Help keep my mind busy please. DP not home and uncontactable.

[OnlyCans]

Half way between fuming and terrified.

DP went out in his home city today with his male family members. He said he was almost definitely coming home at around 6 but don't rule anything out. Last train is around 9 but he was definitely getting that. Kept in touch throughout the day and he said getting train. Fine, no issues. At 8.30, I rang and he sounded quite drunk. He asked me to check the train time. I told him and he said ok, he will be on that one. He will get a taxi as he doesn't want DD and I messed about collecting him. 30 mins after train was in our home town I called him. He can barely speak and says he is getting train. I say he has missed it, shall we just come and get him. He said he is sorting everyone else out home and then he will get an Uber. An hour later he calls off someone else's phone saying he has no battery but everyone else is safe and he will sort an Uber. I offer again to just go get him. He says no way, thanks for caring but he can sort himself out. I ask how he will with no phone. He says ermmm and that he will find a way. He will call me in the Uber. That was over an hour ago. He has no coat and is probably the most I have ever known him to be in 15 years and he can handle his drink.

Watching golden girls with DD who is equally fuming/worried. Why wouldn't he just let us get him rather than sitting up worrying that he's asleep in an alleyway somewhere with no coat.

[AnotherMarvellousThing]

But do you really want your young daughter growing up to think this is acceptable?

[CatalinaCasesolver]

@Shirleyphallus

He sounds like a bit of a dick but why are you facilitating all this? Absolutely no need to be keeping up your (presumably early teens) daughter until 3am, constantly ringing him, wondering if you should go out and pick him up etc etc.

He’s a grown man, he’d find his way home.

Agree. Strange how some women mother their husbands.

[BigSandyBalls2015]

You should both have just gone to bed and let him get on with it ... they usually find their way home eventually. No need for all the drama and angst.

[HollowTalk]

If he's in their home town why doesn't he just arrange to stay with one of them and come home the next day?

[MyDcAreMarvel]

Honestly I think you behaved worse that your dp, he was stupid and drunk but you should have left him to it. Keeping your child up till 3.30 am worrying her and then exposing her to an argument is not on. Your daughter is not your emotional support.

[pigglepot]

Hi OP. Just coming on as feel compelled to defend you against the barrage of sexist women on here who have somehow managed to turn this into being your fault!! Seems like women on mumsnet have only two types of advice (1) leave him (2) it's all your fault and you're unreasonable. It really is quite odd.

I'm sure he will be getting a stern talking to today and hopefully will apologise through the hangover. It sounds as though this is very rare for him so it's not something you have to put up with regularly. I would be extremely cross too and would also have had a go with my teenage child in ear shot by the time he got home- she also needs to see it's no acceptable behaviour from a partner. Hope he gets his act together today and that you manage to have a rest after your sleepless night! You've done absolutely nothing wrong. Your partner has but certainly not enough to get himself dumped unless this is a regular occurrence or there is more to the story.

[AnotherMarvellousThing]

@pigglepot, I certainly interpreted some of the OP’s posts to mean that day-long drinking sprees with his family were a regular or semi-regular occurrence. I mean things like the OP saying that the conversation ‘would end badly’ when he was drunk — I’ve absolutely no idea how my DH would respond to me confronting him when blind drunk, because he doesn’t get blind drunk and roll home at 3.30 am blaming me for having to pay a taxi fare and telling me he’s gone if I ‘raise my voice’ in front of a crying child. I also thought that the tone of the text messages from the DH’s aunt suggested this wasn’t a one-off.

Let me be clear, I don’t think any of this was at all in any way the OP’s fault, but I don’t think anyone should be regarding it to be ok for a man old enough to have a teenager who drinks until he’s incoherent and incapable of getting himself home. That’s what you do once or twice in your teens when you’re still learning to handle alcohol.

What is worrying to me is how unsurprised the OP sounds about all of this.

[HadEnoughofOtherThreads]

Your DH acted like an idiot, but he was drunk!

Does he not normally go out by himself socially?
Does he often get drunk?

Why did you feel it necessary to wait up for him like he’s a teenager?
And there is absolutely no need for a child to wait up for a grown man to arrive home after a night out. Fine if your child happens to hear you tell him that you are disappointed with him in the morning, but no need for her to be caught up in the drama and you ‘both’ worrying about him until the early hours. That was not age appropriate.

I agree that it sounds like there is more to this. Do you feel that you cannot trust him when he goes out without you?

Luckily, I don’t have this problem as DP doesn’t really drink, as he’s a lightweight and knows he’ll be drunk in 5 minutes.
I don’t drink much either. It’s a life choice that has consequences.

[HadEnoughofOtherThreads]

*I should have typed:
Does he often go out socially without you?

