Want to yak but don’t wanna do a full thread? Do it here!

  • dkppunk@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    4 days ago

    So I’m looking for a little bit of advice and I don’t want a full post about it.

    I have to talk to a girl friend (the wife of my long time friend) about comments she makes when our group gets together. She’s usually a very kind person, but she has said things recently that have gotten under my partner’s skin and to be honest mine too. It came to a bit of a breaking point recently when we were early into a game we have played only a few times (a secret bad guy game that I feel we are still kind of learning the rules). It turned into in game bullying on her part towards my partner, which was when I stepped in and pushed back pretty hard, her husband also stepped in and pushed back a bit. This later brought up my partner’s frustration with other comments she’s made about hobbies he enjoys (mostly financial talk). When she’s not interested in a topic, she makes snide remarks that seem to be an attempt to change the discussion, but they come off as judgmental and a bit hypocritical. Her partner is interested in the similar topics and it was disrupting a conversation between my partner and her husband.

    She may not necessarily mean them as derogatory towards my partner, but it gets rude when it disrupts conversations. It’s the little comments here and there that really add up. She often pushes her opinion by shouting down others and not letting their opinion be heard if it’s something she disagrees with. There is never an agreement to disagree, it’s always she is correct. This time was worse because it was in our home and she became disrespectful towards my partner, especially after the in game bullying.

    I prefer to avoid conflict, so it’s hard for me to bring up, but I know I have to. Should I bring my long time friend (her husband) into it to talk to her? Or does it need to come from me? Any advice on how to have that convo would be appreciated.

    • dazzlingclitgame@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      That’s a rough situation you got there! I would probably start with talking to your long time friend, her husband. You do a great job laying out the issue here in your comment and I would stick to something similar - explain that you enjoy spending time with them, but her comments about other people’s interests make that time not enjoyable for anyone. I would also bring up the specific example of the game night where it turned to her bullying your husband. That’s just not acceptable and it’s ok to say that you will no longer be able to play games with her if it continues.

      • dkppunk@piefed.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 day ago

        Thanks, I appreciate it. I decided I’ll talk to him first, he knows me well enough to know I’d prefer to resolve the issue and that I don’t bring things up unless it’s serious because I’m deeply conflict avoidant. I’m still working on what I’m going to say, but I’ll probably be reaching out to him later today.

        And I don’t think my partner was doing anything in that game that was overtly “bad guy”, we were passing all the missions. It was that she refused to assist him with getting him out of jail so early in the game because he was being “shady”, therefore denying him any chance to even play the game with the rest of us. This was where I stood up and got pretty loud, which is very out of character for me. My issue with that is that he’s always her first target, not the other ladies, not her husband, always my partner.

        She’s overall good people, but it does suck when someone yucks your yum every time it comes up.

        • dazzlingclitgame@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          1 day ago

          “She’s overall good people, but it does suck when someone yucks your yum every time it comes up.”

          That’s exactly the message you should try to get across to your friend! I hope you have a productive conversation with him and she backs off a little on her snarkiness :)