Friend belittles her husband in public
Dear Amy: My husband and I have become friends with another couple, and have gotten together with them several times, either at one another’s homes or by going out.
Each time, over the course of the evening, the wife begins trying to pick a fight with her husband.
She speaks to him in a belittling manner, her voice dripping with sarcasm, and points out what she sees as his shortcomings, and though he ignores her, she doesn’t stop.
As you can imagine, this makes for an intensely uncomfortable time for my husband and me, to the point where we no longer want to socialize with them as a couple.
My husband thinks we should just continue to ignore her venting. I want to tell her either that we now charge for couple’s therapy or that if she’s going to continue in that vein, she’ll have to go home (or we will, if we’re out together).
I’d like to get your thoughts about how to handle this.
At a Loss for Words
Dear At A Loss: This social dynamic sounds like your own unfortunate staging of a living room production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?” so I’m going to refer to this couple as “Martha” and “George.”
Martha is creating an uncomfortable situation for everyone at the table. Why would you ignore it?
She’s not shy about belittling her partner in public, so maybe you should be less shy about reacting honestly to it.
Because this is a pattern with a clear perpetrator, you should call her out. Before agreeing to see them again, one — or both — of you should tell Martha, “We enjoy spending time with both of you, but Martha, the way you speak to George when we’re together makes us very uncomfortable. We are bewildered by it and feel bad for him.”
If alcohol seems to be a factor in fueling her rage, then you should also bring this up.
Ideally, your husband would try to speak with George privately, to check in and ask how he feels about this verbal abuse, and the relationship overall. Men often seem to find this difficult (your husband obviously does), but they must find ways to discuss their relationships and support one another.