Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

He stayed out to help a lady get home safe… AIBU or is DH?

283 replies

SoulSissss · 12/07/2024 22:32

DH went out for “a couple of drinks” at 2.00pm. He text me at 5.30 and said that he’d be having another couple of drinks. He then messaged at 7.30 told me he would be home at 8.30 and also told me that his battery was at 1%. However, he then bumped into a lady he knows, who asked him to make sure she got home safe. She was drunk but not paralytic. It’s hard to access taxis in the place we live. He text me to tell me this at 9.15.

So our children stayed awake to get their goodnight kiss from daddy, but I had to tell them that unfortunately thing had changed and daddy wouldn’t be able to be home in time.

DH has just got home just after 10.00 and explained that the lady was upset about her marriage and wouldn’t stop talking to him about it. He said he felt he couldn’t leave her incase something happened to her. I totally understand that but explained that it’s not his job to babysit an adult. He could have explained that he would be leaving and could make sure she got home okay if she left now. I then said that DD was upset (suspected neurodivergent) that he wasn’t home. He said he tried for ages to get her to leave but it was difficult.

He then completely deflected and said, well if DD was so upset, why didn’t I phone him. I explained that I knew he was on 1% battery ages before hand and we had been waiting expecting him to come through the door any minute. He said “so you knew I planned to be home at 8.30 and when I still wasn’t home at 9.15 you weren’t even concerned for my safety???” I explained again, I didn’t think his phone would even possibly still be on at that time and that no, I wasn’t concerned for his safety! He began smirking and rolling his eyes.

I told him that I’m really upset at how he is speaking to me and I’d be happy if he just left the house. I think he is being completely out of order. But maybe it’s me?

I know I’ve given specific timings for messages. I’m not actually that anal about stuff, but I want to share an actuate timeline so that you get the full picture.

AIBU??

OP posts:
Holdsagrudge · 13/07/2024 10:17

A husband with White Knight Syndrome is a tiresome thing.

pinkjellybeanies · 13/07/2024 10:16

Bouldersandrocks · 13/07/2024 10:15

He wasn’t helping her, and some could say that to a degree he was enabling her to carry on drinking and get into a worse state.
If he truly wanted to help, he should have said something like ‘listen [woman name], I’m driving home now as [OP’s wife’s name] and I have plans tomorrow and I can’t make this a late one, did you need me to drop you back or are you alright to make your own plans?’

Hope he wasn’t driving if he’d been drinking since 2 pm..

Puffinfoot · 13/07/2024 10:16

Bouldersandrocks · 13/07/2024 10:07

Wonder if that ‘poor man’ would stay out late helping anyone vulnerable getting home or does his criteria only specify drunken recently divorced women who need comforting?

Yes, quite. Amazing how these men never find fat middle aged men or old ugly women who need saving.

Bouldersandrocks · 13/07/2024 10:15

Plantparent · 13/07/2024 10:06

He was helping an intoxicated woman who would have been vulnerable to many things including sexual assault. Should he have just left her alone in the streets? When taxis are difficult to get in the area as OP said?

Edited

He wasn’t helping her, and some could say that to a degree he was enabling her to carry on drinking and get into a worse state.
If he truly wanted to help, he should have said something like ‘listen [woman name], I’m driving home now as [OP’s wife’s name] and I have plans tomorrow and I can’t make this a late one, did you need me to drop you back or are you alright to make your own plans?’

Runsyd · 13/07/2024 10:14

I'd be most angry about the fact that he went out of his way to help an acquaintance but didn't give a shit when you were stranded on your own. No way I'd let that discrepancy go.

GingerPirate · 13/07/2024 10:12

How tedious.
And the drinking session, well, DH must have liver of steel.
YANBU.

AllIThinkAbourIsKarma · 13/07/2024 10:09

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

Bouldersandrocks · 13/07/2024 10:07

Lavenderfields121 · 13/07/2024 09:53

Poor man helped a vulnerable person and gets the stick for it. Extra points for weaponising the daughter.
This is awful.

Wonder if that ‘poor man’ would stay out late helping anyone vulnerable getting home or does his criteria only specify drunken recently divorced women who need comforting?

Plantparent · 13/07/2024 10:06

GoldFrame · 13/07/2024 10:04

He wasn’t “helping a vulnerable person” 🙈

He was helping an intoxicated woman who would have been vulnerable to many things including sexual assault. Should he have just left her alone in the streets? When taxis are difficult to get in the area as OP said?

GoldFrame · 13/07/2024 10:04

He wasn’t “helping a vulnerable person” 🙈

malificent7 · 13/07/2024 10:04

I think you areiright to be upset. Why was the woman going on about her marriage woes? Totally inappropriate and it dosn't take a genious to realise she wanted " comforting" and was signalling her availability.
It's not even about her though really...your dh is a knob for getting wasted and upsetting his family...prioritising drunk lady.

