How often does you husband go out??

[Dad102]

I know this forum is mostly for mums, but as a dad of a 1 year old (with another on the way) I wanted to get your opinion on something that is frequently raised between me and my wife.

Thankfully my wife and I very rarely argue, and we generally get on very well. However, whenever we do argue the “issue” of my social life always gets brought up and held against me.

I think this is unfair, because I don’t think I really have much of a social life (which is fine with me) and I make every effort to ensure that all housework and care for our son etc is split equally.

I’ll paint a picture of our home-life, and I’d be interested in your opinions of whether It’s fair or not.

I work full time (5 days a week) and my wife works part time (3 days a week). She has our son for 2 days a week (tougher than working, I know) and he is in nursery for the other 3 days. We spend both days of the weekend together as a family.

One of us will get up at 6am everyday and start work early, which means that our son can spend as little time as possible at nursery and 4 days out of 5 we can eat as a family at home at around 5pm. The other day I have to work late to ensure that I work my full hours at work.

We try to split the housework as much as possible. She cooks most of the tea’s (because she finishes work earlier), she does most of the clothes washing, we split the washing up and the cleaning up of the pets, I do the hoovering and the ironing (mostly my shirts anyway).

We both basically work hard until 7pm when our son goes to bed and then spend some time together, watching TV or Netflix until its bedtime.

I play 5-aside football once a week with work colleagues, which means I get home at 19:45 instead of 18:45. This means that I miss putting my son to bed one night, but it would be my “late” working day anyway and it’s pretty much the only exercise I get all week.

I also run a scout group one night a week (my wife helps at the same group but on a separate night). This is the scout group that my wife and I both joined as kids, so we have some attachment and feel like we should support the group as adults. However, the running of the group does eat into our weekends. My sons Saturday nap (2 hours) is normally taken up with scout admin work.

My social life consists of the following:
• One weekend away each year to a European city. I look forward to this each year as a chance to catch up with my old friends.
• 1 day of cricket and 1 evening of cricket each year.
• 1 concert/gig each year.
• 3 or 4 evenings out each year for peoples Bdays, or general catching up with old friends.
• 2 work events (xmas party etc) per year

That’s pretty much it.

I used to have hobbies before getting married, things like martial arts, playing the guitar, playing the odd game of Fifa etc. I don’t do any of that anymore since we had kids, as doing any of that would take away time from us as a couple.

I quite often turn down tickets to the football or evenings out with work, to spend time at home. I would say on a normal week we have 4/5 evenings in with each other sat on the sofa.

The question is; do I go out too much?

To be honest, I fail to see what I could cut back on. Out of everyone I know, I’m pretty certain that I go out the least. Most of my work colleagues (even the ones with kids) go to the gym frequently and/or don’t leave work till half 5 or 6pm.

I know a lot of people don’t get home to eat tea with their families and I’m very thankful that I do. I like my work/life/family balance and I wouldn’t change it for the world. However, as I mentioned above, my wife is always pushing for more “us” time and every time we disagree on anything, this “issue” of me going out too much is always raised.

Personally, I think one of the big issues here is that my wife does not go out at all with any of her friends. We both have small circles of friends, so she could easily organise some meetups or even spa days if she wants to, however these are very rare indeed, despite me saying she should do more of them and that’s its healthy to have some contact with friends.

She also does not do any exercise. She used to do swimming before we had our son, and despite talking about getting back into it, she very rarely makes the effort to go.

I’m amazed at times that she can have a go at me for taking an hour out of the week to try and stay healthy, or for meeting up with some friends I haven’t seen for 6 months. Is 4 or 5 nights a week at home together not quite reasonable?

To be honest I worry about the future as its only going to get worse when our son and their brother/sister start doing their own activities in the evenings. Its all fine with me as I expected this when we had kids, I knew we would have to make sacrifices and time as a couple would be one of them.

Am I being unreasonable?

Dad102

My DP goes the gym most weekdays before work but he will give breakfast to our son and dress him. During this time I have a shower/get dressed etc.
Social time, he probably goes out-out every 6-8wks and maybe a couple of pub visits in between. He occasionally goes out for meals out, maybe 2-3 a year. He also goes to home matches for his football team.
I generally don't mind him going out because it means I get time to myself but I get annoyed if it's a last minute thing because it means I don't have time to arrange something fun to do (ask friends to come round, visit family etc.).
In your situation, I don't think you have many social events at all BUT the 2 late nights every week would annoy me.

It doesn't seem too much as long as your dp is also getting similar opportunities eg a girls weekend away.

And agree with other posters, she's probably exhausted and would like you at home. I'd ask my DP to drop one of the weekly hobbies. At least until the new baby is about 1yr.

It doesn’t sound like too much to me. My dh goes to the gym 3 times a week and runs most days. He goes out with friends on average once a month and goes to about 8 gigs a year although a few are with me. He does 1 European 3 nights break a year with friends.

If he didn’t have this downtime with his friends he wouldn’t be as happy which would likely affect our relationship. It sounds like your wife would probably benefit from an occasional night out with you and/or friends but whilst your child is young she may not feel like it. Maybe try to get a babysitter and go for a quiet meal or to the cinema. Our dc are 3 and 6 and it’s only for the last year I’ve felt like I’m starting to get my life back a little bit.

