Long hours at work and father of two young kids DH hangs out with his friends too frequently.

[Anonymous]

We've been married 6 years. We are both often tired, just doing our jobs and caring for our toddler (plus now a newborn).

My DH is intoverted, he has a small group of college friends and two high school friends. He works long hours, 55-60hrs a week. We have a toddler and a baby, I work FT. I'm intoverted too but different I guess.

He cannot go more than 5-6 days without hanging out with one of his friends, mostly this one high school friend (who is super extroverte and has tons of free time on his hands). It seems to be an unbreakable "need" for him. The day before I went for a c section surgery, six days after being discharged from the hospital c section, he HAD to go hang out with his friend for 4+ hrs. We had a big argument about it. We have had countless arguments about his need to hang out with the guys. It used to be 4 times a week, then it's decreased to 2-3/week only after we had a baby and after years of arguing and me blowing up.

I had a second baby a few weeks ago and on Day 6 he went out for what was supposed to be for 3 hrs. I was trying to be understanding and said I could handle the kids by myself. When he was back in 4.5 I blew up on him (he keeps promises literally so he had deliberately stayed out later).

What baffles me is that we are both strong introverts and the first thing that gets chopped for me is quality time with my friends (isn't that common with introverts)?. I had not seen my own friends for more than three months when this happened. For him, the last thing that gets chopped, even after sleep, is he still has to go out and relax by drinking moderately with his friends. If I didn't trust and believe him 100%, I would think he had a hidden mistress or was getting close to becoming an alcoholic. But he doesn't have a mistress and I don't prevent him from drinking at home (two to three wine glasses). Almost always he's drinking when he's out with friends. We are approaching 40 and he said he can't take in drinking as heavily as he did in his 20s. I'd guess he tops out at five wine glasses.

So is this just something I need to give up on, just embrace his need to be out drinking with friends? Anything I can do?

[Anonymous]

I know other posters will jump on me for saying this but I would wonder whether this is more about drinking than being with his friends. Does he have relatives who have problems with drinking? If so, that would suggest looking more closely at that. One way or another, this sounds very frustrating. Sorry you're going through this, OP.

[Anonymous]

Op here. We have to hang out with his elderly parents almost weekly, and with other chores and stuff, the more he hangs out with friends the less he has time to do anything as family (us and the kids) or with me. It doesn't help that I find doing the heavy lifting re: toddler care (bedtime, feed8ng dinner, getting her ready for daycare) tough and unfair. I am upset that I come in behind his high school friend. Yes, my DH does only hang out half the time this friend calls my DH to hang out or invites him on trips or camping or what nott. So DH argues he values my presence and says No to His friend frequently, that he bends over backwards for my needs of him being around. But I often feel as if I get ditched for his friends.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know other posters will jump on me for saying this but I would wonder whether this is more about drinking than being with his friends. Does he have relatives who have problems with drinking? If so, that would suggest looking more closely at that. One way or another, this sounds very frustrating. Sorry you're going through this, OP.

I'd say his dad used to be a heavy whiskey drinker until he had to mostly give it up due to health issues in his late 60s, both his brothers drink moderately to heavy, his friends haven't stopped drinking as if they were still in college. DH says he drinks the least in his group. He used to drink up to six packs and/or a whiskey a night when he's out, now he says it's more 2-3 glasses of wine (with stronger alcohol content, did his alcohol intake increase??)

[Anonymous]

It does sound like the drinking might be an issue, especially since you felt the need up front to say you "don't prevent him from drinking at home." Was that just to say that the drinking isn't an issue? Or is it an issue for you but you don't say anything about it?

I think it's irrelevant whether one or both of you are introverts. I'd frame it as an issue of free time. Do you and he get equal amounts of free time, doing whatever you wish? Do all of you get adequate family time together? (This is less relevant now with a newborn, but it will be more of an issue later.) Does he schedule his time with friends to make it more convenient for you? (E.g. if they're going to be out late drinking, he could put the preschooler to bed first.)

[Anonymous]

My mind immediately went to maybe he's gay and has something going with his buddy.

Admittedly, I know someone this happened to, which is probably why it's an option in my brain.

He's selfish and immature and obviously isn't thinking about you and your needs. So that's a problem. I don't think you're being unreasonable.

[Anonymous]

I think it really comes down to you feeling like you are doing more work than him.

It also sounds like he really needs this outlet. I would try to find some compromise.

[Anonymous]

Affair?

[Anonymous]

I think it's healthy to have (non sexual) relationships with the same sex even if you're married. It's not so much as they "come first" as it's they are a just a different kind of relationship.

