To un-invite friend from dinner after she sent me message by mistake

[Dinnertext]

I’m a long time lurker but have pulled on my big girl pants for my first ever post in AIBU!

We are hosting my friend and her husband on Saturday for dinner. We’ve hosted them before and they’ve always been good company and said they’d enjoyed the food.

We were texting earlier about something unrelated - she clearly had another conversation on the go as she sent a reply which was of no relevance to our conversation.

Her message said:
I can’t do Saturday I am afraid. At (my name)’s for dinner again. That reminds me to stock up on the Pepto for the next morning 😂

Would it be wrong of me to rescind the invite? We go to a lot of effort to host them and feel this is frankly insulting.

Yes, you’re right, she should have felt gratitude while sitting on the toilet all night 😀

Funny!🙄 Do you really not get it, or are you being deliberately obtuse - I’ll try once more.
A guest should feel gratitude for receiving a dinner invite, gratitude to the host for inviting them to their home and putting in effort and exprnse to cook them dinner but she didn’t, she felt dread that the food wouldn’t be prepared safely and she should have had the manners to decline the invite discretely, rather than continuing to be disrespectful by joking about it with someone else.

I get your point that you think manners are more important than someone’s wellbeing. Personally if I was the OP, I’d be horrified if I made someone unwell, not worried about whether they were then “polite” about it.

I should stop now🫠 but they should have refused the invite for dinner going forward not joked about someone’s efforts. There is no evidence that it was the quality of the Ops food that caused a stomach upset. Couples eat the same thing over a day - it could have been something they ate at lunch, there’s no way to know but they blamed the Op. And if ithe evidence was that it happened more than once - I’d call them a pair of idiots for returning for more.

Someone made a point about ‘does the husband even know’ - or does he just not involve himself with his wife’s rudeness?

Is this just another ‘my wife has had a falling out with OP, this happens to my wife a lot but I’m still mates with OPs husband’ and he doesn’t know about the pepito, food, not liking it etc?

I’m not sure I believe the friend’s story about the upset stomachs last time. I think she was just covering herself.

I'd leave my husband to take care of his guest, and go do something fun myself. No way I'd welcome the wife.

- ‘usual female drama’

And when they are shouting and screaming at the TV and are then upset at losing the football you can roll your eyes and say “usual male ‘histeria’ over a few men kicking a bit of leather around a field’.

I think falling out over her comment IF she apologised properly would be OTT but as she isn’t even sorry, and doesn’t seem to care that she’s hurt your feelings, I don’t think she’s a good friend.

If you were to find a fault with her, what would it be? How would she feel if you were laughing about her faults behind her back?

Your food is rich, that’s not an objectively bad thing, her being unempathic and not taking accountability is objectively a bad thing.

Why can’t your “husband” go to their house?
why is he dismissing your feelings?

I’m far too petty for this.
I’d be handing her husband a bottle of own brand pepto and inspecting every snack and drink he had “just in case”.
telling him that the toilet is clean and I can always provide sick buckets if needed.
all he has to do is ask.

if he questions this just repeating over and over that his wife said he had “stomach issues” last time he visited.

she made him the issue, you’re making sure he feels supported with this.

his wife can fuck off

Oh and as for her long friendship shit.
where was that when she was bitching behind your back through text.
who did she mean to text?

good friendship means you send a message saying
“hey, husband and I have been poorly, everything ok with you guys?”

I think you maybe need to spend a minute putting yourself in your friend’s shoes.

If I went to a friend’s house for dinner and then both my partner and I either felt unwell, or were violently ill, that would be quite an unpleasant experience for me. Your friend was indiscreet to tell others about it, but who of us can put our hand on heart and say we’re always discreet.

That said, I have ADHD-related RSD, and I’d find receiving a message like that pretty excruciating.

But there’s no intimacy without conflict: maybe this is a crossroads where you either phase each other out, or work through it and become closer friends as a result?

I do wonder whether this is not just about cooking but also about class - the ‘our treat’ offer is a little condescending, maybe? - and I’d find that an added complication.