No you don't go out too much. Both me and my Dp go out more than you do. We've got a 7 month old and I'm pregnant.
Generally Dp manages the gym a few times a week, plays football followed by drinks with mates after. Every few weeks he'll go out for a few drinks and maybe once every month or do have a bigger night out.

I do gym twice a week, yoga one evening. Lunch or a few drinks with friends (not mum friends, but if it's lunch I take Ds) probably once a week, maybe missing the odd week.
I probably do a night out once a month ish, generally birthdays/special occasions or something.

Trips away before Dc we'd both have a few with our friends. It's out for me at the moment because of breastfeeding and Dp has said to be fair he won't go. It wouldn't bother me if he did though. So long as it doesn't use a lot of annual leave and it wasn't all the time.

Do you get much time to do stuff together @Dad102? Do you have a babysitter?

Me and Dp try to get out once a month or more, even if it's just a few drinks while my mum or Dp's watches Ds.

It's resentment for you getting out and her being in. I get it, honestly, but you don't go out too much. I would probably feel the same as her in heightened moments though although rationally it isn't alot.

It doesn’t seem like a lot at all, but the context is pregnant and has a one year old. I would never be in that position as I find pregnancy too hard to manage it and a one year old so have bigger gaps, and I don’t want to go out. I just need rest. Is that what’s happening here? If dp suggested I exercise while pregnant I would stab him with a rusty fork (except I wouldn’t have the energy to do it properly). At a minimum I would expect the equivalent time you are out as of duty and completely waited on time for me.

You sound a bit resentful about cutting your social life, hobbies and declining concert tickets. So probably it’s the reason for your arguments — your wife doesn’t like your attitude. The other thing is about her going out and doing exercises. It doesn’t sound nice how you put it. She has a one years old and pregnant again and works part time. As many other PPs said she probably exhausted so she might be unhappy about you pushing for it.
And actually you have much busier social life than my DH and his friends used to have with under 5s. Just a thought.

It sounds like her problem, not yours.

I would go stir crazy with that little time apart & doing that little exercise.

I'd be pushing to increase the amount of time doing things, as the saying goes, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

I have a couple of friends who really control their husbands in this respect. This was the same before children came along, and has only got worse. One actually said she felt she was being generous with allowing her husband one 'event' a month.

You can see the resentment building and bubbling under the surface from both parties.

Some women are very needy/demanding in that respect though. Trouble is, unless you set your stall out early doors, trying to make that change will result in fireworks.

I understand your view and don't think it's too much. Everyone should be able to go out as long as it doesn't affect family life and yours doesn't seem like it does.

But I'm in a similar position. Also pregnant with my second. My partner doesn't go out loads, but the times that he does, he comes back in a state. (Drunk, sick, argumentative) not every time but some. So I worry when he goes out. So I don't resent it, I worry about him. So he sees it as me being mardy or Controlling where that isn't the case at all. I sit up at night not being able to sleep until he's home, which then makes me tired and in turn grumpy. Theres are also trust issues there, which I won't get into.

Then I have to look after baby whilst being pregnant on the Sunday and it wrecks are family day.

So maybe it's a case or her being worried? But I do think you should have a chat with her

Thing is unless your wife in on here, it doesn't matter what other people's husbands do.
You aren't 10, you can't whine that Bly down the road can go out whenever HE wants to.

It doesn't seem a lot but you have a baby and another on the way, she's doing the bulk of the childcare pregnant and tired. She only goes out to do scouts.
Meanwhile you have an expectation of going out twice a week us once a month and having a fun, child free holiday abroad. She's thinking about coping for a long weekend with a new baby and a toddler.

How often do you do date nights?
How often do you sort childcare, book somewhere nice and organise it all?

When was your last family holiday and to where?

Re housework she does Al lthe cooking, you split the washing up. She does all the washing, you do most of the ironing.

I'd ask if she's happy with the housework split atm whilst she's possibly feeling exhausted.

You go out just slightly more than my DP, who also works later evenings and occasionally has to go abroad for work, usually for 1-2 weeks at a time. He did reduce his weekly hobbies from 2 to 1 while DD is small though, without prompting from me. I don't mind him socialising but he always lets me know in advance and he would give things a miss if DD was particularly out of sorts.

I don't go out at all at the moment as I am just too bloody tired, have no interest in drinking and my exercise is a walk with DD in the evenings. We do have our own date nights though, usually just once a month or every two months but I think I would be a lot more resentful of him going out if we didn't have that. It's usually 2-3 hrs tops for a meal or cinema but it is nice to do something for us. I wouldn't class watching tv as "us" time. Perhaps you could take the initiative and organise a babysitter and a few hours out for you both OP?

We own our own business and work together every day. Dh works longer hours than me as I pretty much always do bedtimes. He does the majority of laundry, gardening etc while I do most if the cooking and childcare.
I go out with friends once a month and he probably goes out once every three months.
We like spending time with each though and are too knackered most of the time to go out and have a social life!

You have already cut back your social life to one hours football and an evening's scout meeting per week, plus about 4 full days and 5 evenings per year. According to Greenlynx this is much busier than most of the dads with young children they know. It sounds pretty barebones to me. She's stressed and unhappy (understandable) and quite possibly using this issue as an excuse to vent her frustrations.

Would sacrificing any of these activities and devoting them to your wife make a significant benefit to her quality of life? If you think it would OP then that would be the only reason to do so. Otherwise you're better off just letting her vent and then quietly keep doing things as you are now.