Is it controlling if you expect your partner home by a certain time?

Well. Each relationship has its own rules. Sounds like you might want to have a discussion with him about it. Simply telling a man he HAS to be home at a certain time, or any ultimatums for that matter, could rub him the wrong way. I know it would start to wear on me. Especially if I usually am a good partner. I would feel punished for nothing, and maybe fenced in.Some men don’t mind this type of thing, and will basically do whatever you want to keep you happy.

Perhaps you’re mostly concerned that this behavior will become a habit. That is reasonable. Maybe you should make your feelings clear and see if a compromise can be reached. Far too often women get mad at us when we don’t even know what we did.

It sounds like you have a decent man. Everyone needs space. Thongs like fishing are supposed to be relaxing. I wouldn’t be able to enjoy fishing if I had a girlfriend upset if I wouldn’t be home by a certain time.
If you guys have kids, that’s altogether different. And he should be available to help raise them. Otherwise, I would be happy he’s not ‘running the streets’ and give him his freedom.
But without putting your cards on the table you can’t expect a change.
Communication is key to any relationship of any kind.
Be aware though, men who enjoy the outdoors usually value their freedom. If you take it from him, he might move on. All men hate drama. If a girl is creating it, when we feel we don’t deserve it, the relationship becomes a resentful one.

In addition, fishing isn’t a timed activity. Sucks to ‘leave em biting. ’

Good luck.
Peace n love.

Yes. He’s an adult. You say you trust him. He doesn’t do it often. Why do you get to tell him what time he should be home? Let him off-the-leash. You are being controlling.

So it is 3:35am, at this rate he will be back by 5am considering time to pack and the drive….. I think the main thing is he never knows what time he will be home. Like now.

Perhaps you could simply make arrangements for him to call or text you every few hours so you son’t worry. Expecting him home from an activity that doesn’t have a timely schedule isn’t reasonable.

If you consider that no-one has the right to control anyone else (in a relationship) you both need to talk and decide what you both find acceptable. The key is to find a compromise that you can both honestly live with and that you both find fair. This is the bit where you both put in the effort to make your relationship work – that includes you letting go of what is unreasonable and as @YARNLADY says maybe your boyfriend doing a few things to put you at ease.

Would you feel better if it was booked more like an overnight camping/fishing trip?
I’m confused. I’ve heard of people getting up at the crack of dawn to go fishing but not going out at night to go fishing.

6:11am and he’s not answering his phone. At this point I worried and I was furious and hurt. I had to call his friend because I thought he would be home by now. Turns out he fell asleep and phone on vibrate…says he will be home at 7am.

If it were planned I would be ok with it. He has gone on a weekend fishing trip this last Memorial Day and I was fine.
He went out snowboarding til 5am once because of the 12:30am special and I was ok too. I knew when he would be home because I gone with him before.

I’m not okay at all with him being home this late when I was not given a notice!!! I had no idea all night when he would be home.
This…I had no idea fishing would take this long!!!! They left at 7pm.

Welcome to my world.

My husband has what I call a “creative interpretation of time”.

His tombstone will be inscribed with the words, ” I’ll be back shortly ”.

Ultimately, it helps to understand that he’s chosen a social activity that necessitates late nights, and that safety is more important than momentary comfort.

My husband is very active in the local music scene, and he has made many friends and contacts over the last 20 years. If he goes out to see a band play, I’ve stopped expecting him home at any certain time.

In fact, if he drinks, he’s under specific instructions to sleep on the couch at the bar (it’s owned by friends and he can lock up on his way out) until he is sober.

Him coming home alive and safe is more important than him coming home early.

I would say the same for your hubby. You certainly don’t want him driving tired. Home safe is more important than home at 3:00.

Unless it’s frequent bar and nightlife crawling, let him enjoy the odd fishing trip till dawn, don’t be a handbreak it will affect your relationship.

Night fishing is not unusual. Unless you suspect something is up give the man some space

A woman in a similar situation once asked me if I thought her boyfriend was going through a mid life crisis. I told her no. But if she doesn’t back off and encourage his freedom then she might become the reason that he goes in to one.

She finally let go… not of him… but she let go of her own codependency. He saw strength in that and found it attractive. They became more secure with themselves and with each other… and lived happily ever after.

I have one question for you. If you do (or did) the same thing, would it upset him? If it would be ok with him then it should be ok for you. If there’s nothing wrong with it, it shouldn’t be considered “tit for tat” because there’s nothing wrong with it. If it’s upsetting to him, then perhaps it will make him understand how you feel.

If it’s done without previous agreement then you’re, of course, being controlling. If you both have agreed to a term then this will be the same as when a wife comprise with her husband that he isn’t allowed to smoke at home (or never smoke ever again) and her husband has agreed to it for whatever reason.

