Fiancé has let me down again?

[TiredFiancée]

So long story short -
My fiancé and I have been together since our early 20s (both in 30s now) and I feel like he prioritises the wrong things all the time. We live in his hometown and I don't know many people here so essentially wouldn't have someone to just meet up with at short notice (context will make sense further on).

I'm writing this now because he had an Xmas work party tonight and had said he wasn't going and we'd do our decorations, have a festive day/evening after watching Christmas movies with a few drinks, nice snacks etc. Backstory is that anytime he goes out he makes false promises about coming home on time, drops out of contact, and on occasions has not come home at all. This has caused major issues for me in the past and now I have a lot of anxiety around these sort of events/nights out.

We did the day as planned, watched a few movies, having a lovely time (or I thought wso at least) and then he just turned around and said that there's apparently there were people he needs to network with at this party. He literally left two minutes later, even though he had promised (because of past behaviour) that he wasn't going and it wasn't worth causing me the anxiety and hurt that it normally does. Could also see I was upset but didn't respond to anything I said about this.

This might not sound like a big deal but I take people's word/promises seriously and feel like he's really let me down and not taken my feelings into consideration at all. I'm also not a controlling or unreasonable person, just want to be treated with the same though and priority as I give him all day, every day.

Am I over reacting or just plain wrong to feel as hurt as I do?

Sorry for the essay, would love to hear an outside perspective on this.

Well done OP, stay strong. I hope you get some real life support.

I am going to go against grain here and ask why does he need to tell you when he is going to be home when he goes out? You know he is out, so do you need to know time he is planning to be home? Can’t you just go to bed and ask him not to bring after party back home?
I honestly don’t understand this whole texting and checking in process. If my DH goes out, I go to bed. Next day I ask when he came back, he says time, if it was late, I joke about him being party boy. That’s it. Same goes for me. I never say I will be home by 11, he doesn’t ask. If I am late then he assumes I am having a good night and goes to bed.
why do you need to know when he will be back?
when it comes to this particular situation, yes, he was not nice leaving you home and going out suddenly but maybe he knew if he says he is going, you will be anxious so he thought he will spend a nice day with you and then go. He was wrong not to tell you in advance but he was avoiding difficult discussion.

@mikulkin

I am going to go against grain here and ask why does he need to tell you when he is going to be home when he goes out?

Err security? Safety? Accountability? Etc

When your DH gets on a flight to go to another city does he let you know when he arrives? So same. To ensure the person arrived their destination safely. God forbid he has an accident 5 minutes after leaving you meanwhile you go to bed and snooze because you just assume he will be home in the morning. Some people just don't operate that way.

When I leave home to catch the train for work my DH would text me asking if I got to work OK. Even if we're mad at each other. When I'm about to leave for home I text him saying i'm on my way and what train I'll be catching. Of course there are times I forget or detour etc but for the most part he knows my whereabouts. It's not even about trust or anything but I wouldn't be able to sleep without a message saying they've arrived at their destination esp at late hours of the night..........So What works for you won't for her.

As a pp said, I would put money on him being a coke head. The staying out until 5 or 6am seal's that in my book. You mentioned past addiction issues. The thing is there is no such thing as past addiction. It is a lifelong thing. So I reckon he's lied through his fucking teeth to make it seem like, oh it was just a blip, all sorted now. Meanwhile he's out partying and you're just abandoned. He's a prick and you deserve much better. Look after yourself cos he's never going to give a damn about you. His track record shows that. Love is a verb. It's about what we do, not what we say. Words are easy. Actions are what matter.

Op I agree with @SavageTomato I think there must be a drug addiction or at least an alcohol addiction at play here. It seems that he can't resist leaving you at home or in the pub to go and take something. If he didn't appear drunk when he got home then it might well be a drug issue.

You are doing the right thing and are young enough to have some time on your own and later to think about meeting someone else more suitable to you. X

I would find this suffocating and so would my DH. We both travel for work a lot and while we text each other sometime during the day we arrive it wouldn’t occur to us to do it once we land.
we are both adults and if God forbid something happens texting or not wouldn’t change anything.
i fully appreciate not all people operate this way but it looks like her DH does. There are two of them in a relationship and somehow her worrying and need for knowing what is going on should prevail over his need to switch off and relax when he is out.
if I ask my DH to text me and vice versa when we are out, we would say we would and have best intentions to do so but will forget because that is the way we are wired. How come she doesn’t understand he is wired this way? If this is a dealbreaker I agree they shouldn’t be together but it is unfair to say he is a bad guy there and she is not just because they don’t operate the same way.

What man does this to their partner?? Horrendous! Did they deliberately ditch you and not care how you got home? Why are you marrying him?

They were both drunk and went outside for a cigarette, apparently couldn't get back in and then went onto another pub without a single text or a call. I stayed for about an 30mins or so finishing my drink and (idiotically) thinking that they'd come back, mostly because I couldn't really comprehend the alternative. Then I gave up, grabbed a cab and went straight to bed - they then showed up hours later.

