Am I being unreasonable placing time limits on upcoming night out?

Often I find that the stay-at-home partner does have the time/opportunity to do those things but doesn't want to, yet resents their partner for wanting to do those things.

Not minding your partner having social life doesn’t make you a mug.
Just like Staying out until 3am doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person.

In most cases a grown up conversation is all that’s needed.

No you’re right. It doesn’t make me a morally superior person. It makes me someone who isn’t a mug and a doormat tolerating the behaviour of someone that’s choosing to continue drinking until 3am, rather than supporting his wife who is juggling two very young children during the evening/night.
We’re all different though!

No she doesn't

He gets to behave like a single man and the OP has to be the dutiful wife and mother.

We got late nights out on the town out of our system before DC.

I'm a bit undecided here, a game of darts and a few pints once every 3 or 4 weeks would be fair do's. A lads night out as a one off yes ok, but he needs to know that if he comes home slammed you will be utterly pissed off - and I mean really pissed off -with him. I think the repeat darts and home early hours is completely unreasonable to you and the children. He is the dad, he is responsible for these little ones. To me this needs nipping in the bud as it won't improve.

No you’re right. It doesn’t make me a morally superior person. It makes me someone who isn’t a mug and a doormat tolerating the behaviour of someone that’s choosing to continue drinking until 3am, rather than supporting his wife who is juggling two very young children during the evening/night.
We’re all different though!

But you were replying to a post that didn't say going to the pub specifically was the problem, yet you replied as though it had. You don't get to exclude the most objectionable points to disagree with someone when that's not what they did.

As long as you get time to do similar/go to a spa/abseiling/whatever you like to do I don’t see the issue.

I've said multiple times that the moodiness and the being crap the day after needs addressing.

But I stand by my views that one night out a week (even a late night) isn't inherently bad.

I suspect you do… but spoiler alert, it doesn’t make you a morally superior person. You just want to live a different lifestyle and that’s okay.

Weird the way you left out the bit about being moody and crap the next day after his 3ams, isn't it? The sort of thing you can indulge yourself with when you've no responsibilities but that does, actually, make you a dickhead when you've 2 under 2 and a partner who's tired from doing all the night feeds. That's showing he doesn't give a fuck on those days, thinks it's fine for his already tired partner to pick up his share and his loved ones to have to tolerate a day of moodiness, because of what he's chosen to prioritise.

Though I don't know that I'd necessarily describe it as a mid life crisis either. He could simply be a selfish twat.

People change. And it's that fact that makes me wholeheartedly believe that long-term romantic connections are not natural. We try to force them and end up miserable. I could never live like this with another adult dictating what I do in any way. It makes me feel physically uncomfortable.

Going out one night a week is not prioritising the pub over your family.
Going to the pub once a week is not ‘acting like a single bloke dickhead in his twenties’
Going to the pub once a week is not a mid-life crisis.

Of course you can still go out and have fun when you have children! But to roll in drunk at 3am every week when you have two very young children isn’t ok. At least not in my world.
Mind you, I read posts on MN and often wonder if I live in a completely different universe with different standards and morals 🤷🏻‍♀️

Early forties and still acting like a single bloke dickhead in his twenties??

Have you heard the term ‘mid-life crisis’?

I think you need to sit down together and discuss the future going forwards and what each of your expectations are.

I can’t stand men who prioritise going to the pub over spending time with their families. My dad did that and he was an alcoholic and a crap husband and father.

Is that what you want for your future?

You do sound a bit OTT OP but I was going to ask all these questions.

Where does he go after pub closing?

In your shoes I would be asking a totally different set of questions. The fact that it's so regular, it does sound like he is using sex workers or has an OW OM or something driving this regular behaviour that he apparently won't deviate from in his life.

It's not the fact he's doing it. I would want to know the who, what, how of it all.

Are the people he's allegedly with, steady people or the sort to stay up drinking and smoking weed? How likely is his story? Does he smell when he comes in? Does he have a second phone and two dozen other questions in that vein.

I would be in full on secret squirrel mode by this time.

I certainly haven’t jumped to him having an affair!
More like where on earth is he until 3am and more importantly, why? He has two very young children at home that he’s leaving his wife to sort out alone. Every week.

Early forties and still acting like a single bloke dickhead in his twenties??

Have you heard the term ‘mid-life crisis’?

I think you need to sit down together and discuss the future going forwards and what each of your expectations are.

I can’t stand men who prioritise going to the pub over spending time with their families. My dad did that and he was an alcoholic and a crap husband and father.

Is that what you want for your future?

This is very helpful thank you. I do doubt my judgment and what's reasonable.

I will separate the two things - the night on the town for the cousins and the regular darts night.

I don't want to be controlling. I felt an evening to pub closure hobby was ok....
But I also don't want to not speak out and problems grow.

The disrespect phrase was because the times coming home have been 3am without communication. When I've been doing the bedtimes and still waking up all through to attend to the baby. After those occasions he hasn't pulled his weight at home the next day and has been moody. But all the other days of the week he has been equal.

I don't have an equal social life but I do occasionally see friends for a couple of hours.

Also I have been told that some of them use recreational drugs. My fear is what if he did and lied about it...

I just can't understand how the man that liked early starts hiking and nights in has so quickly flipped the other way. I'm sure he was into the lads nights when he was younger but we are in our early 40s now.

Early forties and still acting like a single bloke dickhead in his twenties??

Have you heard the term ‘mid-life crisis’?

I think you need to sit down together and discuss the future going forwards and what each of your expectations are.

I can’t stand men who prioritise going to the pub over spending time with their families. My dad did that and he was an alcoholic and a crap husband and father.

Is that what you want for your future?

No she doesn't

He gets to behave like a single man and the OP has to be the dutiful wife and mother.

We got late nights out on the town out of our system before DC.