Christmas Party

[diverp]

My wife's boss paid to take the employees and spouses to San Francisco for a weekend, centered around a nice dinner. That was extremely nice of them. Anyways, we get there on Saturday and for the next 6 hours, I am getting dragged around the malls, which I hate. However, this is her office's weekend, so I went along with this and was good about it even though I hated doing it. We go out to dinner that evening which was really nice.

 

Sunday, we are staying and her girlfriends are leaving early afternoon. Well, my wife could tell I hated being dragged around malls. So, she said the evening before that we could head down to the wharf and look around down there. Well, we went to breakfast with her girlfriends from work and all of a sudden, we get stuck going shopping until about 2:00 and I am the pack mule. We have to come back to the hotel to off load their stuff.

 

Her friends then came up with the idea "okay, we can go to the wharf really quick". So, we catch a cab and head down there. Well, the next hour and a half is spent in stores and gossiping. Not at all what I expected to do with my wife down there. Her one friend used to live there and kept saying "oh, you don't want to go down there, its boring" when most of these places are places I wanted to see and would think my wife would (or at least give her the option to make her own opinions). So, her friends finally leave and we walk around for an hour and get some lunch. That was nice. One thing I mentioned that would be nice would be to get a cable car back to the hotel. She was good with that until we had to wait more than 5 minutes and all of a sudden she wanted to get a cab. I just said fine and we went back.

 

Now, I know this is her Christmas party weekend, so I never really said much about it, but it did annoy me that I essentially felt like I was there as a pack mule and as the wallet. Needless to say, it doesn't make me happy. Especially after we had a little conversation on the way here agreeing what we wanted to do as far as savings and investments and the sort and then, BOOM, the shopping just goes nuts and I get ignored the whole weekend.

 

Well, I told her yesterday, nicely, that I think we spent too much money on things we didn't need and that if there is something like this trip in the future, I would not go as I was completely bored as all things that were done were ideas of her friends. Not exactly the way to spend a day with your wife in my opinion.

 

She was a little upset over that, but then I just asked her to go in my shoes and how she would feel if the roles were reversed.

[shes2smart]

From where I'm sittin', you offered a reasonable option (you not going next time). Makes perfect sense. However, a lot of people don't see things that way. My husband's ex was like that...dragged him to a lot of stuff he didn't want to go to then got angry with him when it was clear he wasn't enjoying himself.

 

I had an ex bf who couldn't get it through his head that I was not, never had been, and never would be a sports fan. I didn't have a problem with him going to games, but he would always whine that he wanted me to go with him. Well, I finally relented and went. Guess what? I was bored senseless and didn't enjoy it.

 

I don't understand why someone would do that. They really put both themselves and their partner in a lose-lose situation. Maybe that's the approach you need to take...that you're not trying to upset her, but that you know you're not a shopper, and you really had a frustrating, un-enjoyable time.

 

Another alternative you could offer up is to go, BUT you go your separate ways part of the time. They go shopping, you catch a cab and go somewhere YOU want to go, and you all meet up for dinner later. This strikes me as the real "compromise" solution, and may be more palatable to her than you not going at all.

 

Oh, and be sure to tell her that if you're not along, then she'll be able to shop til she drops with no irritated husband trudging along gritting his teeth.

[ratherbesailing]

Diverp -

 

Been there, done that and I do just want to kick myself afterwards. I tend to be the nice guy that goes along with it and doesn't say anything (maybe I roll my eyes) and then afterwards I think I'm more upset with myself for going along than I am with her for leading me in that direction. It isn't like she forced me to go, but my preferences would have had us somewhere else.

 

You were in a tough situation with all her friends there. It reminds me of the trip I took recently with my girlfriend to visit her daughter who's doing a semester out of the country. I went along because she didn't want to travel alone but everything we did was pretty much what they wanted to do. I didn't complain but afterwards I'm kicking myself over all the money I spent doing things I wouldn't have chosen on my own. I did do as shes2smart said and when they were shopping I headed in my own direction and met them afterwards.

 

It doesn't do any good to complain about it after that fact; you lose all your brownie points that you earned by going. What we have to do is lay down the ground rules before hand when the next trip is planned or just plain say no.

 

She was hinting that she wanted to go to the mall tonight; I rarely have trouble saying no to that one.

 

I was in San Francisco with another guy a couple of years ago and walking the wharf is what we did. I enjoyed it; anything near the water is good for me if it isn't a mall. Those sea lions on the floats are something else, what a racket.