My friend's husband is a crashing bore - should I say something?

How do you cope when your friend's husband is a dullard who spoils every gathering and dims your friend's light? Read the advice of our resident sage Maddy Phillipps – and see the foot of the story for where to email your own problems for Maddy.

DEAR MADDY: My friend’s husband is boring. There, I said it. Not just boring in a likes-to-avoid-the-Christmas-party kinda vibe, but he seems so oddly suited to my friend that he borderline ruins any social gathering with our friend group.

They’ve been together a while (nearing a decade) but we’ve all been secretly saying for years that they seem to be on the rocks – spending lots of time apart etc – and our friend seems so much happier when he's socialising without his husband.

I don’t know how to talk to my friend about this – there have been times we have worried about inviting them as a couple to things, for fear of how the vibe of the party might be affected. How do I ask my friend if he’s okay, and what – if anything – can we do on the social front to make his husband less of a drag? Regards, Luke

MADDY WRITES: Luke, my love, I’m afraid you have no good options. In official psychological terms, deciding whether to talk to a friend about their partner’s apparent deficiencies is known as a “classic no-win sh*tter of a situation, ugh ugh ugh wtf do I do please help me". Saying nothing leaves you contemplating whether your beloved friend will remain ensconced with an unworthy spouse until singularity occurs and ChatGPT exterminates mankind for good, which is dispiriting, but raising the issue is risky. Like, really risky. About as risky as wading into shark-infested waters after slathering your naked groin in chum, or casually dropping the phrase “co-governance” at a pub in Stratford, or inquiring “But what ABOUT the MEN?” at a panel discussion on gender violence.

Why is speaking up so fraught? Well, the starting point here is that we don’t know how your friend really feels about his marriage. You say their joint attendance ruins the vibe at social events, but you don’t mention any patently toxic behaviour that would raise real concerns about misery or even abuse within the relationship. If the vibe-ruining isn’t related to serious worries about your friend’s safety, but is more a consequence of the husband’s intolerable dullardry and your friend seeming kinda subdued when he’s around, that simply isn’t enough evidence to draw firm conclusions about the health of the relationship. No matter how long everyone’s been confidently speculating in the secret group chat, most of a marriage happens behind closed doors, so the group has collectively observed but a tiny slice of the full relationship dynamic. Yeah, maybe the marriage is doomed nine ways to Sunday, but it's equally possible that spending time apart works for them, and the husband nourishes and complements and supports your friend in surprising, unseen ways. Right now, our data points are lacking; we simply do not know. The mystery of your friend’s real feelings about his marriage is a problem, because these same feelings are going to massively influence how well (or not) he receives a direct inquiry re: the messed-up-ness of his marriage. He’s most likely to respond positively if he’s a) unhappy in the marriage, b) consciously aware that he’s unhappy, and c) not too worried about the potential social consequences of discussing this unhappiness with someone from the friend group. That latter condition is important, because even if your friend is unhappy and knows it, if he’s uncomfortably aware of the collective groans when his husband enters a room, he may be reluctant to pour fuel on the fire by divulging negative relationship intel.

If your friend is unhappy but hasn’t yet internally acknowledged these feelings, things could go one of two ways. Your input could provide just the right spark of validation to draw his feelings out into the open and feed new insight. On the other hand, if he’s currently unwilling or unable to consciously acknowledge his unhappiness, he’s likely to get defensive and deny there’s a problem at all. And finally, if your friend’s genuinely happy with his husband then any suggestion that he shouldn’t be, no matter how delicately implicit, may cause offence.

As you can see, Luke, coming in too hot in the concerned-friend role could backfire spectacularly. Your friend could feel so hurt and judged that he closes off this fundamental portion of his life from you, instantly shutting down future discussions on the topic. Or he could tell all to his husband, turning him from merely boring to actively belligerent. Or he could feel so trapped between you/the group and his husband that he withdraws entirely.

So, there are real risks involved in having this discussion, but risks are sometimes worth taking. To figure out the risk/reward calculus, you need to consider the desired reward, which means critically reflecting on why you want to raise the issue. Be honest – what’s the end game here? Is it to break up the marriage, thus sparing yourself future parties held captive between husband and hallway wall, bearing unwilling witness to a 45-minute monologue about Old versus New World monkeys? (Actually I would love nothing more than to discuss evolutionary biology at a party, but you get my point.) If that’s your motivation, don’t even bother starting the conversation. First, the reward ain’t gonna happen, at least not anytime soon. Even if the marriage is as bad as you think, your friend’s willingness to contemplate divorce is another question altogether, and one only he can answer, so trying to hasten him towards separation is futile. Also, if he tries to appease you by making noises about leaving then decides to stay, he could feel so embarrassed about the divorce-feint that he avoids the topic with you in the future. Second, going in set on breaking them up elevates the risk of the worst possible conversational outcomes, with your friend chafing against your judgment.

However! If you’re motivated by supporting your friend’s happiness (as defined by him), and you’re genuinely open to the possibility that his husband might support his wellbeing rather than depleting it – meaning ad infinitum social gatherings with the duo – I think you can talk to him, because the underlying goal is reasonable, achievable, and less likely to lead the conversation into risky territory. But to further minimise the risk of hurt, it's so, so important to frame the discussion as an open-ended inquiry about how he feels in the marriage, NOT a character assassination of his husband. Slavishly avoid allusions to the surprising experiential likeness of verbal discourse with said husband, and watching a very very thick oil painting dry. Actually, just steer clear of the social-vibe-ruining thing entirely, unless validating concerns your friend proactively raises. Keeping the focus squarely on loving your friend – not disliking his husband – gives you the best possible chance of a Mariana-Trench-deep and meaningful discussion which clarifies the state of the marriage, from the perspective of the guy who’s actually in it.

As for making the husband less of a drag in the meantime, I’m afraid there’s no complete antidote to his dragginess, but there’s definitely mitigation. Here’s a thought: have you made any active efforts to interact with him lately, e.g. seeking him out to talk to, asking him about himself, his work, interests, etc.? You know, the basics? I get it, this feels counterintuitive – you want less hapless husband in your life, not more! But avoiding him only feeds your fervent dislike, because our minds excel at reducing people we don’t like to repugnant, two-dimensional caricatures. Conversely, the more you engage with the real, three-dimensional person, with loves and likes and trauma just like anyone else, the harder it will be to hate him. And if you get to know him well enough, you could use this intel to select different group activities that temper his more challenging qualities. Snowboarding? Board game night? Tramping? Trampolining? Roadkill taxidermy night class?

If all that fails, try the emergency techniques I bust out when I find myself at a party, saddled with an incorrigible bore and cut off from all escape routes. If the person is a monologist, I simply sit back, relax, let the words wash over me, and enjoy abdicating all responsibility to put effort into the conversation. If they’re more of a reticent, one-word-response-with-no-follow-up-question type, I use it as an opportunity to practice my social skills, challenging myself to find out more about them by coming up with interesting questions based on even the sparsest answers. If NONE of that works, it’s back to good ol’ grinning it, bearing it, and drinking it (wine, I mean), but Luke, I know you can do it. You’ve survived this man for nearly 10 years – you’re already at peak friend-husband-tolerance fitness, and 2024 is going to be one, long, continuous personal best.

Maddy Phillipps is a barrister, freelance writer and clinical psychology student. EMAIL your life problems to dearmaddy@tvnz.co.nz.