I met a very sweet middle aged couple on a trip, recently. It turned out we lived very close to each other. I really hit it off with the woman, whereas her husband was mostly very quiet and aloof. We talked about hanging out more on our trip, and since she didn't have a cell phone, she gave me her husband's number.
I called her husband's phone the next night, and he was incredibly rude to me and when I asked if they wanted to do something he simply said "no" followed by stoney silence.
I very much doubted that this was his wife's sentiment.
I recently sent her an e-mail (not mentioning the phone call), and sure enough "We thought about you and wondered if you were okay. We waited for your call".
So, he disrepected his wife, knowing that she wanted to see me and talk to me, and then lied about me calling.
Because this was so disrespectful, I feel I need to mention it in my e-mail response, but have no idea how to bring it up delicately. Keep in mind that I've met this couple only once, and they're 25+ years older than me.
What would you say?
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You could always play it a little stupid and say something like "I called a number and I think I may have written it down wrong. What's your number again? Terribly sorry about not calling. I'll call on X day!"
That way she knows it's coming *and* you don't look like an ass -- and neither does he.
I would try doing it gently, without directly saying that the husband was lying. In your email, you could say something like:
"Really? Because I called and spoke to your husband on X date, but he didn't seem interested in spending time together. Maybe you and I could have coffee / see a movie / etc on our own sometime?"
It's possible that this guy just doesn't like you and is being passive aggressive and immature about it. But it's also possible that the husband is a manipulative, emotionally abusive jerk who makes a pattern out of trying to control who his wife spends time with and lying to her. As a near-stranger, it's impossible for you to know right now... but it's probably best to let the wife figure it out for herself. Hopefully she'll want to spend time with you, and will make sure her husband knows that what he did wasn't ok!
I think that this is a good response or you could even play it off more and say that it seemed he said he didn't want to get together, but maybe he just meant the two of them were unavailable that day. That way you're not outright calling the husband a lying asshole and if the wife relates this tale to the husband you don't sound as much like you're "telling" on him, but more like you just misunderstood what he said.
It's a tricky situation because you have no idea since you only met them once their relationship and you don't want to butt in too much.
Make your point without being judgmental or accusing. I'd suggest something like this:
"I'm so sorry you missed my call. John must have forgotten to tell you that I called that Friday to ask if you wanted to get together. He indicated that it wasn't a good time to socialize. Do you have your phone yet? Next time I'll call you directly and we can make plans. Maybe we can have a girl's night. Thanks for your concern though."
Her husband is a bratty, pouty, control freak.
Make your point without being judgmental or accusing. I'd suggest something like this:
"I'm so sorry you missed my call. John must have forgotten to tell you that I called that Friday to ask if you wanted to get together. He indicated that it wasn't a good time to socialize. Do you have your phone yet? Next time I'll call you directly and we can make plans. Maybe we can have a girl's night. Thanks for your concern though."
Her husband is a bratty, pouty, control freak.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I forgot to check this before I responded, but now I wish I did because I didn't respond too gracefully. Here's what I said -
"I actually did call ____'s phone on Saturday night and asked if you guys wanted to get together again during our trip. That's why I wanted to take you guys out now, because I didn't get a chance to then."
but, I like your suggestions more and will probably use them if I need to follow that up with anything.
It's just tough to make excuses about it/play it off because not only did he lie to his wife and coerce the situation so that she didn't get to excercise free will, he was pretty astonishingly rude to me in the process.
I'm so angry about this. We just shot a few emails back and forth, and even though i gave her the most sand downed, softened, and simply untruthful version of what happened, it came off as an attack on her husband.
She said, "he doesn't show emotion much, so you wouldn't have known if he wanted to spend time together."
here's the way it went down -
"Hi it's Patriarchal Demolitionist from yesterday"
(icily) "yeah?"
"I wanted to thank you so much for yesterday and wanted to know if could take you guys out to dinner to thank you."
"No."
Pause
"You don't have to do that."
"Oh, well do you want to do something else, maybe we can just get together if you don't want to get dinner."
"No."
"Ok, well I'll see you around the neighborho-"
"Ok."
"Ok...well, have a great night"
Hangs up on me.
So he QUITE explicitly said he didn't want to get together, and now I'M the villain. I would have been the villain no matter how I handled it. AND, i'm caught up in a lie about what he actually did her. Now us women are pitted against each other because we're trying to protect this man who did something shitty to us.
Write it off to experience. You barely know them, and it sounds like it will be more grief than it's worth. You have no way of knowing what the inside of their marriage is like and what that will mean for you.
I mention the call in the polite way other posters have mentioned. Maybe she needs to be alerted that her husband wants to isolate her for some reason.