My husband and I have been married for a long time. To make a long story short, he has never known anyone with any of the issues that I have. He grew up with perfect parents, perfect friends, and he had a great life. My upbringing was the polar opposite of his. It wasn't a total nightmare, but it sure was far from easy!

As a result, a lot of things have scarred me for life. Emotionally and pyschiologically. Anyways, the other day I had a bad experience at a meetup group. Anyone who has read some of my posts know that I don't do well in large groups. Also that I'm insecure about my looks and being heavy now. Not to mention the fact that I'm obviously a shy and introverted person with self esteem issues. I suffer mostly from depression and social anxiety, but I have issues with other things too.

I don't have to many real friends that I can count on for support most of the time, so that's part of the reason that I'm here. It seems like everytime I have an issue with someone, or I happen to feel uncomfortable in a social situation, my husband expects me to suck things up and put aside my own feelings of discomfort in order to fit in and be liked, ugh!

In the past, he'd tell me that I'm "weird" for not wanting to hug strangers. These people didn't just try to hug me, but they'd try to kiss me on both sides of the cheek as it's a cultural thing for them. By not liking this, and by trying to tell these people that I'd rather just shake hands or not hug, he acted like I'm the rudest and most thoughtless person ever. Don't I have the right to not do anything that makes me extremely uncomfortable?

It's not like I knew these people. I could suck it up for someone in his family maybe, but not people who are friends of friends, ugh, WTH? Also, he told me that people don't like me since I'm "weird" and "unfriendly". He has told me that in the past, ugh! I've had his stupid and rude friends ignore me after saying hi to me in the past so often, that I refused to see them ever again after that.

We fought about it quite a bit. I won in the end- They'd rudely talk in another language in front of me all the time even though they were able to speakin English perfectly well. They just didn't like me, so they made no effort to include me in conversation at all. I don't get how he could not see that. They were awfully cliquey and it seemed that they could only relate to their own kind of people and not outsiders.

Anyways, he had the nerve to tell me that I needed to learn the language in order to fit in. Long story short, I refused again. What for, just to speak to those rude clowns? No thanks! LOL!

The lastest insult came yesterday when he claimed once again that I was "wrong", "weird", and being "stuck-up", "silly", and "unfriendly" just for not wanting to have my pic taken. I politely declined being in a group pic and he made it sound as if by not wanting to be in picture will make other people shun me and think badly of me.

Is he exaggerating or not? I think that his views are exaggerated and extreme. My feelings and needs don't seem to matter at all in group situations, so I have avoided them like the plaque for years!

Is he right in stating that I have to just suck it up regardless of my extreme discomfort doing certain things in social situations just to fit in and be accepted? I hope that he's wrong about this! Does anyone else agree or disagree with what he said? Or are some of you kind of in the middle of agreeing and disagreeing with some things?

How do you react to social situations that make you very uncomfortable? If someone tried to kiss you on the cheek, and they were a stranger, or take your pic w/o even asking you first, or something like that, how would you respond to it? Would you say anything at all, or just suck it up and try to avoid placing yourself in those awkward situations again?

I'd love to know what you guys think of all of this. I think that I have a RIGHT to how I feel, and that I'm not some stupid child who is soley there to do what other people want when they want. Even kids should be treated with similar respect as we have feelings too! And those feelings and boundaries should be respected at all times IMHO!