My friend hates her friends husband & critisizes him a lot. Should I just keep quiet or say something?

Question

She is not really on talking terms with this girlfriend of hers as much as she would like to be. Everytime she mentions her and seems frustrated, she also mentions her husband (her friends husband) and badly criticizes him a LOT. It's venemous. I want to tell her, that she should not hate on her girlfriend, just coz she might not have a not-so-great husband. I also would like to tell her to please lessen the animosity. Coz she is poisoning her own system with all that hate.

As a friend of my friend, should I just be a good listener and keep quiet when she is talking this way about both of them, or say something? It really makes me uncomfortable, and yet, I do want my friend to be herself and feel free confiding in me about her personal thoughts. We have been friends for almost 10 yrs now.

Thanks for ur advise.

Answer 1

Why would her friends choice of husband anger he so much?  There is way more to this than I just hate the b*****d....   maybe she has a thing for him and he turned her down ??  I have seen this happen before.. or maybe she is jellous.. which is more than likely.

Telll your friend that you understand her feelings about this guy, but also let her know you are really tired of hearing about him.. let her knwo you would rather talk about anythng but him..  he doesn't matter to you .  

Answer 2

Zeenia,

I have a friend who likes to complain a lot. I've tried to tell her about this habit of hers, but because she's so used to it is easy for her to forget.

Therefore, every time we are talking and I see her complaining longer than I'm able to take, I just say "allow me to change the subject to  something important. Let's talk about me". I have done this in numerous occassions and most of the times she laughs about it.

If your friendship isn't that open, I would just switch the subject and would start talking about something that just happened or a dress you saw- distract her with a subject she enjoys discussing aside from this guy.

Or if I wanted to be more direct I would say, "you've already made it clear that you don't like so-and-so, so I would prefer we didn't discuss him anymore. It isn't worth it". Or "have you noticed how much you bring this guy up in our conversations?", many times we aren't aware and we may need a friend to tell us how are actions are being perceived.

Unless you are willing to take control over what you discuss, your friend will keep indulging in her rants. Believe me, you won't be the only one to tell a friend to change the subject. My friend has used the same trick on me LOL. I understand she isn't perfect, and she does the same for me.

If we can't be ourselves in front of our friends, then what is the point of keeping them close?

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

I doubt that telling her to knock it off is going to change her opinion of them.  Instead, try and change the subject every time she brings them up and maybe she'll get the hint.  It can get real tiresome listening to someone complain about someone else over and over again.

Answer 4

Tell her how you feel about it when she constantly brings this subject up in your presence. She is not only criticising the husband of her friend, if she talks badly about this woman's husband she is also backstabbing this girlfriend of hers. It is important that the GF loves her husband. Your friend has no right to tell her anything about her marriage. She should stay out of it. It's none of her business to interfere in another persons marriage unless her GF was being abused by her husband then she could encourage her to seek help but she should definitely stay out of a happy marriage. You should only tell her that you believe it best that she does not interfere in this marriage and that you don't wish to hear bad comments about the husband of her GF all the time.  That's all you should say. x*x