If you have a reasonable reason as to why he can’t go back so late then you will have the power to make him compromise with you. I believe you have good intention at heart and worrying about his safety, or whether or not he’s still alive when he’s out there at late hours. This is a prettt normal behaviour of a caring spouse.

He ended back home at 6:30am. He tested at 4:30am he was leaving. I went to sleep and wake up near 6am and he wasn’t home. I call and no answer. I try to wait 15–20 minute but it’s driving me nuts. He then said 6:30am.

I don’t know how I am to explain my feelings when he wakes up. It bothers me he comes home til daylight especially when t was not expected. We had this talk several months ago how we would agree he would give me a time when he would be back and text me if its late. Thing is, he really has no idea because him and his friends are go with the flow kind of guy.

@chelle21689 When you had the talk with him, did you make him promise to text you and go home at the agreeable hour? If he has promised, I will expect him to keep his promise, there would be no excuses. If he care enough about what you both talked about then he will surely tell his ‘flowy friend’ that he should be at home at certain time and be on his way.

Since you said he rarely goes outside I presume that this kind of behaviour won’t be repeated again in the long run. If this thing is not his frequent schedule then I will just treat it like some special holiday where you bend your regular schedule to a degree.

If I was him I just would have said “I’ll be back tomorrow morning, I’ll text you before I leave”

@Unofficial_Member No, I didn’t make him promise to text me. We didn’t agree on an hour because he always never knows the time especially with them. But this same situation happened several months ago when he was with friends and in one car out late. It’s always when he’s in one car with friends.

@chelle21689: Time for you to go out and tell him you’ll see him late and will text him. Then do the exact same thing to him that he did to you and see what happens. If he says it’s upsetting, then it’s open discussion time. If he says it’s totally ok and he doesn’t mind it or resent it, then great. Like I said above, there’s nothing wrong with your doing it if he considers it totally ok with doing it himself.

Haha. I agree with @jca. But if you do that when you normally don’t, then he can see that as a passive-agressive revenge.

I’m on the other side of the situation.

I’m a woman and I’m the one who goes out without necessarily having/providing a time when I’ll be back. I don’t call. I don’t text. I come home when I’m ready. Setanta goes to bed and sleeps. That’s how it goes. We’re partners, not a prisoner and a guard.

Last night I went out to watch friends in a dance performance. Then I went out for a drink with a friend. Turned out there was a terrific band playing so my friend and I stayed til we knew she could just catch her last bus. Got home closer to 2 than anything after leaving the house at 5:30 for an 8 p.m. show that lasted for one hour.

Can’t imagine what I’d do if Set said I had to let him know when I’ll back. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be pleasant.

I tell him roughly when I think I’ll be back – if I have an idea of it. Last night, I didn’t.

@chelle21689 , you’ve said you know your partner is a go with the flow guy.

That is who he is . That’s not going to change.

If it’s something you can’t cope with, you need to decide what you will change. Is it a deal breaker? In that case, you need to leave the relationship. If it’s not a deal-breaker, start sorting out how you are going to cope with it. Figure out how you can sleep without him around. Do things that don’t allow you time/energy to worry.

If I had one piece of advice for your partner, I’d probably tell him it’s best to overestimate his time away . If he thinks it’s a six hour thing – tell you it could be a half-day or maybe a day.

You’re paddling upstream.

He is not the clock watching type. You are.

I’ve been fighting this fight for ten years with Mitch, to no avail.

Count it a win when he gets home, in one piece and with fresh fish for dinner.

You need to find something to do instead of clock watching. yes, it is controlling and codependent as @RealEyesRealizeRealLies mentions. You are so preoccupied with what he is doing, what time it is, when he will be hone that you are totally losing yourself.
If this is a problem for you and he is responsible, not partying it up, drinking and driving or otherwise being reckless and endangering himself and your relationship you need to come up with your own activity and stop obsessing on what he is doing.
Maybe invite some friends over or go out to a movie and then, just go to bed.

Staying up all night in a state of anxiety is unhealthy.

I’m trying hard to see it from his perspective of the couple times I was out til 5am but they always happened to be when he was on a trip for work or whatever. Of the times I was late and home at 5am was because I ended up stuck in a car with a group that drove somehow and didn’t know what time I would be home but it’s very very rare.

I will try and compromise as long as it is not often to just let me know if he’ll be really really late and just text me if he’s on his way home or if he ends up staying the night at someone’s.

@chelle21689: If I were you, I’d try my suggestion and see what happens. Call it passive aggressive if you want to, but why not give it a try? It shouldn’t piss him off if he thinks his behavior shouldn’t piss you off. Maybe his behavior shouldn’t piss you off, as others have said, in which case your doing the same should have no effect.

The reason I keep saying you should do it is because I suspect it will piss him off, in which case he will understand how you feel. If it does piss him off, he can no longer say you shouldn’t be upset when he does it.

