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AIBU?

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Help me “unpack” my anxiety around my husband going out drinking?

26 replies

CallUpMyMamaSaidImInLoveWithTheStripperYo · 07/08/2026 01:34

Husband is going out for dinner and drinks with friends on Saturday night. My heart sank to my boots when he asked if I would mind, but i said “of course not” because I’m not a controlling dick.

He hardly ever goes out. I don’t mind dealing with the kids etc, no issue at all, and he works so hard and is very much my equal partner so he deserves to go out once in a while.

But I have such terrible anxiety around it. I will be on absolute pins all night. He will get drunk - not over the top drunk, a bit drunk, he’ll come home around midnight, eat some junk food and go to bed. He is not an obnoxious, angry drunk, he’s perfectly fine.

I am an emetophobe but I think there is more to it than that. I am anxious around drunk men, or my kids seeing their dad drunk. Maybe there is some childhood trauma around that. I’m not sure.

I have been known to sleep with my daughter on nights he goes out, or ask him to stay at his parents house which he really hates doing. None of this is his problem though. I don’t expect him not to go because I am anxious. I need to deal with that myself.

Can anyone else relate to this feeling?

OP posts:
VoltaireMittyDream · 07/08/2026 01:43

Are you ND at all? This seems pretty extreme, but relatable from my ND family.

My DH is autistic and he can’t bear it if I have a single glass of wine over dinner with a friend. It makes him hugely anxious if I’m even the slightest bit ‘different’ in mood or energy. He also feels like this when I am ill, or upset about something. Or even excited about something! It’s like I am not the same person if my energy is not within in a very narrow range he considers ‘normal’.

TBH being monitored all the time and treated with anxiety or hostility or disgust if I ever do anything differently from routine, or feel an emotion, is exhausting to live with.

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