Anyone up? I’m not overreacting am I..

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Sorry just need to get this written down to see if it is in fact LTB worthy or not (not really light hearted )

So my fiancé partner had his work Christmas party last night. He said he’d go for a few drinks but has form for staying out until more like midnight, so I fully expected him to be home a bit later. I’ve got a stinking cold and was at work until 8pm (started at 7) so was looking forward to a quiet early night. DS (6) is at my mum’s tonight and tomorrow so it’s just me and the cats - Flat is a tip due to me being ill and putting off pre-Xmas cleaning.

Anyway, I was awoken 15 minutes ago by the sound of loud male voices in the hallway, bottles clinking and several men coming through the front door. I was (and still am) shaking with anxiety as I thought I had somehow left the front door open and some random people had come into my flat in the middle of the night.

I’m sure you know where this is going - it was my ‘D’P and two men from his work, who I initially thought were just returning him home as he was drunk. They all went through to the living room with a Costco-size tray of beer cans (like about 40 cans literally) and sit themselves down, one even proclaiming my home a ‘shithole’ presumably due to the washing on the airer, some dirty dishes etc or even the size of the place itself (fairly central London whereas his colleagues mainly live further afield and are used to houses rather than flats. I digress..)

The cats ran into the room and the door slammed shut so they were stuck in there. Once I had realised they were not burglars in my home I went into the living room in what I’m sleeping in and tried to confront them, but was still so shaky I couldn’t get the words out, just kind of stood there stuttering . I managed to say I was just getting the cats so at least they could sleep in our bed and have access to the litter tray, then awkwardly tried to herd them out (cats not men). Shut the door and started crying through the shock and embarrassment of it all, and was heading to bed when I overhead them talking about finding a dvd/Cd case... realised they had come here to take coke or whatever people snort these days and were after something to do lines on.

Losing the will to even type this.. but AIBU to be a quivering wreck and am I a complete pushover for going back to bed and letting this go on, or is he entitled to do what he wants as a one off in his own home when DS isn’t there?

Can’t decide whether to make a scene or just take a sleeping tablet and hope they’ve gone by the time I get up for work tomorrow..

I have zero tolerance on drugs so I would have called the police. Coke is illegal and there is no way I would accept anyone bringing drugs into my home.

Do you really want to be with a man who mixes with such scum? This man is very disrespectful towards you.

For the comments about a shit tip, my dp would be tidying the whole house so no one could call it a shit tip. For the smoking, he'd be getting the upholstery carpet and curtains steam cleaned this weekend and washing everything washable in the room, plus hed know if it happened again he'd be leaving with his friends, return date to be discussed. For the drugs he'd be out, not necesarily relationship over but he'd have to live somewhere else while we discussed it. Unless this has happened before in which case relationship over.

But the drugs thing - do normal people with children seriously take class A drugs? And think that's ok?

I think you're being very naive, do you think it's only single people that take drugs? Mums, dads, grandparents - they all take it!

I would have been mildly pissed off, but I do think your reaction is pretty massively OTT OP. Interesting that so many people make such a huge distinction between alcohol and drugs- IME, alcohol can be just as damaging, if not more damaging, than coke (and yet we think it's OK to have a bottle of wine around our kids...)
That you didn't want them even touching your DC's door- I think it's too much. That said, hope you're OK OP

Yes it's his house - it's also her house. She's at home sick in bed, needing to get up early for work. In my house, you ask the other person if it's okay to bring people round and neither of us would even ask in this situation. It's massively disrespectful.

Also, cocaine in my house? Not now we have kids. It's irrelevant whether the kids are there since a bunch of blokes off their tits are unlikely to take pains to ensure nothing is left lying around.

Nothing you've described him doing sounds out of the ordinary to me. Happens all the time in my social circle (central London) and quite often I've been the person bringing people back.

I wish everyone would shut up with the "cool wives" comments, it's very tedious. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean everyone else hates it and is only pretending to be ok with it to be cool. As I said, I would bring people home after a night out myself, and I'd have no issue with my partner doing the same. I can't really get wound up about drugs either, but I'm of the view they should be legalised and regulated in the same way as alcohol. Anyway that's beside the point.