Ironically I hadn't actually planned to go out at all (it was a mate of his that he hadn't seen in a long time), and I'd leave them off alone to catch up but he was insistent that he really wanted me there etc etc?!

Know this is all rather pathetic and if anyone else said the same happened to them I'd be horrified, but it's amazing the excuses you'll make. Even though you know the pleas and arguments never change anything in the long run.

Hmmm so he came home full of apologies but wasn’t that drunk and admitted he had a problem with alcohol

You do know people take cocaine on a night out as it helps stave off the drunkenness of alcohol but still allows you to feel the effect

Listen out for the sniffles!

God you are far too good for this loser! Question is when will you realise it?!

Im still appalled on your behalf what they did to you on the night out. They clearly went to buy cocaine!

Sorry, only getting to properly read through responses now.

I've never once asked him to tell me an exact time he'll be home, nor set any sort of a "curfew" (we're both adults for goodness sake, of course not). He usually states a time, and naturally if many hours past that point have been without any contact I am the sort to worry that everything is okay (this also stems from stuff in my childhood that I'd rather not go into now, but that he is fully aware of).

So yes, I do expect a general sense of consideration, if I was on a night out and it was going past the usual 1/2am closing time (the norm where we live) then would at least communicate that things were running late/getting a cab/staying in my friend's, whatever the case may be. Also you can say oh he's wired differently, however he would be very worried if I went incommunicado from the time I left until whenever I showed back up. So there's a lot of double standards there too.

I can't speak to your relationship, but clearly your boundaries are very different and that's fine. I can only speak to mine. There's also more to this than just "oh he went to a work do and I'm pissed off", which may have seemed to be the case in my initial post but honestly couldn't be further from the truth.

Not trying to drip-feed but I did start this thread from a knee-jerk/emotional reaction and didn't thoroughly explain the context and so on.

Thank you, this is exactly it. I'd rather be faced with an outright rejection of what my expectations are and attempt to reach a compromise that at least is honest than to be misled and made to feel a fool of or, even worse, be made feel insane for exoecting him to uphold his end of the agreements made.

Someone else on this thread expressed it better than I can - the analogy about being a frog in water slowly heated up. When it's a gradual build up and you're made mistrust even your own reactions and experiences over such a long time you honestly think start to mistrust your own self/memory than the other person. This thread has been absolutely eye-opening to me, as I was going through things for so long - afraid to say it to another person in case they would think less of him/judge me for staying. Says it all really when I put it down in writing.

Think another poster mentioned a lack of confidence and I've only realised that the wearing down of my self confidence/respect/boundaries has been so gradual that they were nearly gone. Almost glad he did this (relatively small thing in the scheme of things) and I posted here for the first time, made me realise I still have a backbone and deserve more before it was too late and something worse happened.

Sorry for the long post, also indirectly responding to may other pp's and their advice/input.

It is kinda weird when it's written down and you start thinking wtaf? Each individual moment seems insignificant and not worth rocking the boat for but each one slowly chips away at your self esteem.

It's taken me decades to see it but I can't easily escape as all the underlying stress from it has screwed my health. Dont let it get so far that your health implodes too, use this moment to start planning to leave. You are worth so much more than this

I totally get the analogy of the frog slowly boiling in water. I've definitely been there. The thing that stands out is him saying they just couldn't get back in the pub. It's clearly a lie. Who can't get back into a pub? Makes absolutely no sense. If you can rebuild your confidence, you'll probably be able to challenge bullshit like this..."What do you mean you couldn't get back in? Were you lost in the dark? Did they bar you from the pub suddenly and lock you out?"

There is the possibility of drugs, but he's just admitted a problem with drink anyway. I mean who needs to go out that badly, at short notice, and stay out til all hours? There's more going on there.

Are you making plans to leave him? I just think there's a lack of transparency, some squirrely behaviour and some outright lies going on. Nevermind the disrespect and what your post was originally about. The reasons for getting away from this are mounting up IMO.

You don't sound compatible tbh. I've done the same, not fancied a work do and at the last minute changed my mind, but DP is the same and we are both happy to chill on our own. Not coming home at all.is an issue, that's a deal breaker for me personally unless there's a good reason I.e I once missed the last train but called DP and we agreed a hotel would be easier than him coming to get me.

On the flip side, it sounds like he wanted to go and agreed not to because of your anxiety and that's not fair either, neither is expecting him to be in contact with you on a night out, it's annoying when you're out with someone and they're not really present because they're messaging on their phone all night. I also don't gibe a time I'll be home on a night out, sometimes you go on to a club, but you don't necessarily know that in advance.

It sounds like you have different expectations and attitudes towards this, you need to either compromise on some fair boundaries that you can both agree on or go your Separate ways