Nothing wrong with going out, but it shouldn’t be prioritised in such a way that it impacts on family life. Weekly staying out til 1am, 3am (early morning hours) is a no go once you have kids. A special occasion, yes, totally to be expected, like the birthday party.
But no one can be a decent parent when they are out drinking til 2am or whatever the night before. It means either getting up still drunk on 4 hours sleep with small children. Or writing off the next day having a lie in and being hungover. Neither is acceptable every week. If you did the same the other night of the weekend, your kids would never get a day with both their parents functioning and not hungover. That’s not okay.
With Dh and I, going out is fine as long as it doesn’t majorly impact on the other in terms of childcare or work. If you go out though, you’re still fully engaged in family life, so there is no lying around in bed all day. We’re up and parenting, late night or not. Obviously sleeping til a normal hour like 8am is fine, sleeping til noon every weekend like you’re 22 is not.
And we don’t disturb each other’s sleep. if Dh is going out, he stays out. He stays with a friend, sometimes they all go camping for the night and have a campfire and some drinks, or they go into a big city and stay over in a hotel. Nothing wild, they go to the pub, get some Five Guys and crash out at a Travelodge and then all go home in the morning after a cooked breakfast. It means that whoever is left with the parenting and the early wake up with the kids is not also being woken up by someone crashing in drunk at 3am. That means it’s all really respectful and also fair. No one is lumped with all the parenting all the time because the other is recovering. In fact, dh more often than not takes them out for the day if he’s been out the night before so that I get a break.
The difference is all the above is respectful and this doesn’t sound respectful at all, late nights or not.