Plantparent · 13/07/2024 10:03

I actually cannot believe how many people on here think that it would have been fine not to help the drunk woman! So many women are killed, it is absolutely not okay to leave a woman alone, drunk and vulnerable for the sake of a partner's insecurities.

There are so many posters on here that write about their husband's staying out/fraternising with other woman/checking out of family life etc. I honestly think if my husband did things like threatening to throw me out of the house for coming home at 10pm, tried to stop me helping a drunk person and used the DC's bedtime to manipulate me to come home, I would probably feel like checking out of family life/life with him too! If you reverse the genders of this post, there would be entirely different answers.

Chartreux · 13/07/2024 09:58

StMarieforme · 13/07/2024 09:57

Yes my thoughts entirely. My sons were always the ones to make sure the girls in their group got home safely and they would still do it today. Their wives trust them completely and would not have a problem with this.
"Daddy's making sure that a friend gets home safely- we can be very proud of him" would have made DC much happier imo.

But he didn't make sure his friend got home safely. Another friend did that, Daddy inexplicably decided to go along with them and stay with drunken acquaintance. Why would you be proud of that?

Chartreux · 13/07/2024 09:57

Lavenderfields121 · 13/07/2024 09:53

Poor man helped a vulnerable person and gets the stick for it. Extra points for weaponising the daughter.
This is awful.

You've conveniently omitted a few points there, like the fact that supposedly vulnerable person refused to leave the pub for ages, and had another friend to get her home. Also the phone that was strangely about to run out of battery at one minute but was fine two hours later, and the attempt to put the blame on OP for not checking on him on his supposedly out-of-battery phone.

StMarieforme · 13/07/2024 09:57

olympicsrock · 12/07/2024 22:58

It wasn’t late and he was doing a good deed. I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if this was DH. You sound controlling.

Yes my thoughts entirely. My sons were always the ones to make sure the girls in their group got home safely and they would still do it today. Their wives trust them completely and would not have a problem with this.
"Daddy's making sure that a friend gets home safely- we can be very proud of him" would have made DC much happier imo.

Aquamarine1029 · 13/07/2024 09:56

Poor man helped a vulnerable person and gets the stick for it. Extra points for weaponising the daughter.
This is awful.

Somebody got the stick alright.

Lavenderfields121 · 13/07/2024 09:53

Poor man helped a vulnerable person and gets the stick for it. Extra points for weaponising the daughter.
This is awful.

GoldFrame · 13/07/2024 09:50

Quite, @Aquamarine1029

Its like some people have never been out

user1492757084 · 13/07/2024 09:50

Give your husband some family responsibilities every day.
Tell him he has to be THE one who is sober and in control of dinner and bedtime (at 6:00pm) every second day during the week and Saturday.

Make a roster and have family day every Sunday.

He's behaving like a teenager.
Tell him to shoot the distressed friend a few numbers for professional services - as he is not qualified to meet her needs.

It was nice of him to make sure she got home safe but that is where it should end.

Aquamarine1029 · 13/07/2024 09:50

Mr. Hero helps some basically random woman for hours, couldn't possibly get away from her, and then comes home and treats his wife like rubbish.

Are people really buying this twat's story?

pinkjellybeanies · 13/07/2024 09:47

Bouldersandrocks · 13/07/2024 09:46

At the end of the day, the OP was depending on her husband. Yet strangely enough, so was this other woman.. who did the husband chose? That’s the part that’s out of order. When the OP raised this with her husband, he challenged her to deflect from his behaviour and confuse the OP… that’s why I believe the OP needs to stand her ground and not let the husband downplay things. Even if it’s ’just a one-off’, as many posters said to defend the husband, that ‘one-off’ behaviour is still inappropriate and needs calling out.

Best reply.

Bouldersandrocks · 13/07/2024 09:46

At the end of the day, the OP was depending on her husband. Yet strangely enough, so was this other woman.. who did the husband chose? That’s the part that’s out of order. When the OP raised this with her husband, he challenged her to deflect from his behaviour and confuse the OP… that’s why I believe the OP needs to stand her ground and not let the husband downplay things. Even if it’s ’just a one-off’, as many posters said to defend the husband, that ‘one-off’ behaviour is still inappropriate and needs calling out.

Chillilounger · 13/07/2024 09:43

He's deflecting by making this about you and why you didn't check on him. I would tell him nothing like this happens again and keep a closer eye out in future.

Bouldersandrocks · 13/07/2024 09:42

Perfectly worded

Chartreux · 13/07/2024 09:42

SoulSissss · 13/07/2024 00:10

They ended up getting a lift home by another guy who is friends with her. So subsequently, she would have got home safely without DH. But in fairness, he wouldn’t have known that was how it would play out.

Has he explained why he got in the car if the friend was giving her a lift anyway? Surely at that point he knew she was going to get home safely and could have left her to it.