I find it more bizarre the amount of people who'd be so freaked out at having male acquaintances in their home (please don't use the anxiety and sexual assault card here, I've experienced both and have acute anxiety and MH issues myself so know full well what it's like). Quite often when my flatmates (male) brought friends home late at night, if I wasn't asleep I'd get up in my nighty and say hello to them! Surprises me how prudish and sheltered some people are. I've been the person in bed hearing people come home late countless times and I can't say I've ever felt unsafe.

If he'd done it when your son was home that's totally different and would have been unacceptable but he didn't. You're clearly on very different pages though, I don't understand your POV but I don't think you're wrong not to like it, however he also isn't wrong to think it's fine in his own home (providing your kid's away). Do you get time to have a social life as well? Sounds like he isn't very helpful around the house, maybe there's some underlying resentment if you feel you do all the chores and never get time for nights out yourself?

for fear of looking like grumpy bores?

And again the suggestion that anyone saying they are okay with this is not really okay with it, but just pretending so they look cool. Can people really not understand some people, male or female, are actually really okay with things that they wouldn't be?

I wouldn't get as worked up as you have, and I'm so sorry you've been so upset, but they would have been out of my house as soon as the drugs came out.

I think you're being very naive, do you think it's only single people that take drugs? Mums, dads, grandparents - they all take it!

Some people clearly move in circles where drug use is the norm, across generations. For the rest of us, it is very far from normal adult behaviour. I'm aware of drug use by parents and grandparents, of course, but it's something I associate with kids I've taught who have difficult and dysfunctional family backgrounds. It's not something I've ever done myself or that any of my friends do or that I would tolerate in my home.

The point, surely, is that OP is not all right with this. At best, this indicates a fundamental clash in values about personal space between her and her partner, which has to be resolved somehow. And that resolution is not going to come by her being told to suck it up because her anxiety is her problem, not her partner's. At worst, it indicates a fundamental level of selfishness in her partner that he knows this sort of drunken behaviour upsets her, and he doesn't care.

When two people who get together both like to bring friends round in the early hours after a pissed-up night out, that's not a problem for the relationship. When neither would dream of doing it, that's not a problem. When one does it and the other is upset by it, that's a huge problem. And telling the OP to suck it up, or that it's her fault for having anxiety, or that she's being controlling if she objects is way out of line (controlling, ffs - that's when your partner stops you bringing your friends round during daytime hours, or stops you going out to see them, not when they're waking you up in the small hours when you have to go to work the next day).

I think the problem here is incompatibility.

I wouldn't bat an eyelid at this as a one off but my friend thinks her DH is an alcoholic because he goes for after work drinks once a week. She finds it hugely upsetting and disrespectful that he keeps doing it. She would go postal at a situation like this. We are all different. Neither is right or wrong but living with such differences is challenging and I'm not sure I could do it.

I wonder how much your anxiety would lessen if you were with someone more similar.

I'm quite stunned by the number of people who would be ok with this tbh. Especially the coke, I've just never been around it at all, even at uni, though tbf that was 1989-92 so a long time ago!

It sounds like the OP's DP was extremely selfish at the very least, in view of the fact that she wasn't well and has MH issues to the extent of being an in-patient. I have MH issues too, PTSD in my case, so it would be massively triggering for me being woken up in the night like that.

Yes, obviously for someone who doesn't have MH issues it would seem like a massive overreaction.

Lizzie - I'm always stunned at how many people who don't see casual/social drug taking as fairly normal. It's one of those things that if you aren't around it seems totally shocking and if you are around it seems totally normal. There is no meet in the middle.

I'm not saying the people i know are bang on it all the time. But in my middle class liberal professional friendship groups the odd line or pill at a party wouldn't raise eyebrows.

My DP does this a lot. It doesn't bother me, it's his home too.

I wouldn’t like the drug taking, but I can’t imagine telling dp he couldn’t bring his friends back to his own house! He would be quiet, though.

