Using a throw away account. For context, last night my fiancé of six years and I met up with one of his coworkers – let’s call him Tim – and his wife for dinner. It was a special occasion, as it was a fundraiser dinner for Tim and his wife, so it was primarily myself, my finance, and Tim socializing / having dinner, while his wife was busy greeting and talking to everyone who showed up.
My fiancé and Tim have been friends for a few years now having met through work, and have grown close due to the fact they are both passionate about their shared profession. My fiancé has said he even looks to his coworker as somewhat of a mentor in his career. They both have slightly twisted senses of humor though and are constantly going back and forth once they start joking with each other (especially when there have been a few beers involved).
Things had been going great – I was enjoying listening to my finance and his coworker complain about work, make jokes, and was able to joke around a bit with them myself, even though I don’t know Tim as well. Somehow throughout our conversation, Tim brought up that there had been a nationwide Adderall shortage announcement on the news and teased my finance about how he won’t be able to “get his fix anymore”. Ever since I’ve known my fiancé, he’s always been very open about the fact that he would occasionally take unprescribed Adderall when he was a teenager, but how he had to stop due to a heart condition and “doesn’t like to mess around with that kind of stuff anymore”.
Knowing these things about my fiancé, I jokingly retorted, “What? You don’t do that kind of stuff?” to which he immediately snapped “Like you would even know.”
This completely caught me off guard. Tim and my fiancé had been joking around for a minute up to this point, so at first, I thought maybe this was just his way of keeping the joke going, but the more it sat with me, the more it started to bother me.
Was he intentionally trying to “look cool” in front of his friend by implying he hides things from me, or was there actually some truth to his comment?
Later that night I tried to voice my concern around how that made me feel and how I didn’t appreciate him making comments about hiding something like doing drugs behind my back, even if it was just a joke. He tried to play it off and said something along the lines of, “I don’t even have a plug for it anymore” which honestly didn’t make me feel much better.
I guess if nothing else, I just wanted a second opinion – should I be worried there’s more to that comment and assume he’s hiding things from me or chalk it up to a stupid drunk comment in front of his friend at my
expense.
TLDR; Fiancé joked about hiding doing prescription drugs behind my back to his coworker. Tried to talk about how it hurt my feelings, but he wouldn’t take me seriously. Was it just a mean comment or should I be worried he’s actually hiding things from me?
9 comments
I took it as “like you would even know (what it’s like to not get your fix) because you didn’t take Adderall when you were younger”. I think it’s possible you might have taken this the wrong way. Obviously, I don’t have the whole story, but that’s how I read it.
Obviously it was 1) concerning and 2) out-of-character enough that you’re still preoccupied by it. That, to me, indicates that its worth having another conversation about.
There are two issues here, right? One is that you don’t know what his current stance on recreational drug use is. He doesn’t have a plug, but if he did, would he be using? So thats definitely one thing to discuss with him. The second is that he snapped at you in a really uncomfortable manner in a social situation. He made you sort of the butt of a comment that wasn’t even a joke. It made you feel awkward in front of a person you barely know, and you don’t understand whether he was serious or not, but it wasn’t of his character and you want to get to the bottom of his tone & intent (and whether the sentiment he expressed with his words was accurate– does he really think you dont know things about him? Does he hide things from you intentionally, or think you dont care/arent observant?)
Anyway, the only way to handle this is to have another conversation with him and if he doesn’t take it seriously, you’ve got some thinking to do.
I think you have two separate questions here, one being is it ok that your husband snapped at you like that in front of his colleague, or was that disrespectful, regardless of the content? And yeah, it was disrespectful.
Then two, is your husband hiding a secret drug habit? Well… unless you think there is a good reason for Tim to know about your husband’s teenage habits in the present day context, and for that to be a sensitive subject which makes him snappy towards you… well. Yeah, he might still be doing adderall. You live with him… are there any other signs?
Sounds like a joke and you took it personally because he doesn’t normally joke that way with you. You chimed it to make a dig at him he lobbed it back like he was doing and does do with his coworker and just forgot take down the filter due to context maybe.
i would be worried that he is actually hiding things from you and with his medical history i would put wedding planning completely on hold until you get this cleared up.
Sounds like you shouldn’t be marrying this person. He obviously has secrets from you, he’s disrespectful and invalidating.
Lmao dude continues the joke with you because you technically started the joke with a dig and he does the same. You then take it extremely personally and write out an essay trying to decipher and dissect what he said. I am exhausted just reading this. I know he is too because this is definitely not the first time this has happened with you.
I feel like he misstepped here, but so did you.
I think he reacted badly cos he panicked about what you said and tried to shut it down quickly, and ended up being rude.
You don’t know that your fiances colleague knew about the Adderall he has taken. I am very open about drug use in my personal life, but keep everything like that locked down at work and with coworkers off the clock – imo thats part of being a professional. Especially with people senior to you.
It sounds like you heard the colleagues joke and assumed he knew your partner has dabbled. But actually, he could have just been ribbing him, implying he is unfocussed or whatever. So you may have inadvertantly got close to a sore subject that fiance didn’t want to go near, he panicked and tried to get you to stop quickly. Btw I know you didnt actually say he takes /has taken adderrall, but you were getting close to the subject.
He’s prob trying to seem professional and mature to his mentor and didn’t want the fact he take/s drugs to be a topic on conversation. This should be obvious to those who have professional jobs – you keep any controversial topics off the table until you know the colleague quite well.
Another possibility is that he was just literally continuing the joke in the same tone and subject. His colleague made a jab at him, you made a jab at him , he made a jab at you.
I’d be more concerned about being a fiancé for six years than a joke