Husband decides to just take himself off out on a night out

[justanothermagicnamechange]

My husband mainly works from home, he goes in about 3-4 times a month and often goes for a drink after work. Sometimes there'll be a work 'do' and he stays later.

For context: we have 2 children, 3 and a baby.

The baby isn't a good napper and has to have an early bedtime, she feeds to sleep and then I try to sneak away. Often it takes a long time to leave her. She has also started waking in the evening / night quite frequently and needs settling. In the evening my husband can settle her, but at night she only accepts me. I know she needs some night training but for various reasons now is not the right time.

My husband normally does the 3 year olds bedtime. She is a good sleeper. When my husband is not here it is very difficult to do her bedtime whilst dealing with the baby. It gets done, but its quite stressful and not very nice for the 3 year old.

The issue - yesterday he went into the office and said he would have a drink after work. I expected him home around 7:30 as his commute is 1.5 hours. At 7:40 I text him. He says he is still out. I say the children are asleep and ask him when he is planning on doing something he was due to do this evening (he was clearly expecting me to pick it up without asking). He says do I still want him to do it. I ignore the text as a little annoyed and need to charge my phone, so leave it charging whilst settling the baby. He texts me at 10:50 saying he is leaving and then he comes home around 12:30 in the morning. I had a rubbish evening / night with the baby waking.

I am extremely annoyed he just unilaterally decided to have a night out without checking whether I minded. I had to chase him to find out he was even still out. This is not the first time he has done stuff like this and I have always found it very inconsiderate (not texting if staying out later than planned) but it adds another dimension with me having to spend my evening settling the baby alone.

The day before yesterday he had a massive strop because I lost track of time doing diy in the evening and didn't see his texts asking me to help with the baby (I was just upstairs btw, he could have come and got me if he really needed me). He has also admitted he would be really annoyed if I did the same thing to him (just decide to leave him in charge of the children and waltz home when I like).

He has apologised but I am really annoyed as this is a pattern of behaviour.

Doesn't really sound like an LTB situation. Having young kids is hard. Easy to get annoyed with each other over small things. I couldn't get hugely worked up about it but I'd make sure I got a free evening myself asap.

But the children we all in bed and would have still been if he got back at an earlier time? He was in contact with you via text so you knew nothing bad had happened to him and you knew where he was.

i don’t really understand why the solution to this is for the OP to have a free evening? It sounds like a lack of courtesy in communication thing on his part. We all have last minute stuff that comes up but in a world of smartphones it’s easy to send a quick message to let the person who is jointly responsible for caring for your children know your plans

OP,

The thing is with inconsiderate men is, it only gets worse, the more you allow to slide.

@TooMinty may sound petty but are you getting through to him?.

This is a full on time for you so a good man would get this and realise that for this period socialising has to take a back seat.

Good partners get this.
It doesn't last forever.

If you don't wish to be petty, tell him for every hour that he is out during the week, you will take off for yourself on a saturday.

And do it.

He needs to experience it fully because his disrespect will not improve on its own.

Finish at two children OP, he's a stroper, so you have your hands full enough!

You need to be very clear to him in a calm measured manner as to what you expect from him.

Marriages don't break up by accident.

Selfish dickish behaviour often lays the basis for it.

Nip it in the bud now to give your marriage the best chance of lasting.

If it’s not a regular thing then I don’t think it’s a big deal tbh. I’d pick up the slack and tell him he owes me one and that would be that.

Thanks for all the input. We've had another chat and discussed it fully. I feel much better now. He is impressed that this has reached trending in mumsnet.

In general he does show respect for me, he slips up sometimes though and I guess this was one of those times. He said he'll try to do better, but in general he is a good and committed husband and everyone makes mistakes sometimes.

To clarify for all, the pattern of behaviour is that he is inconsiderate like this when drinking (i.e. in similar but not the same way each time), not that he does this particular thing frequently, he's not inconsiderate every time he drinks either. He gets a little carried away having fun sometimes I suppose.

We've both been a bit stressed this week for various other reasons too, so I guess that feeds into it too.

@Coffeellama I was annoyed because he'd already stayed out later than planned, but I didn't text back because my phone was charging in another area of the house and I was trapped under my sleeping baby. I didn't reply immediately because I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do the thing that needed doing if the baby kept waking. My phone having no charge added another level of stress I suppose too as I normally browse on it whilst she's feeding.

I think he needs to recognise that you're stuck at home doing a lot of solo parenting and he gets quite a lot of opportunity for socialising and the least he can do is be honest about his plans for the evening.

He should also not get shitty with you when you're both home together and he can't manage the kids, he needs to get on with it himself and cope, like you have to.

Yes.. I’m guessing it’s not much fun in your house and you’d have ruined his evening if he had texted

Be more explicit - how would she ruin his evening?