A fair number of people I know do still take drugs in their family homes on occasion with kids asleep upstairs. I wouldn't do it - I'd be worried about DD finding traces of it or something happening with her in the house - but it really isn't that unusual.

However if it's unusual for YOU and YOUR home life then yes you are NBU and need to say something. If it's the first time it's happened and DP understands then not LTB-worthy. If he's bolshy about it, or thinks his wants triumph over yours and the needs of your DS and pets, then that might need a more difficult conversation.

YABU in getting worked up because your partner brings people over to his own home.

You are definitely NBU about the cocaine. You have a right to be in a home in which no drugs are taken.

And I would dump my partner immediately if he snorted cocaine. But then being in a relationship with a drug addict is a (very hard) boundary for me.

I am used to heavy drinking, there was a lot of that in my uni days and in places where I worked. But I actually wouldn't even know how to go about obtaining drugs tbh! My feelings about drugs are all the more negative because my DDs' birth parents are heavy drug users.

It's illegal, for me that's the main objection actually as far as I'm concerned, and very nasty people are involved in supplying the stuff.

Alcohol can be just as damaging as drugs (imo). But there’s obviously the whole legal aspect and how that could possibly affect someone’s family (which would worry me).

DH and his friends aren’t allowed to smoke in the house. They’re free to do that in the garden, the ‘smoking shed’ (a v small, unused room) or at somebody else’s house,

Would I be annoyed if someone woke me during the night? Yes, very. But not enough to think about divorce, tbh.

I wouldn’t be too thrilled with DH inviting drunk / high people (unless I knew them very well) during the night / when I’m asleep. And I’d be quite upset if they went upstairs / in the children’s rooms. If DDs were in the house I’d probably be extremely angry. But my reaction would be different if they were at MIL’s.

But this isn’t about our opinion / how we’d handle this. You hate this / can’t deal with it. And that’s ok.

Your partner will either act accordingly or he won’t. And if doesn’t want to / can’t... I’m really sorry, but maybe you’re just not compatible.

(I might have missed an important update, btw)

Do you think someone who does a line of coke at a party is a drug addict Distance? Genuine question.

The 'cool wives' jibe is pathetic, small minded and intended to be nasty. I don't give a shit though...if I'm a cool wife, so be it. I like to think of it as respecting one another's autonomy but whatever you say.

The "why is coke seen as worse than alcohol" issue (though an interesting one for debate, specially when you look at the stats for violent crime and alcohol abuse) is a red herring in this case. OP has mentioned previous occasions where her partner has been involved with the police after a drunken night out. Drugs, alcohol, in this case it doesn't matter because this sounds like an individual who's not getting cheerfully merry or doing the odd line socially, this is someone who has a problem with his relationship with alcohol (if you're drinking to the state where you get picked up by the police for being drunk, you have a problem with alcohol).

He's also a selfish wanker for waking his partner up in the small hours on a work night by bringing a bunch of drunken mates home.

Bloke gets pissed, brings a few mates back, does a few lines. It's the Christmas period, he doesn't do this regularly and he's probably massively regretting now and wishing he's come home at a sensible time. Totally within the realms of normal behaviour of someone in their 20s/30s.

Yeah, I'd be cross and probably have a good old huff but to tell her to leave him/that he's a drug addict etc. Are you serious? You've got a lot to learn about the reality of the world now - i.e the one your kids will be growing up in.

From one of the OP's earlier posts: "has had a few involvements with police/hospital when drunk so it’s not what I’d call ‘normal’ night out behaviour."

This wasn't a one-off Christmas over-indulgence, this is a man with a problem with alcohol (not drugs, his mates doing coke is a side-issue). To minimise this is not helping the OP.

I'm amazed at how tolerant some people are of class A drugs being taken in a family home! A few beers after a night out, fine. Cocaine in my living room where my child plays, eats etc. no way in hell. I definitely wouldn't marry him OP. I wouldn't call that normal behaviour by any stretch of the imagination.