My socialising is normal, right?!

[Wonderbread]

My husband and I have always been extremely social and worked in sociable industries. Before children we’d go out 4 or 5 nights a week and I guess you could say I was quite a ‘party’ person.

Since getting older (now 42) and having children 5 years ago things have slowed right down, which is natural and I’m certainly not the party person I was. But yesterday my husband said he’s worried I’m not making enough effort to go out anymore and it’s got me worrying I’ve become anti-social!

In an average month I’d say I

• go out during the week with a friend once or maybe twice
• we’ll socialise together with friends at the weekend such as going to stay at theirs etc once or twice
• we see local friends for meals, drinks, play dates twice

So I probably have 3-5 social occasions a month. I don’t really feel unhappy with this but is this really anti-social?! What do your social lives look like

I must say I'd suspicious of an ulterior motive if my DP was encouraging me to go out and leave him looking after the kids if I was already out so much anyway

Oh gosh so not only is he having an affair but with this innocuous comment he’s revealed he’s a paedophile too!!

Thank God for Mumsnet.....

@ContessaIsOnADietDammit

I really don’t think it’s anything as in-depth as that. Maybe I made it sound more than it was - it was an offhand comment that I should get some more things in the diary as I’ve not bothered so much recently.

He doesn’t want to go out any more than he does at the moment, and if he did he just would. He’s not having a midlife crisis - we didn’t have a child until 37/39 and he was more than ready and LOVES fatherhood. It’s really not that.

Your 3 - 5 times a month would be similar to my social life so it sounds normal to me, whatever normal is. Saying that I was never someone to go out socially 4/5 times a week so I suppose I can see that your current social life is markedly different from what it was a few years ago. Maybe that's why he's concerned that perhaps you're disengaging a bit from some friendships or interests? After all it's easy and even tempting sometimes to put these things on the back burner but you can fall into a rut that's hard to get out of.

If you're happy and content then that's fine and there isn't an issue but if you have unintentionally let friends or interests fall by the wayside then it might be something to think about.

Fair enough, Wonderbread! In that case maybe he thought you'd been a bit down and needed cheering up in the form of going out?

If you're antisocial them I am a complete recluse nowadays (a happy one!). Thankfully my husband, also not a carefree 20 odd year old anymore, doesn't feel the need to give me a complex about the fact that people/life/situations change! That would really piss me off tbh. If you're happy, why on earth is he trying to create a problem out of nothing?!