After I heard this story from my friend, I had a fundamental change of attitude toward people, as did my husband. We spent less time with our friends, and much less time telling them about our lives. No, we have not stopped trusting, and we are still on good terms with them, but we don’t let anyone into our personal lives. And all after an unpleasant incident that happened to my friend and her husband.
They were close friends. They had been friends for a long time. The husbands of my acquaintance and her friend had worked together for a long time. The women themselves had studied together at the institute. Then her friend got married and had a baby a year later. She introduced her friend to her husband’s colleague and they had an affair. But then her friend’s husband quit his job and found a more profitable place. The friend also found a high-paying job. Communication between the couples became more rare. It turned out that she started jumping from maternity leave to maternity leave, the bosses did not like it, and she was fired on some pretext.
The man had to work hard to make sure his four children and wife did not need anything. But in principle, they were doing well. They bought a large house, took care of the household. Slowly, their income leveled off, but they did not become very wealthy. The other couple, the second one, did not have children, had a career, often vacationed at the sea, lived at their own pleasure.
So one day the couple decided to invite their cronies to their country house. They thought it would be a great idea to get the boys away from the bustle of the city. They could barbecue barbeques, swim in the river, go to the woods. The weather, moreover, was wonderful. The woman called her friend and told him of her proposal. She was very happy, but said that she would discuss everything with her husband first, and then she would call and say whether they were able to come. Her friend put the phone on the table, it was clear by the sound, because she did not even turn the ringer off. And then the woman heard a lot of interesting things about herself and her family, and it shocked her.
As it turned out, friends thought the couple were dumbasses who knew absolutely nothing about life. In their opinion, because of four children they had to barely make ends meet from paycheck to paycheck. Their house is a wreck, where they are ashamed to invite people over. The children are rude beggars, and in general, why did they have so many children, they should give half of them to an orphanage. My wife was a brat, who talked only about children. My husband was a rude bastard, with whom there was nothing to talk about. Then the connection was cut off, and the couple, who had heard all of this, sat in shock and even wanted to go to their cronies and tell them everything to their faces. But at that moment the phone rang, her friend’s husband called, he said that they would come to visit them at the weekend, her husband replied approvingly and hung up.
The couple talked about the whole situation and decided to wait for the guests to arrive. A couple arrived with some cheap preserves for the table and the same candy for the children. The husband immediately asked:
– What a small salary you have, you can’t even buy a good guest! Well, okay, we’ll give you a nice meal, there’s a great table set up. The boys will eat now, and then help us on the site, there is a lot of work.
The couple was shocked and did not understand what was going on, and the wife joined in:
– And why don’t you still have children?
– We don’t want to yet, we’ll have time for that, – replied her friend.
– I see what’s wrong with you. Only brats and rude bastards have children, and intelligent people have to live for themselves, – said the woman.
At these words the couple just stunned. It was clear to them that the couple knew everything, but they had no idea how. The boys did not say anything to them, went about their business, and their friends came up with some excuse to get away from them quickly.
What do you think of the situation? Did the couple do the right thing? Should they have been nicer to their guests, or should they have been harsher? What would you have done?