[Anonymous]

I'm a female and I don't think either of you is being reasonable. You knew when you married him that he likes his time spent with his close friends. He needs his downtime, and for him, that happens to be drinking with his buddies for a few hours.

Yes you have young children now, but that's not an excuse for you to be this controlling or to tell him he's not allowed to have a life. He made a concession to reduce his outings from 4x a week to "2-3x a week."

You're annoyed he went out for 3 hours 6 day after you gave birth. Wtf.

What exactly is the issue?
Are you annoyed that he goes out so much that YOU don't have the time to see your friends?
Or he goes out so much that you don't believe that he does his fair share of work?
Or are you really that much of a bitch?

Maybe the solution is to hire a babysitter several times a week so you both get some breathing time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's healthy to have (non sexual) relationships with the same sex even if you're married. It's not so much as they "come first" as it's they are a just a different kind of relationship.

This. I don't understand why people (usually women) feel the need to stifle or eliminate their spouse's friendships outside of the marriage. I isn't as if he is hanging out 3-4 times a week. Do you ever get together with your girlfriends? If not, you should.

[Anonymous]

I also wondered whether he is having a fling with the (male) friend. Sexuality is rarely as cut and dried as we sometimes think it is.

But let's say for arguments sake that all he is doing is hanging out with friends and drinking a normal, healthy amount. Even if that is the case, it comes down to the fact that clearly the two of you are not on the same page about how the division of free time versus family time versus individual time versus extended family time versus couple time, etc. should layout.

I think you need to start by defining your terms. What counts as couple time? Doing the weekly grocery shopping together with no kids? Or only sitting down to low white linen tablecloth dinner? And what constitutes family time? Does it have to be a special outing to the zoo, or does family dinner on a weeknight count? And then you need to define together what your goals are for those categories.

In our family, we try to make sure that one time per week, for at least one hour, each child gets one on one time with each parent, the parents get one on one time together, and we all as a family spend at least 1 hour together at least 4 times per week. Because we had shared definitions of what constitutes family time, etc. and because we have shared goals that we have committed to about how much time and how frequently we want to spend in those different iterations of togetherness, when one of us feels that things are getting off kilter, we can go back to those goals and see if they are being met.

It sounds like in your family, it may simply be that your spouse doesn't feel the need for as much family time or couple time as you seem to. If that is the case, you need to have a discussion about that and agree to some sort of compromise in theory rather than getting bogged down in the nitty-gritty of what he is doing instead. Get him to commit to an amount of family time couple time and one-on-one time with each kid that the both of you agree is a target, then figure out how much time you are willing to commit to extended family each week, and then you can talk through the lid just sticks of who handles kids on which night. If you are envisioning doing the kids bedtime routine together being the default, and he is envisioning one or the other of you tackling it most nights with the alternate parent free to do something just for them, then you are not on the same page and you need to figure that out before you can address the issue of what he is doing instead of being with the kids.

[Anonymous]

The friend thing can be fixed but the drinking is a problem. He can and will kill himself or someone else, you can be sued and driven into poverty, his drinking is cheating his kids out of a father because he loves booze more than being with them.

Tell him from now on the friends need to come to him or you will make it so he never has to worry about coming home.

[Anonymous]

I'm a female and I don't think either of you is being reasonable. You knew when you married him that he likes his time spent with his close friends. He needs his downtime, and for him, that happens to be drinking with his buddies for a few hours.

Yes you have young children now, but that's not an excuse for you to be this controlling or to tell him he's not allowed to have a life. He made a concession to reduce his outings from 4x a week to "2-3x a week."

You're annoyed he went out for 3 hours 6 day after you gave birth. Wtf.

What exactly is the issue?
Are you annoyed that he goes out so much that YOU don't have the time to see your friends?
Or he goes out so much that you don't believe that he does his fair share of work?
Or are you really that much of a bitch?

Maybe the solution is to hire a babysitter several times a week so you both get some breathing time.

I agree with this (except the part about you being a bitch).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know other posters will jump on me for saying this but I would wonder whether this is more about drinking than being with his friends. Does he have relatives who have problems with drinking? If so, that would suggest looking more closely at that. One way or another, this sounds very frustrating. Sorry you're going through this, OP.

I'd say his dad used to be a heavy whiskey drinker until he had to mostly give it up due to health issues in his late 60s, both his brothers drink moderately to heavy, his friends haven't stopped drinking as if they were still in college. DH says he drinks the least in his group. He used to drink up to six packs and/or a whiskey a night when he's out, now he says it's more 2-3 glasses of wine (with stronger alcohol content, did his alcohol intake increase??)

Sounds like his dad's choices were either to drink heavily or not at all. The fact that his dad was not able to drink moderately is not a good sign.