Anyway, it’s all up to you, and you should do what you feel comfortable with. And your DP should back you up in that.

The friendly crying-with-laughter emoji takes the sting out of the message for me - I think your friend was just sending an “I need to buckle up for a feasty ride” sort of quip - if anything, proud of the gastric mess that lots of good food and drink can produce and proud that she gets invited to enjoy it. She could easily have used the vomiting or poo emoji if the message was questioning the quality of your food. Don’t ruin the friendship over this.

Also feel like this is another dig to be honest, at least this is how I’d read it. Your food definitely isn’t good enough for Hyacinth so she’ll bring her own… She’s fucking rude.

@Dinnertext You might want to start a new thread, this one is filling fast.

You don’t need this negativity in your life.
She has been rude about your hosting behind your back
Shes had opportunities to apologise and hasn’t.
She sounds like a snob.
No way would I be socialising with her.

She was incredibly rude and this is compounded by the lack of apology. If my husband insisted on having his friend over, I’d be taking myself off to a lovely hotel for a night of pampering and I might just watch the football there. He can’t see past his own selfish desire to watch the football with his friend.

Read the OP's posts. She said the OP used inferior food from an inferior supermarket.

I wonder who she was texting- someone else who knows you, which makes the situation doubly hard.

I wouldn’t be asking the wife around ever again. If your husband still wants to watch football with her husband then let him find a venue. If he can’t find a venue then he will probably come around to yours, but you should make no attempt to host him, let your husband do it. And just absent yourself, unless you also want to watch the football, in which case, stay put and just eat and drink your own food. Let the blokes who just think it’s a bit of female drama shift for themselves.

Do grown adults actually behave like this? I'm appalled

That's what I'd say. I'd say no fucking way is she allowed in your home.

The husband wouldn't be welcome either after the "female drama" remark. And I'd be having words with DH about it. Wouldn't want either in my home and certainly wouldn't be doing any hosting whatsoever.

Being mumsnet, the OP needs to do more than go to a spa. First things first, she needs to cook a chicken and make a massive salad to get her through the next few weeks because they're going to be tough. She has to go no contact with the couple, block them everywhere and then book herself into a spa to recover. When she gets home from the spa, she has to get her ducks in a row to LTB husband because he's not 100% perfect. Change her whole life and start over.

Seriously though OP, I get why you're hurt. Your friend has been rude and unkind and then the friends and your dh have been dismissive of your hurt feelings, I hope very much they come to their senses and realise this.

If you're determined not to be involved in hosting at all, then if it makes you feel better and clears your head go do something that night rather than stewing alone while the two men are in your house watching football.

Or, and this is what I'd do, you can talk to your friend, actually talk, not text, and take it from there. I mean, you'll have to talk sometime unless you were planning to completely end what you mentioned is a long friendship?

Hopefully your friend will realise she's behaved badly and give a genuine apology so you can move forward. It depends really on what the friendship was like before this.

It's only a little joke, not worth falling out about if you like the people. We all say some small things about people ideally we would not want them to hear but it's not offensive

But most ppl wouldn’t interpret it as friendly. In this context it’s mocking and bitchy, and the former friend’s reaction when she was caught out says it all. She hasn’t apologised bc she either doesn’t think she’s in the wrong or she’s one of those arseholes who knows they are but admitting such is something they are not wired to do. It’s like it’s a personal failing, admitting they are in the wrong, so despite making matters worse they’d rather graze over it and turn it around so it becomes the other persons problem for not wanting to forget about it and they become the victim. It’s bloody DARVO.

Also, your comments about being proud about gastric mess are weird. Why would you be proud about something like that? This sounds like making excuses for Hyacinth for the sake of it and being determined not to take offence for the sake of harmony. I strongly disagree with that as I have experienced this personally and it’s very shit being cast as the villain when you’re only reacting to bad behaviour. Ppl like the husbands don’t want waves so you’re now seen as the problem and the shitty behaviour which caused it is ignored and forgotten.