My Mates Can Be A Nightmare

No, on the contrary...I think your friend was being shitty. Arguing and carrying on like that in your home is unacceptable in my opinion and you were right to go to bed.

They disresepcted you and your home. No reason why you shouldn't have just gone to bed.

No.

Showing that something is unacceptable is often being a good friend (especially if nobody else has the guts to say it).

Ok thanks, I had been dwelling on it.

This has been going on since I met her (in 2001) and she has been with him for 16 years. At first I used to beg her to get rid of him but I don't bother any more.

I think you're right, DP. She would have ditched him by now, so it's not worth wasting your energies on the subject. Basically, they were bang out of order, IMO.


(I would've ordered them a taxi)

dP--

Romantic conflict isn't a spectator sport. They both owe you an apology.

You don't have to be a blanket for tempests to thunder over. I learned this the hard way. Even if you try to be a nice understanding person for hours and hours, the folks are usually not appreciative. They barely notice.

I go on and on here on a2k, every once in a while, about theater people - but I shouldn't pick on them. Any group or couple which gets into hours and hours of belligerant offensive rant trades just aren't welcome (reminds me of a recent reference here to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, the movie). And when you put up with it, you're an enabler. I'm fine with a jolly time, but sometimes the scenario gets really obnoxious.

In my case, I couldn't really just go to bed, as our house was tiny. I didn't throw them out, since my husband had his own reasons for being in the group dynamics. Took me a long time to just say, you have to go now.

Years later, I look at myself in wonder for letting all that go on, especially when I had to go to work the next morning, or had work to do for my always going on classes.

The key offenders, one an actor and one a director, were eventually taken under wing of women who became their spouses. There was some drying out and readjustment involved. In their case, they were very bright men but bellicose speechifying asshxles.

I used to be able to deal with hours of it before. Now I'm sort of primed for that stuff, and don't let it happen.

This also sort of reminds me of some friends we called, well, I in particular did, "the horrible couple", though I never did call them that to their faces, straightforward person that I'd grown to be, I didn't get that far. Both terrifically interesting people. Ah, but going out with them to dinner was to set yourself up for three hours of sniping.

They were pretty much worth it. Deal was, not to get trapped in their lives.

Time has passed. It ended when he had a relationship with her best friend, several years after I knew them.

I'm sure they are both individually even more interesting today, but there was this toxic intimacy they had that took years out of their lives - at least from this outsider's viewpoint.

No. It sounds like the guy owes everyone an apology . . . and some restraint in the future. It was your house. You were tired. They abused your hospitality.