re-living your glory days. So put $5 in the Douche Jar.
I only ran through this once, and I think the OP did a better job than most in making the story neutral/unbiased.
As far as Cathy goes -I can understand why she’d be hurt if she’s relying on Alice/others to make her social connections for her. Perhaps she only enjoys parties, but I have gotten lots of enjoyment from seeing friends at lunch over they years. Perhaps she could be as open minded as the OP appears to be and try and take a positive step to improve her social life (and not have to rely on others).
Totally useless question…
Why’d you pick the name Ernesto? All the other names seemed very “white bread”. Could you not think of another bland “E” name? Was his name really Edward and you want to protect his identity? Was he hispanic? Just particularly like the name Ernesto?
I voted for Alice but I don’t thinks she is a huge jerk. Just mildly jerky.
I don’t see how Daniel is integral to this story. He does contrast with Bob but calling him out solely for being a wet blanket and letting his gf go down on him but not reciprocating has nothing to do with the party invites.
Unless these are sex parties. Are these sex parties?
Where did you get that? It looked from my reading of the OP that Bob and Cathy were both invited, right up to the point that neither of them was. The only other guy in a relationship being invited to the parties was Alice’s fella after Bob, and he was always invited up until they broke up. So what are you on about?
As for who’s the jerk? Cathy, all the way. Her willingness to cheat on Daniel was jerky as shit, completely aside from any of the rest of the story. And I’m not buying any protestations about how awful and jerky and lame and blah blah blah he was about the whole blowjob thing as a justification for her actions. Yeah, he was a jerk. Someone being a jerk to you first doesn’t make your subsequent jerk-ass behavior not jerky. Up till that point, she and Daniel are about tied in jerkitude.
But then this whole invitation thing starts, and she piles jerk-ass move upon jerk-ass move. I mean, honestly, trying to get all the mutual friends to boycott Alice’s parties because she’s not invited? Most people outgrow that kind of shit by 10th grade, man. And blaming Alice for her not making the time or effort to see her friends? Bullshit. If Cathy honestly wanted to see her friends, she could meet them somewhere, or have fewer people over at a time, or something–where there’s a will, there’s a way. Then we come to Ernesto, one of the dear friends Cathy was so devastated not get to see, who she herself dropped because he still went to Alice’s parties. The obvious inference is that she wasn’t devastated at not getting to see her friends, she was devastated that they didn’t all immediately take her side and therefore didn’t want to see them.
Dude, your wife behaved pettily, childishly, controllingly, and all-around jerkishly beginning to end in this situation.
So, OP, since you obviously knew Alice well, what do you think were her reasons for not inviting you and Cathy to her parties anymore? Was it a matter of, “OK, I tried this but I’m really not comfortable with it,” or, “You’re MARRYING her?! Never darken my door again!”
Or was it something that we wouldn’t know about, such as that Cathy & Bill started socializing with some of the other friends without including Alice, and Alice got wind of it? Or that she was peeved because she was spending a bunch of money hosting parties for people who never reciprocated?
Alice is ok not to feel comfortable having her ex and friend, now a couple to her parties. Daniel is hypocritcal to be ok with getting sex, but not giving it, and thinking this still keeps him in the clear with God, altnough this has no bearing on situation with the parties.
So Cathy still wants to bleat about not being invited to Alice’s parties? Daniel’s sex life is between himself and his lovers - or should be. Alice is not a true friend to Ernesto. No one is a jerk, but Cathy seems immature.
I have faults too.