Couples friends and she bashes husband 24/7 (spouse, person, socializing, house)
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A great way to break up an unwanted topic of conversation is to change the subject. When the rant starts and as soon as you can wedge a word in, ask her something completely unrelated. It's unexpected and jolts the speaker out of their comfy little rut. Do this every time she starts. Disengage, cut the phone call short, get up and bring snacks from the kitchen, find a little chore you must do right then, let the dog out, let the dog in, close the drapes, call the server for a refill, anything to skip the needle out of her recorded groove. Eventually she'll learn that you are NOT a convenient ear for her venom.
EG:
"Hubby is a moron, the latest stupid thing he did was...blah blah blah."
"Wow, that was some heat wave! How did you get through it?"
"What? Um, fans. BTW, hubby can't manage to repair our bedroom fan at all....blah blah blah."
"I really have to shop for a cooler blouse before the next one hits. What style do you think the coolest?"
I've tried the change the subject thing and it doesn't work... She will want to pick up where she left off even ten or fifteen minutes later, and I literally walked away from her the other day twice because I just wanted it to stop... And she tried to circle back. She's getting more bold in trying to say these things when he is sitting ten feet away too by whispering attempts to begin a side conversation with complaints so I will literally turn my head and join what everyone else is talking about. We vacationed with them recently and I spent half the time avoiding her. I think I just need to call it out... The uncertainty comes from my discomfort with confrontation and I need to suck it up I guess.
I had a relative who did this also. After she finished complaining about him one morning, I said "What do you plan to do about this problem?" She looked totally shocked. She stopped complaining to me, and she divorced him a year later. They just weren't compatible.
Direct, which I usually am... Probably would be enough to send the message that I don't want to be the one to listen to it. Just need to get up the courage and be ready for how it may change things (except this situation, which needs to change,
obviously).
We had friends like this, and we just stopped hanging out with them. It made any gathering extremely awkward for us and it stopped being fun.
I worry that's the way it will go, and we would hate that, because our kids have grown up together and we have been her family, she says.
We have never engaged with her, we have changed the subject, and I now walk away and will literally turn my head if she starts to complain and she just isn't getting the non-verbal (turning away) and somewhat verbal (changing subject) cues... To not be direct, I guess we are complicit by not putting a stop to it. I told my husband the other day, that I am totally drained from her and had to muster the strength to see them since we had plans... We got home and I was literally exhausted. The more she has attempted these sidebars, the more I find things that I don't like about her, which is my problem, I know. I realize how pathetic this whole post may make me sound, Lol.
I've tried the change the subject thing and it doesn't work... She will want to pick up where she left off even ten or fifteen minutes later, and I literally walked away from her the other day twice because I just wanted it to stop... And she tried to circle back. She's getting more bold in trying to say these things when he is sitting ten feet away too by whispering attempts to begin a side conversation with complaints so I will literally turn my head and join what everyone else is talking about. We vacationed with them recently and I spent half the time avoiding her. I think I just need to call it out... The uncertainty comes from my discomfort with confrontation and I need to suck it up I guess.
This is ridiculous.
At this ^^ point I think I would yell out, "Joe, you should hear the crap your wife is saying about you over here!"
I've tried the change the subject thing and it doesn't work... She will want to pick up where she left off even ten or fifteen minutes later, and I literally walked away from her the other day twice because I just wanted it to stop... And she tried to circle back. She's getting more bold in trying to say these things when he is sitting ten feet away too by whispering attempts to begin a side conversation with complaints so I will literally turn my head and join what everyone else is talking about. We vacationed with them recently and I spent half the time avoiding her. I think I just need to call it out... The uncertainty comes from my discomfort with confrontation and I need to suck it up I guess.
Yes, you need to say something.
"Susan, you know every time you talk about Jeff, it's always very negative, it's getting to be too much for us to hear"...DONE.
No one likes confrontation, but enough already. If she doesn't like it too bad, maybe time to reevaluate the friendship, sounds like the vacation was miserable.
Life is too short for this. Because if they end up divorcing, more than likely that will be the end of your friendship anyway, she is the type who will expect you and your husband to chose a side.
"Susan, you know every time you talk about Jeff, it's always very negative, it's getting to be too much for us to hear"...DONE.
No one likes confrontation, but enough already. If she doesn't like it too bad, maybe time to reevaluate the friendship, sounds like the vacation was miserable.
Life is too short for this. Because if they end up divorcing, more than likely that will be the end of your friendship anyway, she is the type who will expect you and your husband to chose a side.
So true, all of it... Thank you. Never really gave attention to re-evaluating, but I think I've already had some of that going on now that it's mentioned.
S.O. and I have very close friends and the wife has slowly over the years (but currently almost every time we talk) bashed her husband and says how horrible he is. We have a feeling that he would be completely blind sided to hear this, not that we would say anything because it's not our place to bring it to his attention and stir the pot.
As we are equally close with them both, how do we handle this?
We made friends with them through our kids so it's always been the four of us establishing the friendship, making me and my S.O. equally as loyal to them both I guess, and not something where we were friends with one and then the other came along... We have been good friends 11 years and have known eachoher about 14 years.
It's making her look bad and impacting our view of her, and making us uncomfortable... I don't know what type of advice she expects, but we aren't giving any; it's crossing boundaries and we don't know how to put a stop to it without just distancing ourselves to not risk losing the friendship altogether.
What is frustrating is that in the past we have no issue setting a boundary with anybody, but this is just different and I can't put my finger on why... Maybe guilt (?) because she calls us her family, and she literally has no living family outside of her own and doesn't get along with her in-laws, so we are "it" for her.
Anyone have advice how to deal with this?
You tell her this: "It's making her look bad and impacting our view of her, and making us uncomfortable... I don't know what type of advice she expects, but we aren't giving any; it's crossing boundaries"
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