My friends & him

[ronjaandbirk]

Hello all you lovely people,

I have a bit of a thing and I'm just wondering what everybody makes of this because I'm clueless.

A bit of backstory: me and my ldr gut are together since a little over 2 years now. We're currently going through an extremely rough patch and I don't know if we can make it through currently. It's mainly communication, mental health problems and the future that are problems, but i know what we have to work on, we're considering counselling and while it's all horrible i kind of know where I'm at with those things.

There is one part however that i can't make head or tail of.
He doesn't like my friends. Usually i dont see that as a huge factor because we both agree the we look for very different things in friendships, and I don't like his friends either tbh. Now the problem, as stupid as it sounds: my friends love him. Like they think he's the best thing since sliced bread. I ofc agree, but i also know that they see only small glück mpses of him and i know they wouldnt be cooseuf they knew each other better but my friends can't see that. This results in them pestering my boyfriend a bit. They keep inviting him, basically see him as part of the group and because he's a nice guy he doesn't say anything. It's just he really doesn't like them and i feel like currently he feels like if he is with me he has to endure my awful friends all the time because they don't get the memo and he just hates them.

I don't know what to do. I feel like it's not my job to ask my friends to leave my boyfriend alone because they are disliked and feel like they would take it worse coming from me than coming from him. I also know he doesnt want to be rude to my friends.

I don't know what to do. He really doesn't like them and he holds them against me in a way because i guess he thinks if I'm friends with them part of me is like those people he loathes.

I can understand this, but i also know that i am very very much unlike my friends. I'm the oddball out in the group, and i'm friends with them more because of loyalty and history, we don't actually have anything in common. I dont see them often even.

If it was between them and my boyfriend I would cut them lose... I just think there should be a more elegant way to solve this. Any thoughts?

[R&R]

He doesn't need to be rude to them in order to tell them no. It's good that he is concerned about coming across as rude but he has every right to turn down invitations. If he declines often enough, hopefully they will stop asking. Or he can tell them that though he appreciates the offers to hang out, that he simply has different tastes in what he enjoys and that they are best to go on without him.

You are right - no one is going to always like the others friends. This is why you have a girls night on your own or he goes out with his buddies on his time. As long as neither group of friends is doing anything harmful or illegal, then it is one of those things that couples need to compromise on or be understanding about.

[Chris516]

Tell them, he is not very sociable. Not as a criticism against him. But sort of as a cue for them to stop pestering him. It would be subtle, without being blunt. It would also not bring needlessly to light. His not liking them.

It would also avoid a confrontation, between him n' them.

[differentcountries]

It sound like none of you are into fighting for boundries and speaking from the heart thing. Being polite is sweet, yet still has its limits and can cause trouble when you mislead people more and more through complying. I notice that you are from Germany - the "land of telling it like it is". Is he even aware that people will tend to take things he says more at face value? People in Scandinavia usually have a bit more "polite smiles" and indirect ways of rejecting, compared to Germany. It might be that he is trying to use body language that people simply don't read as he intended it.

My husband and I has a friend whos husband is from a different country (one where people are far more indirect in their communication that is usual here). Everyone knows him as "the smiling guy". People dont smile too often here, so he was liked and included despite that he does not speak our language well (he is not good in English either). The same problem here; he is polite to people, acts like he is their best friend, be it at a party of in the street. So friends of his wife tend to always invite him along and may ask him to bring a dish (he is an good hobby chef). It turns out, he does not like her friends all that much and when they ask him for small favors like that he resents it. And she resents it. But he does not decline the favor, rumor has it that he "loves to cook for people" and he gets asked to bring food more etc. After a while of this, his wife got super upset and told off a few people. I am one of the people she told off... I was trying to be polite, too, by including him with her and inviting him to our house. I had no idea they both had such a problem telling to people how they felt (after all, my husband grew up with her, they go way back and she will sometimes confy in him) and why they thought that her friends should understand that him smiling and complying meant that he was uncomfortable. She was at one point angry at all her friends because "they were taking advantage" and "not thinking about what it was like for him". People were baffled because they thought his smiles was him fishing for invitations. Actually, people were probably not THAT into him, his food and whatever, they were rather trying to do HER a favor by including her husband who usually sat there and had nothing to say...except smile, and bring food.

So, this is what it can look like from the other side...

Have you told your friends you feel this way?

[ronjaandbirk]

Thank you all for your thoughts, they have been super helpful. I guess I will try to just subtly/friendly avoid them being together.

The cultural differences are definatly a thing. Less between the two of us, because my personality tends to be a bit "scandinavian" but whenever it's about the people around us. I get annoyed by the constant underlying drama in his friendships and family because they can never have an open adult conversation. I think the thing that bothers him most about my friends is their complete opennness towards him because he feels like he hardly knows them and they extend their friendship to me to him and it's intimidating for him.

I think I've actually ignored the cultural differences too much so thanks for bringing that up differentcountries. It didnt use to be a problem because we could deal with each other so well but it becomes a problem now that one of us has to move. I love scandinavia and i would move to stockholm in a heartbeat and have friends there but currently we wouldnt be able to afford anywhere else than on his parents lands and I'd feel horribly isolated there and the constant "things we don't openly talk about" aswell as just missing boundaries in how much you please people in that area would just kill me.

He on the ither hand I think would be miserable in germany, so yeah i guess I have to think about it more as a cultural thing. Sorry for the rant <3

[Chris516]

Thank you all for your thoughts, they have been super helpful. I guess I will try to just subtly/friendly avoid them being together.

The cultural differences are definitely a thing. Less between the two of us, because my personality tends to be a bit "Scandinavian" but whenever it's about the people around us. I get annoyed by the constant underlying drama in his friendships and family because they can never have an open adult conversation. I think the thing that bothers him most about my friends is their complete openness towards him because he feels like he hardly knows them and they extend their friendship to me to him and it's intimidating for him.

I think I've actually ignored the cultural differences too much so thanks for bringing that up differentcountries. It didn't use to be a problem because we could deal with each other so well but it becomes a problem now that one of us has to move. I love Scandinavia and i would move to Stockholm in a heartbeat and have friends there but currently we wouldn't be able to afford anywhere else than on his parents lands and I'd feel horribly isolated there and the constant "things we don't openly talk about" as well as just missing boundaries in how much you please people in that area would just kill me.

He on the either hand I think would be miserable in Germany, so yeah i guess I have to think about it more as a cultural thing. Sorry for the rant <3

I wanted to add one other observation.

OTOH(On The One Hand) it is great that your friends' want to include him in something, that you are doing with them. Their behavior is such that, it would be like you specifically doing the same thing. Like repeatedly trying to get him to try something new, that he doesn't feel comfortable doing for whatever reason. So, I am glad you are not copying your friends' behavior, and letting your s/o be himself.

OTOH(On The Other Hand) to do things together, you don't have to do them with each other's friends, just with each other. Call it 'us' time.

Your saying that the two of you are considering counseling is, simply gangbusters, fantastic, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious(Mary Poppins)