My husband is planning his friend’s bachelor party. His proposed venue gets a hard no from me.
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Dear Care and Feeding,
One of my husband “Josh’s” friends, “Steve,” is getting married next month. We have a large house and frequently hold get-togethers for friends and family. The thing is that Josh wants to hold Steve’s bachelor party at our place. I’ve never been a fan of them to begin with. We also have a 3-year-old and a 15-month-old, so you can imagine why it’s off the table for me. Josh says I should just take the kids to my mother’s place for the night. My mother lives over three hours away. The last thing I need is to disrupt our kids’ routines and have to wake them up early the next morning to get them to their daycare and make it to my job on time! Josh is saying I’m being difficult. Please tell me he’s the one being the asshole here.
—Go to a Damn Strip Club
Dear Go to,
There’s a universe in which a man could ask his wife to take their two children to her mother’s house three hours away on a weeknight and he would not be an asshole. In that universe, he would made a very strong case for why it is important to him to have the bachelor party at the family home on the night in question. He would also explain why he is sure that the wife and children leaving the home for the night would be preferable, for them, to simply staying out of the way in their large house. And he would only ask his wife for this massive favor by accompanying it with a genuine and generous offer to repay her for this significant disruption.
This does not seem to be the universe you’re living in! Asking you for this hugely annoying act of service without offering a reasonable explanation of why he’s making the ask or a detailed plan of how he’s going to make it up to you is unacceptable and absolutely asshole territory.
There are many reasons I can think of as to why he’d want to have the party at your home, but none would be worth evicting you and your kids for the night. If he has a good reason beyond my imagination, well, he should have detailed that to you clearly. That’s the proper way to ask for something you want. You make a case for your ask, and then you negotiate.
Because he did not do that, and because the “just” in “just take the kids to my mother’s place for the night” makes my jaw clench, I am comfortable telling you that yes, your husband is an asshole. You are not being difficult by saying, “No, unfortunately it won’t be possible for me to take the kids three hours away on a work night.”
However, if you’re in a negotiating mood, you might counter by insisting he put you and the kids up in a nice hotel nearby instead of making you drive three hours away (ridiculous) and that he send you off for a happy weekend alone at the next possible opportunity. I think you also have a strong case for agreeing to the party but insisting you and the kids will stay in the house and that he keep the volume levels reasonable. (For this, you should still get weekend away for your troubles.)
—Logan
“My boyfriend and I fell in love at first sight. By the time I stood up and realized he was 4 inches shorter, we were too in love to care. Should I prepare other people for the height difference?”
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