[Anonymous]

My fiance & I have had a number of issues over the last 2 years & one of them is our difference in communication styles. I am direct, he is covert & runs from conflict. Another long standing issue has been his unwillingness to stick up for me in various situations.

Here is the issue right now:

My fiance (S) has a married couple (J & A) who are his friends. Personally I’ve always found them to be judgemental & opinionated.. and although they don’t [i]directly[/i] say so, they do not like me & haven’t for a very long time (they are passive aggressive in their implications towards me). I am not as “proper” as they are. The other day J called my fiance & offered to go get tickets to see a concert for April Wine. Without consulting me, my fiance (S) said “yes”. I already saw April Wine – I told him that before & that I wasn’t all that impressed. I didn’t say anything about the fact that he didn’t ask me about going & just let it go. The next day I received an email from J saying he picked up the 4 tickets. I hit “reply” and this is exactly what I wrote:

[color=#0040FF][i]” hmm.. I take it Rick & Brenda aren’t going? We thought you guys were joined at
the hip. I saw April Wine in Downtown Houston “party on the plaza” when
I was 26 – they were OLD – and the concert was FREE.. Haaa! ” [/i][/color]

When J got my email he called my fiance & said he thought what I wrote was rude. I didn’t think it was rude. It’s true that J & Rick are always together – as a matter of fact, my fiance himself has said that whenever he invites J out, he just brings Rick along without asking.
So now my fiance, S, is angry with me & as usual, agrees with the other party. We have been thru this so many times! (he had an ex girlfriend whom he rufused to let go of for 2 yrs & he always stuck up for her even when I had to call the police because she was harrassing both of us).
I am LIVID that J contacted S instead of contacting ME. S is my Fiance, not my father – why did J decide to call HIM? He should’ve contacted ME if he had a problem. J & A are very judgemental & snobby – he & his other friends have made ignorant remarks about a bar my fiance & I go to now & then. They think they are “too good” to go to a bar that doesn’t sell $6 beer. I emailed J back & told him that if he has an issue with me he should talk to me about it & not my fiance and I told him now he’s created a rift between S and myself. I am angry at J & A and I am angry at my fiance – he refuses to see what is going on here. I feel disrespected, & that what I have to say as usual is not important to him. I’m a straight shooter – maybe I’m not as refined & snotty as other people, but I think I’m a good person who cares about other people & prefers deep relationships vs shallow. My fiance likes shallow relationships & that is fine but NOT when it comes to “us”. We’ve been to counseling on this & the counselor told me my fiance lives in a bit of a fantasy world where everything is “fine”. I do not feel it’s fair that I am labeled a trouble maker because he listens to his snobby friends over me.
What do you think?

[Ask April Masini]

You have to decide what you want — to be right or to be happy. If your being right and righteous is more important than maintaining your relationship, well, then you’re on the right path. But you’re not going to keep people around you easily if you feel you need to give them your opinion and set them straight so often.

There’s an old saying that you’d be wise to understand: You attract bees with honey — not vinegar. If you love your fiance, then just go to the concert with him and his friends. Consider it a gift to him — or a sacrifice if you need to feel like a martyr. 😆 There’s no reason for you to be rude to his friends, and if you don’t see that your e-mail was rude, then you really need to step back and meditate on your behavior because your intentions aren’t kind or generous. They’re divisive.

Your real problem is not with your fiance’s friends as much as it is with your fiance. If you don’t like his friends or the way he treats you, then focus on that. But for you to call the police on his ex-girlfriend because she was bothering both of you, was wrong. It was his move to make, and if he didn’t make it, then you needed to deal with him — not her. You’re doing the same thing now with his best friend couple, J & A.

It really seems like you’re drumming up drama with your fiance’s friends because you can’t get a resolution you like with your fiance, himself. This is going to turn into a bigger mess than it is now if you don’t stop this pattern of behavior.

Sorry — I know it’s not what you wanted to hear, but I agree with your counselor that you are creating a trouble maker role for yourself. If your fiance lives in a fantasy world, decide if you want to be with him or not, but don’t create peripheral drama to get his attention. It won’t work. 🙁

Let me know how things go and if there’s anything else I can help you with — and join me on Facebook. I’d like to have you as a member of AskApril.com on Facebook at this link: [url][/url].

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