Husband letting me down on my night out

[rainfall85]

My husband has had a few nights out over Christmas and has a few more planned before. I was having a little moan and he told me there's nothing stopping you from going out which is true but I find it difficult the fact he doesn't get home from work till late in the evenings and then he plays football twice a week too. If I do go out I've to still be up with the kids for school/activities.
So anyways I decided I'm going out tonight with my friends, nothing major just dinner and a few drinks. I told him about it last week and he said he'd be home at 7.
This morning when he left for work he goes to me don't forget il be late home this evening I've to interview someone. I told him I was going out and he goes no you didn't you told me you might be going out. I'm sitting here really annoyed now as the more I think about it the more sure I am he definitely knew I was going out for example I said to him yesterday x wasn't drinking so she was going to drive. AIBU to be annoyed or should I just say nothing cos it's work related.

Right so I’m petty and I would be inclined to do something petty.

But the adult side of my brain is wondering is he this arseholish in other areas of your relationship?

I’d take this as an opportunity to look at what he helps out with around the house or is he just the “I go to work all day “ type shite head

I'm the one in our house who "forgets" and I do realise that sometimes it's just because I didn't think it was important enough to remember about. That's really unfair to DH, especially when I have to keep being reminded....

We now both have an ap called TimeTree which is a family calendar on your phone. You put something in the diary, he gets a notification. You've set a reminder for the day before, so he gets another notification. He will literally have no excuse.

In this situation I would ask my friends round. Bring own booze and order a takeaway.

Kids can be settled upstairs and when your husband does come home to find you having a laugh with your mates simply ask him to take over as you're with your mates

Who arranged the interview? If it is your DH then he is wrong, if it was arranged for him then job trumps fun.

You had already given your DH plenty of notice that you would be unavailable to look after the DCs this evening.

Therefore, if he intends to be elsewhere, it is up to HIM to find a childcare solution or rearrange the interview.

Simple. It's not your problem. You won't be there.

Valderal makes an excellent suggestion in view of the babysitting situation.

In the long term though, your dh is totally taking you for granted - just assuming you will be at home and bogging off for football twice a week (when do you get similar time off?? Never, I bet). Time for a serious talk with the selfish git.

You had already given your DH plenty of notice that you would be unavailable to look after the DCs this evening.

Therefore, if he intends to be elsewhere, it is up to HIM to find a childcare solution or rearrange the interview.

This is nice advice in theory, but so unrealistic - how likely is he to be able to arrange childcare from a distance, for tonight, for several children including an infant? How comfy will OP be leaving her baby with this person? And of course he can't rearrange interviewing someone on the day of the interview itself because his wife is going on a night out - he'd have to lie and say it was a family emergency, and I really don't think that's a great idea. What he's done is really infuriating, in large part because he really has stuck her with it - by announcing it this morning he's left them with not a lot of options to solve the problem.

Ask him which of his nights out he’s going to cancel so you can have yours.

I agree with Reanimated it does sound deliberate and controlling.

Just an idea, but do you wash his football kit? Maybe let it be in his kit bag and still muddy next time, just to remind him that you’re not the little woman.

My first husband used to do things like you are experiencing now. I would remind him that if he didn’t have me and had to pay for a full time nanny for 3 kids, a cleaner, a chef and a prostitute that he couldn’t afford to on his wages so I was actually worth more than he was. (It didn’t go down well but it made me feel a bit better to know I was worth more than he would acknowledge)

And of course he can't rearrange interviewing someone on the day of the interview itself because his wife is going on a night out - he'd have to lie and say it was a family emergency, and I really don't think that's a great idea.

Of course he can rearrange the interview. He should never have arranged it for tonight in the first place. If he books himself to do something when he's not available to do it then he'll need to sort that out.

DH used to do things like this all of the time - until I started taking the approach I've mentioned above. For me, it was the only way to actually get him to stop and realise what a knob he was being (and that he also has to consider childcare whilst living his life!)