[OnlyCans]

@pigglepot thank you. It's funny how comments have taken a turn from last night to this morning.


@AnotherMarvellousThing yes unsurprised because this was a regular occurrence many many moons ago and although he did appear to have grown out of it this is his first time out in his hometown since covid started so i expected something but not this at all. I expected he miss the train and get an Uber, no stress.

@HadEnoughofOtherThreads yes we go out together all the time. I always wait up for him because we always have fun when he gets back. dd was waiting up because he was due back at around half 10 and as it's holidays and the weekend she doesn't have a strict bed time. It's not that I can't trust him or anything like that. It was just how drunk he sounded and how he didn't have any methods to get home (or seemed not to because he was stupidly drunk and couldn't formulate any kind of plan) that I was stressed. I do over react in these situations but no way could I have peacefully slept knowing he is out there off his face to the point he can't remember who he is with or where he is. I didn't tell DD about my worries. I kept saying he will be home, he's obv just delayed.

[SomethingNastyInTheBallPool]

Christ. He sounds like an idiot, but why on earth didn’t you and your DD just go to bed and let him get himself home like a grown man. What did you think would happen?

[LIZS]

How old is your dd? You should have told him that 10/11pm was your limit to collect and gone to bed rather than getting both of you overtired and anxious.

[AmyDudley]

Why do people think that going to bed will stop someone worrying? If you know someone is drunk, and seems incapable of getting home and you aren't certain they won't come to harm, then of course you worry. The only difference going to bed will do is that you worry in bed.

As others have said - awful lot of suggesting that OP is somehow at fault - when she did nothing wrong.

[Tempusfudgeit]

My Mum used to do this to me - inappropriate involvement in her anxiety/life stresses. It affected me.

[Crockof]

Watching golden girls with DD who is equally fuming/worried. Why wouldn't he just let us get him rather than sitting up worrying that he's asleep in an alleyway somewhere with no coat This is at 1am with a child.

DD is crying after being so excited to see him this is after 3am

I think kids need to understand that these things happen in a relationship I don't.

It's not your fault how he behaved and I'm certainly not making excuses for him, but you mentioned twice he didn't have a coat (odd and controlling unless talking about a toddler)

You then used your child as an emotional crutch, you should have gone to bed when it was obvious he wasn't coming home. Worrying yourself and your child didn't achieve anything, nor chance the outcome. It's not being anti feminist it's being an adult.

[Crockof]

Although he is a dick and he should have arranged to stay with family, all this could've been avoided if he organised himself properly.

[Crockof]

@AmyDudley

Why do people think that going to bed will stop someone worrying? If you know someone is drunk, and seems incapable of getting home and you aren't certain they won't come to harm, then of course you worry. The only difference going to bed will do is that you worry in bed.

As others have said - awful lot of suggesting that OP is somehow at fault - when she did nothing wrong.

Because involving a child in such a drama is wrong as Tempus shows.

[30degreesandmeltinghere]

I feel a bit cringey reading your first post op
.
He didn't have a coat!!

He is over 18 and it is August!!
The rest is just unorganised person out on the drink.. You were way over invested...

[Comefromaway]

@30degreesandmeltinghere

I feel a bit cringey reading your first post op
.
He didn't have a coat!!

He is over 18 and it is August!!
The rest is just unorganised person out on the drink.. You were way over invested...

Depending where the OP is there have been storms and flooding in some areas.

[HopeClearwater]

Has he got a drink problem?

I can't wake him so I put a blanket on him.

Don’t do this. Let him feel the consequences of his own idiocy.

[30degreesandmeltinghere]

Op your dh isn't a naughty school boy.
Maybe why he wasn't in a hurry to get home.
Hung for a sheep as a lamb?

[Galassia]

Waiting up wouldn’t be an option for me. Under the circumstances you have described I would have gone to bed and had my sleep so that in the event of anything untoward happening I would be refreshed and able to cope.

Staying up and making yourself feel fractious is utterly pointless.

[EarringsandLipstick]

Some of the comments here to OP are awful & bullying.

@Crockof take a look at yourself & just stop.

OP I hope you can get some rest today. Im sorry you had to deal with this. I too would have been worried. I missed what age your DD is but the comments directed at you are unwarranted and really nasty - I don't think you did anything wrong here.

Your DP sounds an arse and immature bit perhaps it's a one-off?

[Janaih]

Using your child as an emotional crutch for your marriage issues is abusive, its called covert incest and I'm glad so many posters have picked OP up on it.
You clearly have a DH problem, please address that in a healthy way don't fuck your kid up.

[WildBurd]

Blimey, not having a coat in August!

I would have been long in bed, as would DD. I wouldn't have allowed her to stay up to see her pissed Dad in a state.

I would have left him to it.