About not hearing from DH after his Xmas party?

[UntamedShrew]

I am so exhausted that I genuinely can't tell if I am being unreasonable about this, or he is.

DH's head office is in France, he goes about once a month. This week he managed to make sure his trip coincided with the office party there last night (he was at the London party last week).

I tried to call him last night to say goodnight to the DC - we have twins 3.5 and a 1 year old - but no reply, just got a text later to say it'd been busy and he was now having dinner.

I emailed this morning at 7am to say hi and let him know we had a rubbish night here. (Twin 1 coughing from midnight til 2, twin 2 saw a monster at four, baby howling from five on and off as she is teething.)

No reply. I tried to call at 11am, no answer.

Took DD for her MMR, then i called when home at midday and also sent an email saying let me know you are ok.

No reply... so I started getting really worried, definitely influenced by the sad thread on here I was reading in the early hours about a man dying at his Xmas party. I called his office at 12.30pm and they said they couldn't reach him.

He texted at one, so 2pm Paris time to say he'd just got up. I told him I'd called his office and he went mad - clearly I've got him in trouble and I couldn't give a shit

So AIBU? Am I just resenting his fun night out? Compared to my horrid 24 hours?! I was genuinely shaking as I called his office, the four of us here love and depend on him so much. He does deserve a chance to have fun but this was a bit much... Wasn't it?

Thanks for reading my very whiny and self indulgent post

Lord? Can't.even remember what that wad meant to read. Sorry.

"Why can't people be upfront and direct and say 'Look - you go and have a good time, I want you to...but fair's fair...next weekend I get to enjoy myself.'"

I don't see why a parent of 3 children under 4 has to agree to being left to look after them all alone so their spouse can get pissed.

I realise some people have issues with alcohol, but really there is no need for one half of a couple to be out "having fun" and then the other being forced to take their turn.

It is also OK to say "no, please stay here and help me look after our young family."

YANBU. Essentially people do what they want to. Your DH didn't want to get up and go into work today which is fine, but if that's the case he should have told both work and you in advance that was what he was doing. Work should have been notified as a professional courtesy and you should have been told as a loving courtesy, it's what married people do.

If it had been my DH he would have told me in advance that he wasn't in work that day (as, you know, we discuss these things) and he also would have phoned me about midday to see how DD's MMR had gone, because he's a great dad. But maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones, the more of these threads I read, the luckier I feel!

Sleighbells, he was in Paris! He would never had had responsibility for the children, drinking or not!

YANBU - he's not a single 20 year old, he's a married man with young children and I'll bet you don't get to go on benders much OP?

If I went on the Xmas piss up, no kids to worry about, no work to worry about I wouldnt expect to fall into bed until 5am, so if someone emailed me at 7 I'd go mad! Sleeping off until 2pm would be about right too.

Maybe he just stayed out later than expected OP.

(and I think I'd have just sent him to one text "hope you have a great time, please remember to call me when you sober up so I don't think you are dead" rather than multiple calls/texts/emails)

Sure, I was answering a general point about how women who are knackered should just happily wave off their husbands and demand nights out in return.

Sometimes when your kids are small you need to rein it in a bit.

Having both partners knackered from going out all the time doesn't deal with the problem of 3 small children and their constant exhausting needs.

"Sleigh Presumably, the OP's DH does exactly that for 95% of the time."

That's a pretty massive presumption.

Is it based on anything?

I think much depends on timing. If DH has been away a lot with work, he'll prioritise being home over drinking sessions.

Similarly, if other stuff is going on a home (illness etc) then drinking sessions move down the list.

"And, if one partner doesn't actually want to take anytime off duty, if they feel 'forced to take their turn' ...then they don't have to. But, that doesn't mean they have any right to tell their partner that they can never, ever go out, either."

That sounds like a piss-takers charter to me.

Leave your wife so exhausted she has no energy to go out, and then claim that it's her fault you are the only one who gets to go out.

I must admit that I am super-relaxed about DH working long hours and going out.

But then my DC are older/easier (supposedly) and DH has the knack of knowing when things are getting to much. I don't think I've ever had to ask him not to go somehwere. But then I've never had to ask him to call me either.

I should remind myself of these good traits shouldn't I? Especially when I'm once again wondering why the bloody hell he doesn't cook!

"Yes, it's based on the fact that they live under the same roof, and he probably spends a goodly part of his life with his wife and child?"

Have you ever read MN?

Loads of men spend the time they are at home relaxing while their wives do fucking everything.

It's only not a piss-takers charter if it's OK to say

"No, it's not OK with me for you to go out on the piss on that night. I don't agree to have the children on my own because I'm too tired."

WordFactory your post comes across as appallingly complacent. If your intention is to boast, then boast. Don't talk yourself up while pretending to talk about someone else's situation. It's easy to be 'super relaxed' when your the woman whose husband always does call.

pedantic but that should be 'you're'...

I would say you may have been a little unreasonable, but at the same time understandable!

Couple of years my DH went on his work night out and was AWOL and uncontactable until he appeared at 5pm the next day! I was raging- not because I never get a night out, but because I was worried. DH's Christmas nights at work are reknowned for their rowdiness (forces). Couple of years ago one of his mates broke his leg on a night out and a few Christmases ago he was abroad and called me at 1am Christmas morning very shaken to tell me one of his mates had just been mown down by a car in front of him, and was in ICU with a very guarded prognosis, wife being flown out- great Christmas for their family Another friend's partner was assaulted getting off the bus after a night out (at home) and was found in the street with head injuries, and another friend's partner was stabbed on a night out the next year!! So sometimes you worry....

I think LaQueen is the unreasonable one here! The OP is so not trying to control her DH. She was worried there might be something wrong!

I would have felt as you do, a bit anxious, and probably some 'it's all very well for him', too, after the night you had.

However, from his pov an from an objective perspective I think it's OK to enjoy party, get drunk, sleep off hangover, and he hasn't really behaved unreasonably.

My advice would be be nice and welcoming, then some time soon explain that it helps if he can check in, and also you need to make a diary arrangement for you to out and have fun with friends while he takes a turn on the home shift.

DP and I both have many late work engagements that often turn social and even later, an both need to travel from time to time. I have given up worrying and now go to sleep before he comes in, on the 'no news is good news' principle and that if I keep myself up listening for the door, that is my responsibility, not his. And if he is away, i have 'incommunicadp' as default setting and then any communication that transpires is a bonus.

fwiw, I find routine keeping in touch for the sake of it an irritating distraction when working away. I'll call to speak to DS at a time I know will be good, but I wouldn't do general re-assuring. If anything happened there would be an explicit text and other urgent cmmunications. In an emergency you could have asked the hotel to wake him, or whatever.

2am what are you talking about? Have you actually read my posts on this thread?