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??

This person hadn't lost her friends, her phone or her bag. So this is irrelevant.

Exactly

YANBU .

He’s a married man , not his responsibility to wait around for a random woman to get home safe when he has a wife and kids waiting at home .

Sounds like it’s just an excuse to stay out drinking later and maybe he thought he could use it as you’re a woman and how could you argue with him keeping a woman safe ! A silly drunk mind . Highly doubt it’s anything untoward as otherwise he wouldn’t have mentioned the woman , he’s been an idiot and just stayed out drinking with his mates .

Not in the least. If I were stupid enough to go out and get so drunk that I wasn't sure I could get home safely, I'd call a cab. I wouldn't expect to mess up someone else's evening.

I too am married to a very kind man and my DH would always help if somebody requested it.
I love him for this part of his nature so I wouldn't have bothered me that he took the time to see someone home safely.
I would hope somebody would have done it for me if I was in a similar situation.
My DH very rarely drinks so I can't comment on the extended afternoon drinking session.

If I was out doing something, I would find it infuriating if DH tried to use the kids bedtime as a way of getting me back by a certain time and then made me feel guilty if I didn’t make it. I would think he was being manipulative and controlling.

If you don’t want him to stay out for that long just be straightforward and say so. It is perfectly reasonable to ask him to come back, especially as you have plans for the next day.

I think a lot of the issue here is that men (not all) like to say ‘I am only going for a couple,’ and say they will be home for a certain time or we make the mistake of asking them what time they will be back.

I understand that even with the best of intentions, people go out, begin drinking, get to chatting and having a lovely time and then think, ‘Oh just another quick one…’
I am guilty of this myself.

Now when my partner goes out, even for a ‘couple’, I don’t hold him to it or ask when he will be back, I just assume he will end up staying for more and having a lovely time and let him get on with it. He doesn’t go out drinking very often.
He also has no issues with me being out whenever and for however long.

I am not sure how I would feel about the stuff with the female drinker. From the initial post, I can’t imagine it making me too annoyed unless I was relying on him being home at a certain time.
However, from the information you have added in additional posts, I may be pissed off that he thought her intentions were dubious but stayed and waited for her to be ready to leave to get her home.
I just try to be fair and think ‘How would he (my DP) feel if the roles were reversed?’
He is very laidback and chilled so it’s hard to know, but I would feel bad if I told him I would be home in an hour and my battery was on 1 percent and then later told him, ‘A man who I think fancies me, has had too much to drink and wants my help getting home but he isn’t ready to leave yet, so I’ll be home later than I specified.’
My advice is don’t try to have sensible conversations with drunk people.
Enjoy your family day and tell him at some point how you feel about what happened and hopefully his sober response makes you feel better.

My main concern would be that he's going out for 'a few drinks' at 2pm. When he has kids to parent and a marriage and presumably other responsibilities ie a house, a job etc.

And then has so little awareness of these things that he gets caught up in some random drunk drama with someone else, while his kids are waiting for him to say goodnight to them.

It speaks to rather shit priorities, selfishness and generally being a bit of an immature drunken dick.

He needs to grow up.

Has he explained why he got in the car if the friend was giving her a lift anyway? Surely at that point he knew she was going to get home safely and could have left her to it.

Perfectly worded

He's deflecting by making this about you and why you didn't check on him. I would tell him nothing like this happens again and keep a closer eye out in future.

At the end of the day, the OP was depending on her husband. Yet strangely enough, so was this other woman.. who did the husband chose? That’s the part that’s out of order. When the OP raised this with her husband, he challenged her to deflect from his behaviour and confuse the OP… that’s why I believe the OP needs to stand her ground and not let the husband downplay things. Even if it’s ’just a one-off’, as many posters said to defend the husband, that ‘one-off’ behaviour is still inappropriate and needs calling out.

Best reply.

Mr. Hero helps some basically random woman for hours, couldn't possibly get away from her, and then comes home and treats his wife like rubbish.

Are people really buying this twat's story?

Give your husband some family responsibilities every day.
Tell him he has to be THE one who is sober and in control of dinner and bedtime (at 6:00pm) every second day during the week and Saturday.

Make a roster and have family day every Sunday.

He's behaving like a teenager.
Tell him to shoot the distressed friend a few numbers for professional services - as he is not qualified to meet her needs.

It was nice of him to make sure she got home safe but that is where it should end.

Quite, @Aquamarine1029

Its like some people have never been out

Poor man helped a vulnerable person and gets the stick for it. Extra points for weaponising the daughter.
This is awful.

Poor man helped a vulnerable person and gets the stick for it. Extra points for weaponising the daughter.
This is awful.

Somebody got the stick alright.

Yes my thoughts entirely. My sons were always the ones to make sure the girls in their group got home safely and they would still do it today. Their wives trust them completely and would not have a problem with this.
"Daddy's making sure that a friend gets home safely- we can be very proud of him" would have made DC much happier imo.

You've conveniently omitted a few points there, like the fact that supposedly vulnerable person refused to leave the pub for ages, and had another friend to get her home. Also the phone that was strangely about to run out of battery at one minute but was fine two hours later, and the attempt to put the blame on OP for not checking on him on his supposedly out-of-battery phone.

But he didn't make sure his friend got home safely. Another friend did that, Daddy inexplicably decided to go along with them and stay with drunken acquaintance. Why would you be proud of that?

I actually cannot believe how many people on here think that it would have been fine not to help the drunk woman! So many women are killed, it is absolutely not okay to leave a woman alone, drunk and vulnerable for the sake of a partner's insecurities.

There are so many posters on here that write about their husband's staying out/fraternising with other woman/checking out of family life etc. I honestly think if my husband did things like threatening to throw me out of the house for coming home at 10pm, tried to stop me helping a drunk person and used the DC's bedtime to manipulate me to come home, I would probably feel like checking out of family life/life with him too! If you reverse the genders of this post, there would be entirely different answers.

I think you areiright to be upset. Why was the woman going on about her marriage woes? Totally inappropriate and it dosn't take a genious to realise she wanted " comforting" and was signalling her availability.
It's not even about her though really...your dh is a knob for getting wasted and upsetting his family...prioritising drunk lady.

He wasn’t “helping a vulnerable person” 🙈

He was helping an intoxicated woman who would have been vulnerable to many things including sexual assault. Should he have just left her alone in the streets? When taxis are difficult to get in the area as OP said?