Your Door Is Not His Dinner Bell

You’re right. The friend’s wrong. And your husband already knows it — he just hasn’t said so yet because telling your college buddy to call ahead feels like rejecting thirty years of friendship. It isn’t. It’s called being an adult in someone else’s home.

Here’s the thing about Georgetown: six months in, this man has found his footing. He’s not lost, he’s not desperate, and he’s not short on options. He just found a free diner two miles from his house and figured out the hours. Two or three times a week is not a drop-in — it’s a standing reservation. Nobody put that on your menu.

Your husband needs to make the call. Not you. Him. That’s his friend, and it’s not fair to cast you as the unfriendly one for wanting your own house back. You didn’t marry this man’s social calendar.

Tell your husband: one dinner a week, planned in advance, is plenty generous. Unannounced visits get a “bad time, call ahead next time” and a closed door. Say it once, clear, and stop answering the bell hungry.

The phone works fine. His friend knows how to use it. He just doesn’t have to yet.

— Vera