He needs to change the interview time in that case.
We have always had a kitchen calendar (physical paper still but very useful as everyone sees it and looks at it several times a day which you don't always do with an electronic one in my view) which makes it clear what is on. Nothing is taken as okay unless it's on that calendar and if you didn't check will hard cheese, your own look out and you have to live with the consequences. The calendar is God.

He just has to say "sorry I can't interview you tonight - something has come up at home". Can we rearrange for xyz

He won't of course. His time is so much more important than the OP's

Too bad he will have to rearrange the interview then you are going out. Be utterly hardline on this. It's good if it inconveniences him he won't do it again.

Who made him master of the universe?

Of course he can rearrange the interview. He should never have arranged it for tonight in the first place.

How would you feel if you had a job interview (I assume it's a job interview - if it's an interview he has to conduct for research because he's a journalist or similar then it's even harder to move it as that's a person doing him a favour) cancelled the same day? Lots of people take days off work for an interview, and people tend to want to be very prepared/worked up for them. How would it make you feel about the company? I'm sure they wouldn't tell the candidate the truth about why they'd moved it (because anything other than 'it's an emergency' would make them sound dreadful, because it is a bit dreadful), but her DH would have to either tell someone or lie about it, and if he tells the truth the someone he tells is going to be incredibly unimpressed.

I absolutely agree that the DH has behaved unacceptably here and that OP is justified in being annoyed, but what world is this in which people can just suddenly shrug off important work commitments at the last minute because they don't want to do them any more?

Did he even apologised about the confusion, admitted that even if he truly believed you said that it was only a possibility, that he should have mentioned the interview and asked if the evening had been confirmed?

If not, then he is a selfish pig with a sense of entitlement because he works hard. Time to give him a bit of his own medicine, so plan more evenings out and write them in big red letters on a calendar you stick on the fridge.

My Dh used to do this. Now I put everything in his calendar and send him reminder texts.

For tonight get a babysitter.

How would I feel personally? Happy that I'd got extra time to prepare!

The interview is this evening, I very much doubt that the candidate has taken a day off work. It would appear to be an after work time interview. This can happen on another day.

If this was a film op would walk into the office all dolled up and hand "d"h the baby to look after as per their agreement.

Oh and if you cancel on these facts the view that your dh is a knob will almost certainly be a topic of conversation at the night out.

There are bigger issues here. His lack of respect generally. The hobby, being out so much. Non communication of what is happening in the evenings for the next few days.

Op behaving like a wet lettuce. So, you have to get up and get the kids to school the next morning? So? I do too, and then go to work. But a dinner and a glass of wine, with friends, a night out that isn't TOO late, is not the same as dancing till 3am and 3 bottles of prosecco!!

How would I feel personally? Happy that I'd got extra time to prepare!

I think you're pretty unusual in this. Most people take a pretty dim view of people who cancel commitments last minute. And perhaps the candidate has made their own arrangements - they might indeed have childcare arranged to cover the interview, and be pretty pissed off that now that all has to be rearranged?

Actually, come to think of it, when DH was job searching recently he did have a few early evening or very early morning interviews (offered by the prospective employers so that he didn't have to take time off work), and one was rearranged because "something had come up". Things happen, it's understandable. Just that alone will not put most people off the company.

I think you're pretty unusual in this. Most people take a pretty dim view of people who cancel commitments last minute.

There's a lot more give & take in my world. Things happen, appointments get changed. Most people I know work like this. Different lives I suppose.

"what world is this in which people can just suddenly shrug off important work commitments at the last minute because they don't want to do them any more?"

It's not that he doesn't want to do it. It's that he has double booked himself and can't

He won't change it though. I'd bet the mortgage on that

I'm sorry but this is a red flag to me.

He just doesn't want you going out.

It's not that he doesn't want to do it. It's that he has double booked himself and can't

But what do you think he should say to his boss about this? Because I don't think they'll see this as can't if he tells the truth.