Husband went to friends house for dinner and didn't get back until 4am. Aibu to find this odd?

[JudyLemon]

DH has a friendship group of about 10, all male. Friends fiance loves to invite all of their friendship group over on a semi regular basis and cook for them. He has been twice before and came home around 11 each time.

Last night was one of these meals, she was making chimichangas apparently. He left for theirs at around 5 and got back at 4am this morning. He was a little drunk but seemed fine. We didn't really speak last night and obviously he's still asleep this morning. He doesn’t go out much and is great in all other ways so this really shouldn't bother me but I just feel really uncomfortable with how long he was there.

To be clear, I do not particularly like the fiance and this may be clouding my judgement. I find it quite desperate that she wants to invite a group of men over and cook for them. She's quite abit younger than me and DH and his friends so I guess I'm making a judgement on that too.

Aibu to be annoyed or should I try to not be grumpy with him when he wakes up?

Maybe she considers herself, and they consider her, part of the group. That kind of thing happens quite naturally in relationships. We don't know if she also hangs out with them, if she has shared interests with them etc.

I'd find it odder if she just cooked and served them, then left them to it - but PP have said this is normal for them so I probably shouldn't judge that either.

In my experience people who enjoy cooking (men and women) take every opportunity to do it, and they don't consider it desperate or subservient. They're being given an opportunity to indulge in something they enjoy.

Yeah, my friends used to get really annoyed that a man would cook and put dinner out for them, so I didn’t need to do it.

I bet they got really pissed off when they shouted to him to ask him to pass some wine in and he did! The horror!

@Finlesswonder "Fair does, it would irritate the hell out of me if I were a friend of yours personally"

Why?

I don't think there's anything wrong/that unusual with coming back at 4am.

I don't think there's anything wrong with the person who likes cooking making some food for the evening.

I think it's unusual for the partner of the person's friendship group to then sit with them all evening. We don't know if this happened. I think most people would start to feel a little in the way when their partner and their friends want to have their own get together without partners and would slip away to another room/out early on.

Sure, but we don’t know that this woman is forcing her chimichangas down anyone’s throat? We don’t know anything about the reasons why she does this. It’s possible it’s just not that big of a deal to her. Mn is so skewed towards people who find social life difficult to negotiate, and who need weeks of notice get their their houses ‘visitor-ready’ before the most casual of callers, that I think they find it hard to grasp that some people are entirely happy to cook ordinary dishes in catering-sized amounts for large numbers at the drop of a hat, because it’s genuinely not a big deal for them.

DH is the cook in our house, but the concept of ‘visitor-ready’ is alien to me. Casual callers don’t faze me, and if I knew people were coming over, I’d probably just check there was toilet paper and a clean handtowel in the loo.

It's not wives and wives husband and husbands, gender or sex. It's about core group and partners.
I have a mixed group of friends from school.
Although OH would say they are his friends too, if he says let's invite them round, then their partners are invited too.
Your group is similar but you have invited at least one other couple....not just the singles.

The fact the OPs OH group is all male (and guessing all straight) and no other partners invited very much changes the dynamic.
For whatever reason the group is all men. I know groups like this and it would ve weird for a woman to suddenly join on equal terms when no others have

Because I've come to spend time catching up with friends not watch a man performance cook

Eh?

why would anyone be watching? And what do you mean by performance cooking? Do you mean just cooking?

Do you not think it weird and desperate to invite 10 men to your house and regularly cook for them in an attempt to be the only female member of an all male friendship group?

@Finlesswonder
"Because I've come to spend time catching up with friends not watch a man performance cook"

Why would you be watching? He's in the kitchen. We are in the garden or the living room. He's an adult man-he has no need to performance anything.

Am absolutely bemused by the venom and nastiness directed at this woman for cooking for people! And also the horror directed as mnetters whose partners will cook when they have friends over. Wtf is 'performance cooking' is that because your partner has made you and your friends watch and applaud when they've cooked?

But that’s only your interpretation of the situation. We have no idea why this woman does this.

Could be she just likes cooking. Could be she’s worried he’s drifting away from his friends and is trying to reintegrate him. Could be her partner has a habit of not drinking sensibly if he’s out in a pub, and ends up stranded with a dead phone at 4 am on a regular basis, so she’s happier to facilitate the group at his house. Could be she’s a demented handmaiden who likes bustling around in a pinny. Could be that ‘chimichangas’ is code for group sex. Could be she’s not actually cooking for them, the OP’s partner was in a nightclub/gambling den/whatever with his mates.

We don’t know.

Agree, I think it’s because the op has phrased it that the woman’s partner is irrelevant, she invites all the men over to just soend time with her and cooks for them.

clearly that’s not the case, as it’s the partners friendship circle, so he will be a key part of this.

but the ops so jealous she sees it as she wrote it.

No. I don’t assume desperation.

I wouldn’t presume to assume desperation from anyone.

Both my parents and my mums parents loved cooked for big groups of people. I don’t.

But who cooked isn’t the problem.

The husband here went to his friends house, was having fun and stayed longer. That’s literally all that happened. Who cooked is irrelevant.

The motivations of the person cooking is also irrelevant

I think it's as op said, it's all the men it seems.

No? Not at all? It's not weird or desperate to host people whose company you enjoy, even if you met them through your partner and they're all men. I don't think it's weird to socialise as the only woman in a group of men, nor do I think it weird if there's one man in a group of women socialising. Both of these scenarios are completely normal. I don't socialise with people based on their genitals.

In my 20s I used to do a great deal of cooking. I enjoyed it and was far more sociable then. Often there were more men than women though not 10 men. Perhaps she is both an excellent cook and likes hosting.

Maybe she knows op doesn’t like her and if she invites partners everyone’s partners will be invited

None of the reasons you give would make the situation sound less weird to me.

It’s a bit odd and rude to specifically exclude partners if this is a regular thing. Does the partner help cook at all?

@wombat15 how do you know this is why she's doing it? How fucking depressing you're calling someone 'weird and desperate' for cooking for people that are coming to her home.

I must admit I'm surprised noones yet accused her of breaking the vomit inducing 'girl code' "I mean you just don't make another woman's man food!'🙄

What responsibilities has he abandoned by doing this? Has be been in an unfit state to do what you had planned? If he's not done anything 'wrong' while out, it's not every week and it's not prevented anyone doing anything then no issue. I would have an issue if didn't text to say staying out though.

Exactly and why would she want a hostile group of women who dislike and bitch about her to each other in her home, while they probably sneer at her?

Eighteen people is a lot to cook for/fit around a table, though, if the group of friends is nine…?

Mumsnet tends to hate it when people enjoy spending time with a group of friends who are all of the same sex. I find this completely baffling.