Welcome Glade! Shake a damp kazoo at your husbands friends. What do they know anyway? Are they a philharmonic?There's no such thing as tone-deaf!
Find this book: Making Music for the Joy of It - Enhancing Creativity, Skills and Musical Confidence (A Guide for Adult Beginning and Amateur Musicians) by Stephanie Judy 1990, Jeremy P. Tarcher, Inc, Los Angeles ISBN 0-87477-593-0. I wouldn't have tossed the ISBN in there, but seeing as how you're a liberarian and all...
Ms. Judy cuts through a lot of the assumptions and BS we accumulate about music and musicianship, learning and playing. Over 300 pages, well worth having a look for it.
Cheers, Bradford