Let me say first that I have ADHD & ASD, so reading people (including my husband) is often a struggle for me. I also don't have a many really solid friendships. I have a 'core group' of mum friends who I meet up with as a group, but only one of whom I would consider a good friend. She's kind of my only real friend tbh.
My issues are that I love going out for dinner or drinks and to spend time with this group of friends, or similarly the school mums when a group night out is arranged. There are of course months where nothing is arranged at all and I don't see anyone, and then other busy months like Sept / Oct where there are multiple birthdays and catch ups arranged with the various groups. This seems to irritate my husband who always complains that I'm going out too much. He never goes out despite me encouraging him to meet up with his friends or to go to the dads nights. He always says he would rather spend time with his family (almost as if he's trying to use that as an example to me to prove he's a better husband and parent than me because I want to go out).
I have made him aware in advance of my plans for the next month, but he's not pleased and says I'm going out too much. Over the next 3 weeks I have:
A weekend lunch planned with my one good friend, a weekday mums coffee morning, a group dinner, a school mums night out, a house warming party in the evening, and a mums weekend get together. There is a mixture of weekday during school time, weekend day and weekday and weekend evenings. Admittedly this is quite a lot going on versus what would happen in a normal month for me. But I think it's really just due to school being back, plus I can't help the timing of the birthday and house warmings.
My husband is really quite cross and feels me attending all of these is too much. He will try and find ways to put me down about it saying things like I've only just seen them a month ago for a get together, or why are you meeting with X when you're going out with her and along with A,B, C & D the following week. Or he'll say things like they're not really my friends (I do struggle to form solid friendships but I enjoy spending time and catching up with everyone when I can).
The other night when he realised that the weekend lunch plans with my friend that I'd told him about (and checked with him prior that I could go) then actually interfered with something he'd just found out about that he wanted to do with DC1 was going to prevent him from doing that activity he started attacking my friendship with X saying:
Why are you so secretive? Why do you need to meet up? What do you and X talk about? You're going to see her when you meet up with A,B,C & D in a couple weeks anyway. I don’t understand what you two have in common. She’s not exactly in the best place in life. She lives in a dream world. God knows what she’s going to do when she gets divorced. I feel she has a negative influence on you. You need to align yourself with better people in life”
He doesn't approve of her getting divorced and thinks she's really going to struggle financially after and is generally disapproving of her current lifestyle and spending habits. I don't know what his issue is but I think he feels slightly threatened that she has filed for divorce and thinks it will give me ideas or something.
I know this was long but I'm just feeling super frustrated about what he's said about my friendship. But I'm also wondering if he has a valid point about me going out too much. What is an acceptable amount of times to go out with people? How often do you go out for dinner or drinks to catch up with friends?