How to accept that DH prefers to spend time with his friends rather than family

[Lasvegas]

Next month DH's diary means that out of 7 consecutive nights he had one free night. He has decided to spend this having a curry/laugh with his friends. I have made it clear I am not happy with this and think that any free time (between flights) should be spent with me. He did say that I could join him and his friends. But to my mind it is not the same as I wanted a cosy twosome.

I am very disapointed. We have talked it through and it is good that eveything is out in the open. But the fact remains that I do feel rejected. Other than this issue our relationship is very good. I do have a full life which includes a career I love and as much as a social life I can handle given childcare exhaustion. I do understand that he has a stressful life and needs to relax. I just wish I was the person he wanted to spend his limited freetime with. In all fairness he did offer to change career so that he was at home more but this would mean a massive downscale in standard of living and not one I could impose on the kids. In essence DH ideal night out is a loud bar with a 10 of his friends, their wives and me also. My ideal night is a a private view at a gallery followed by a good dinner.

So what do you advise I don't want to resent him but rejection is hard to accept. DH thinks that I crave his company because I don't do enough socialising. At the moment my plan is to increase my social engagements ie keep busy. Yet I like to put DD to bed 5/6 nights out of every week so this plan is a bit limited. In addition we have diarised one night out of every week whereby we spend it together and he will play golf 4 times a year on a sunday. We are trying to compromise to meet each others needs but I still feel rejected.

"DH thinks that I crave his company because I don't do enough socialising"

I think that comment is the route of your problems. You should crave each other's company because you are married and love each other and don't get much free time together.

If your dh can't see that for himself that I would be very quickly asking him why he can't? And if he doesn't want to spend time with you, then why be married to you in the first place?

Sounds like you have an excellent standard of living and the ability to do pretty much whatever you want. There must be hundreds of things you can do together that you both enjoy. But you both have to want to first...

poor you, i think he is trying to be one of the in crowd except he's doing it in the wrong place isn't he.

How about discussing what things you would like to do together as a family, just your family not his mates and work from there? Surely it's not just you feeling rejected aren't your kids too?

Actually, I've got some sympathy with your DP. When you say you want him to spend time with you and the DCs, does that involve doing things that all of you might potentially enjoy, or is it a matter of stuff that needs doing round the house, a bit of "let's discuss our relationship" and the rest of the time sitting in front of the telly? Becasue if it's the latter I don;t blame him for preferring to go out and have fun with friends.
I think, as you said yourself, it would help if you socialised a little bit more, so you're not fastening on him like a conversation vampire the minute he appears - it's just one of those things that the more frantic and needy one party shows themselves to be, the more the other party backs away.

when you say he's busy the other 6 nights, is it work stuff?

i'm inclined to understand where he's coming from to a degree- it's nice to let your hair down and get out of work / the house. And he did say you were welcome to go too.

Unless he always wants to spend every free night away from you, is this one night so bad?

Thanks everyone for your responses very helpful to get other opinions