Hubby can't refuse to socialize with these people as they are all military and some socializing is expected. However, as most of our guests know.... Hubby outranked all of them, so he was in a position where he HAD to suck it up. Sometimes the highest ranking member in a group has to play politics to a certain extent.... and so does the wife! IF he had not gone along with the change in plans there could have been accusations of us thinking we're better than them.... jealousy..... Just a whole host of ugly stuff. Fortunately none of the guests are in Hubby's direct chain of command, and they don't even work in the same section. But we still walk a line.
That makes me *so* glad that the only time the DH was a commander - it was slated to be a six month temporary assignment - and he didn't take us with him (DD starting senior year of high school and it was supposed to be SIX months). He ended up being there longer than expected (9/11 and a few other complications) - but since we hadn't moved within the time frame required - we ended up at the old base waiting to see what happened when the assignment ended..........
He came back to the old base 26 months later and retired from that base & that house in 2005.He and the DS moved to Texas (near Houston) with his new job (Junior ROTC). I stayed behind to get the old house set up to sell - then ran back & forth for a while. We finally sold the house two weeks ago.............
Military life does offer a few complications to your social life..............but THAT was one complication that I never had happen to me.
**snicker** I do remember the looks when the retention NCO came to work late Monday morning. When asked where he had been, he told everyone he'd had to go to the dentist. He'd broken a tooth on one of the lieutenant's ribs on Saturday.........he meant barbecued ribs - but didn't realize the way it sounded until the three people in the room started snickering................ I didn't know whether to shoot him, snicker, or offer to hand out the recipe labelled "Lieutenant G's Tooth Breaking Ribs - eat at your own risk"..........
Digression over - I would say that the ranking person needs to explain that the person in the house who outranks him (that's you, by the way) isn't planning any more poker nights for him at the moment. Perhaps if they brought their own snacks to reduce her (your) workload?
? (voice trailing off to let the guys know that they had better not do that again).
I did have a party for the Junior Officers' group when we were members - after fishing a blonde wig, a pocket protector, and about seven pens out of our pool that night and watching someone skin out of a vintage leather jacket before the idjits could get to him - I vowed "never again". I was actually asked (by one of the idjits, oddly enough) why we'd never had another party at our house - he'd liked the pool and hot tub.
I was not higher rank - but I was good at looking over my glasses to give "the hairy eyeball"...........he never brought up THAT idea again.
