Updates: “Wants More Support” Responds
It’s time again for “Dear Wendy Updates,” a feature where people I’ve given advice to in the past let us know whether they followed the advice and how they’re doing now. Today we hear from “Wants More Support” who wrote in last week after she and her husband went on a weekend getaway with some of his friends, during which one of his co-workers drunkenly hit on and groped the LW after her husband passed out in their hotel room. Later she asked her husband to say something to the co-worker, but he said he didn’t know what to say. “Now I am left feeling like he doesn’t support me or have my back. Am I right in thinking that he should say something to his friend?” she asked. Keep reading to see whether the husband spoke up.
You are correct in guessing all of the things going through my head when the guy was touching me. I was confused, but, most importantly, I was worried that, if I angered him, he might fly off the handle and hurt me (the guy is huge).
After repeated discussions, my husband finally called this “friend” and did talk to him about the incident. The guy admitted that he had been thinking about it since it happened and that WE had been giving him mixed signals all day. My husband asked him how he could have misconstrued anything that happened during the day “as mixed signals.” After a feeble attempt by the “friend” to try to explain how he was getting mixed signals, my husband ended the conversation and the friendship. My husband seemed more angry about this development than he was about his friend doing what he did to me.
For what it’s worth, this incident is over. I’m still not incredibly happy about the incident and won’t be going on any more trips like this with my husband or his friends.
Thanks for the update! I hope you and you husband can move on and let this whole thing go.
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If you’re someone I’ve given advice to in the past, I’d love to hear from you, too. Email me at [email protected] with a link to the original post, and let me know whether you followed the advice and how you’re doing now.
Honestly? Look, I am sorry, but getting rip roaring drunk with somebody and THEN inviting them up to your room is the textbook definition of mixed signals to me. Either you are both playing dumb — or else you’re just plain clueless. At any rate. Hopefully you both learn from this.
Really? Then why would he wait until the husband passed out to make his move? If he thought the couple were sending signals that they were into swinging or a threesome, he wouldn’t need to wait. The mixed signals thing is an excuse to shift blame back on to the victims in this case.
Let’s say she was doing everything short of shoving her hands down his pants. Let’s say she was giving off signals that any reasonable person would assume were an invitation – the second she said “I am not interested in this”, he needed to back off.
And it sounds like he didn’t, he kept pushing. And under no circumstances is that ever okay. She said no. She should only have to say it once.
I don’t blame this letter writer at all; even if the signals were mixed when the “friend” was drunkenly invited back, the letter writer said she was explicitly clear after the “friend” try to come on to her. And he didn’t back off.
I will say I must be getting old because I can’t imagine inviting the last standing drunk back to eat in our personal hotel room when everyone else has wandered back to their own rooms after a long day of stupor. That sap would be on his own. Nor can I imagine letting my husband sleep peacefully if his friend was acting this way. I’d loudly wake his ass up immediately. But then I can’t imagine wanting to talk to any of my husband’s friends one on one in the witching hours. They are mostly boring, middle-aged married dudes that would be traveling with their wives. Its funny to note how differently social circles can operate. Hopefully readers will learn from this that the safest route is to always go on explicit consent.
Your husband is probably more upset about the conversation than the incident because the conversation is the part he experienced. You experienced the incident so you are more upset about it. It should be a warning to both you and your husband that he is drinking too much if he is passed out to the point he is physically present but unavailable when his friend is hitting on you.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing too. He probably expected his friend to apologize and be remorseful, and then was shocked and angry when the friend instead blamed the husband and wife.
I was thinking along the same lines. And I’m sure as it was his friend he feels responsible. If I were in his shoes I would have hoped that my friend would own up to the shitty thing he did. Rather than hiding behind excuses, which were ridiculous since you can misread signals all day but the minute someone says no you have your answer.
I’m going to play armchair psychiatrist here – I think that the LW resents her husband for not protecting her, and for not reacting more angrily. This causes her to feel that he doesn’t value her.
I agree Margo and I can’t say I blame her. For him to be upset after the ‘friend’ claimed mixed signals is probably just the icing on the cake. Were it me, I would have a hard time with his passing out and leaving me vulnerable with a guy he effectively vouched for, not having the immediate guts to put the guy in his place once he knew what happened, and then topping it off with getting mad at the guy’s lame excuse (almost as though the possibility of a threesome with another guy is a threat to his masculinity). Maybe I’m wrong to feel that way but I would be extremely disappointed by his overall handling of the situation.
$100 says the husband was more upset about the conversation because he was thinking the WIFE must have given the guy some wrong signal of interest and was thus to blame. Once the “friend” claimed it was BOTH of them, the husband was now willing to take the wife’s side and get pissed at the “friend” and give him the boot because now he doesn’t have to take his wife’s word for it, he knew what he was and wasn’t doing.
I would be seriously pissed if my husband wouldn’t take my word for it in a situation like this, and it sure sounds like LW husband didn’t.
I guess all this really showed is the confrontation the LW was so adamant on didn’t fix anything.
Exactly! Confrontation rarely solves anything. Talking in a non confrontational way is much more likely to succeed. The problem for the husband was that if he confronted the friend and the friend admitted he did it then the husband would be angry. If he confronted and the friend made lame excuses, like he did, then the husband would be angry. If the friend denied everything then the husband would still be angry. In the end it is all a reminder that the husband drinks too much to be available when needed. The problem here isn’t the friend, although he is obviously no friend and should be dropped from their lives. The problem is that the husband drinks too much and that’s an issue they probably won’t mention or address in any manner.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the husband’s friend knew that the husband was likely to drink to the point of passing out and that’s why he spent so much time with them during the day and went to their room with them. He was waiting for the husband to pass out so he could make his move. He is somewhere between an opportunist to a predator.