He stayed out to help a lady get home safe… AIBU or is DH?

[SoulSissss]

DH went out for “a couple of drinks” at 2.00pm. He text me at 5.30 and said that he’d be having another couple of drinks. He then messaged at 7.30 told me he would be home at 8.30 and also told me that his battery was at 1%. However, he then bumped into a lady he knows, who asked him to make sure she got home safe. She was drunk but not paralytic. It’s hard to access taxis in the place we live. He text me to tell me this at 9.15.

So our children stayed awake to get their goodnight kiss from daddy, but I had to tell them that unfortunately thing had changed and daddy wouldn’t be able to be home in time.

DH has just got home just after 10.00 and explained that the lady was upset about her marriage and wouldn’t stop talking to him about it. He said he felt he couldn’t leave her incase something happened to her. I totally understand that but explained that it’s not his job to babysit an adult. He could have explained that he would be leaving and could make sure she got home okay if she left now. I then said that DD was upset (suspected neurodivergent) that he wasn’t home. He said he tried for ages to get her to leave but it was difficult.

He then completely deflected and said, well if DD was so upset, why didn’t I phone him. I explained that I knew he was on 1% battery ages before hand and we had been waiting expecting him to come through the door any minute. He said “so you knew I planned to be home at 8.30 and when I still wasn’t home at 9.15 you weren’t even concerned for my safety???” I explained again, I didn’t think his phone would even possibly still be on at that time and that no, I wasn’t concerned for his safety! He began smirking and rolling his eyes.

I told him that I’m really upset at how he is speaking to me and I’d be happy if he just left the house. I think he is being completely out of order. But maybe it’s me?

I know I’ve given specific timings for messages. I’m not actually that anal about stuff, but I want to share an actuate timeline so that you get the full picture.

AIBU??

Try reading OP's posts. Her daughter is neurodivergent. How she will cope is probably a question causing OP a lot of worry already.

Me too,I see we’re getting into LTB territory too!
Gone are the days when husbands and wives had a quick spat and then just got on with life, what is the matter with people, just get over it and stop making a mountain out of a molehill.
Go and have a nice day out OP and stop looking for trouble where there is none.

Damned right!

I loathe parents who frame everything in the eyes of the dc. It’s manipulation and it undermines the child by failing to teach them resilience.

<whiney> “oh dd will be devastated if H is late”

pathetic.

“now it will impact on our day out for DD” <whine>

you drive then. It’s seriously NO drama

All this mess is on you @SoulSissss teach dc that plans change and sometimes things crop up but it’ll be ok.

especially if you suspect ND, it’s critical that you teach her about life not being exactly the right way all the time.

your h did his best in the circumstances and kept you posted.

Exactly this.

People are projecting their own relationships into this scenario.

People who have a partner who is trustworthy and decent = telling OP she is being unreasonable, what a good guy he is for helping out a drunk woman in distress.

People who have experienced partners who often lie and have acted dodgy in the past = telling OP the situation is fishy, obviously lying, darvoing you.

Only you know @SoulSissss if your husband is usually a decent and honest guy, this is a one off? Or has he acted poorly or lied in the past? No-one on this forum can tell you what is going on here, as they don’t know your husband.

Another one showing her ignorance about neurodivergence. Many ND children have massive difficulty coping with a change in routine, and need a lot of preparation and reassurance. So OP's child may have been OK if all concerned had known her husband wouldn't be home early well in advance; but he knowingly left her in a situation where he knew she was going to have to spring a late change of plan on her daughter and cope with the resulting meltdown, when she was already tired and stressed.

If an adult woman chooses to go out and get drunk, it's her responsibility to get herself home. She can't expect another person to abandon all their plans while she faffs around not wanting to leave the pub and rambles drunkenly at him about her marriage.

absolutely

any good excuse i believe

Plenty of people on this thread don't know how this type of man works. The '1% battery left" is to make sure you don't phone them, so they can do what they want knowing they won't be disturbed.

Then the deliberate derailment of the conversation from him being 'unable' to get a woman home ASAP, into the OP 'not checking he was ok'. And then the smirk (duper's delight).

And let's not mention the triangulation he then brought in, that he thought the woman had 'ulterior motives'

At first, I thought this was something and nothing, but those things? It's not the OP who is controlling, and this will be the tip of a whole manipulative liar iceberg.

I wouldn’t be bothered that he was home later than expected but I would be suspicious about why he is so intent on deflecting the blame onto you by saying you should have been concerned for his safety.

I’d also be expecting him to be up and ready for 9am, which as that’s in 3 minutes, I hope he is!

So our children stayed awake to get their goodnight kiss from daddy, but I had to tell them that unfortunately thing had changed and daddy wouldn’t be able to be home in time.

You do sound manipulative here. Dad's out drinking and instead of giving him a time to come home by, you're using the kids to effectively try to control when he does come home.

The drunk woman is a total red herring and YABU for bringing in that she “has a reputation”

How is the drunk woman a red herring? I'd say the opposite.
Why is Op unreasonable to mention her reputation? It's relevant in this context. The woman he opted to stay out with, and go home with has a reputation of having sex with other men. It happens!

There's a woman in our town, who has a "reputation". She's married to a prominent businessman, who most people know. She's almost 50. She is in the pub every single weekend, getting absolutely pissed, wearing skimpy clothes like mini skirts and crop tops, even though she's overweight. She often takes men into the loos for blowjobs. At the village fayre she wore no knickers and a lot of men saw her fanny. Reputation? Of course. What do you expect?

No I absolutely would not expect nor want someone else’s husband to comfort and console me, or help me home in a drunken state.. unless I hoped it would lead to more.
Utterly wrong and there’s no reasoning that would sway me otherwise.

What a load of nonsense.

He’s told you he went home with another woman who has a ‘reputation’ locally after they hung out together drinking in a bar.

Either he’s arse covering in case someone tells you he was behaving badly so he’s got this white knight story in early OR he wants you to feel insecure in your relationship. He told you he essentially wasn’t contactable and then tried to make you feel guilty you didn’t call or worry about him.

I wonder why that might be.

Agree except I assumed the smirk was just to be belittling and put OP in her place with his point-scoring BS

So if you were out and were drunk, had lost your friends and phone/bag.
And you saw someone you knew, you wouldn't accept their help because they were married and you'd prefer to be vulnerable and stuck?

You wouldn’t want someone you knew to help you get home safe? Either you’re lying or you’re very strange.

Morning OP,

I just wanted to ask, do you work, do you have your own income?

The only reason I ask is from your posts, it seems your DH has a way of manipulating your worries/opinions.

If you're 100% dependent on him, financially, this doesn't help you being on an even footing with people like this, as they can feel they always have the upper hand.

So hopefully you do work. But if you don't, I'd make plans to.

She hadn't lost her phone and she had another friend there that gave her a lift home

Tell me you know nothing about neurodivergence without saying you know nothing about neurodivergence ...

I agree with this so many cool mums having a go at the OP. He could have just shoved her in a Uber. Wonder what would be said on here if his mate was a bloke.

We’re not talking about getting lost, the woman at the pub isn’t someone who accidentally found herself in a vulnerable situation and desperately required the help of OPs husband to keep her safe. Let’s keep it in the context of what this woman did. She stayed out getting drunker and drunker, asking and expecting the OPs husband to take care of her and while offloading personal vulnerabilities, likely connecting on a deeper level. Where do moments like that lead to?
No I’d prefer not to end up alone, emotionally and/or physically vulnerable with someone else’s husband.
If I was sober and perhaps middle of the day, the context would be entirely different. I don’t see a situation where I’d put myself in that position but then again I wouldn’t be getting recklessly drunk in the first place that I required a man to look after me through the night… the woman is out of order but the husband should be wise to that game. How naive for him to stay there ‘helping’ her make it home safe.

I wouldn’t ever get drunk enough to lose my inhibitions so the answer is no… to answer the original posters goading question

Agree.

He sounds like a bit of a prick to be honest. Go with your gut instinct OP. You say he's done this before . Its time for an honest conversation, and tell him things cannot continue as they are.