Reading through this, @chelle21689 , the “time limits” were all set by you without being discussed beforehand. That is not at all fair nor is it even justified.

At least @Seek has an understanding and a conversation with her husband so that even if she is not happy, she still has an expectation. But you want your BF to be psychic and read your mind from miles away so that he will text you he will be right home.

Next time, have a conversation before he goes out, and let him know what upsets you. At that point, he can agree or not agree, and go on his way. But he will know ahead of time what behavior is acceptable to you, instead of learning it in the small hours of the morning.

And, ask yourself, is this a deal breaker to the relationship? If not, express your worries and concerns, and then let it go.

@jca the only times I’ve done it is when he happened to be out of town and it was a bachelorette or going away party. I think he would worry too. He even said he would but he said it’s hard to give a time when he truly has no idea and is stuck with friends cuz someone drove.

I agree. We need to really talk and not make assumptions from the other and get the details. Like how he said I’ll be home late. We have different meaning of late. Also when he said he’ll be home and I assumed he would be home in 40 minutes, not 2 hours due to cleaning the fish, dropping people off, picking up his car, etc.

So, again, @chelle21689, do it when he’s home and then see what ensues.

If I were to guess, it would be you’re feeling like “I wouldn’t do that to him so I don’t expect him to do it to me.” Boom. Try it and then it’s out on the table.

cleaning the fish, dropping people off, picking up his car, etc.

Since we don’t currently have teleporters, I don’t see this as an unreasonable addition to time away from home after a fishing trip. Also, cleaning fish in your kitchen is an awful mess, and smells bad.

One time I went kayaking where I didn’t have cell service for a few hours and I came back to a dozen texts from my ex where the last one said “I’m going to call [mutual friend] and tell him to go searching for you if you don’t answer soon.” It was one of the main factors that lead to me breaking up with him. What one person might view as worrying, the other might view as controlling behavior. Controlling behavior is not OK and can lead to resentment.

Hi! I don’t sleep well if I know the front door might open while I’m in bed. It’s how I’m wired, and if I don’t know, my anxiety ramps up, making sleep impossible. One of my adult daughters lives at home and works graveyard, and of course this means she’s out all night. Even on her days off, because of her crazy sleep schedule, she’s still up and and often out of the house at late hours. Hubby and I had a conversation with her about how it’s necessary to let us know what her plan is, and keep us posted. She’s fine with it. It’s not always about co-dependency or control. But sincere and respectful communication with your people is always necessary to make it work.

I’d be pissed if I was worrying. I wouldn’t care if he had a very late night now and then (read twice a year) or even an overnight, but I need to know more or less when to expect him and that he is ok.

If he is off on an overnight or weekend trip, I don’t need him to check in constantly, to some extent I’m an out of sight out of mind type, but a call late evening would be good.

If my husband went out regularly with the guys it would probably bug me.

My husband is prone to going out to run some errand that shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes, and two hours later he still isn’t home. In the beginning I told him I thought that was very rude, that he should at least call and give me a heads up. He thought I was being controlling.

So, I turned the tables one day. Went out to run an errand that should have only taken a minute, and came back 3 hours later. He was pissed! He said he was worried. I said, “You do this to me all the time! It doesn’t feel very good, does it!”
He said, “I know I do, but you don’t. It was really out of character for you!”

I finally threw in the towel. I just shrug my shoulders. I figure if he went missing and got murdered my alibi for not calling in missing in a missing persons report would be the truth…He disappears without a word all the time!

@chelle21689 Can I ask a personal question? Do you think that you might be experiencing actual anxiety or any kind of PTSD from something in your past? After my best friend committed suicide, I worried an unbelievable amount when people told me that they would be somewhere by a certain time, but weren’t. It was so bad for me that I would start crying if I couldn’t get a hold of them because I thought something horrible happened. It went on for a couple of years until I started realizing that it was directly connected and that I was experiencing PTSD.

So I’m just wondering if there might be anything from your past giving you anxiety. Not necessarily even as bad as mine, but it can be surprising how much things from our past can interfere with things in our present and sometimes we aren’t aware of them.

A lot of people have been giving you good advice. Express to him openly and calmly why it makes you worry, and then listen to his side. He sounds reasonable, so I’m sure you can both work something out that will make both of you happy. Good luck.

No, I don’t have one. I did have an ex that I never heard from in a day or two…sometimes three because he sucked at communication. Always lost or broke his phone, battery dead, forgot it, etc. it used to drive me insane and we were long distance too.

^^Cheater.

If he is going to be out til 5 a.m. why doesn’t he just go on a weekend camping/fishing trip and be done with all the stress? The guys take off on a Fri. night or sat. morning and it is just understood he will be back at some point on Sunday. Seems reasonable to me.

This is really your problem, not his. You are the person feeling anxiety and hurt because he is out with his friends, fishing or doing whatever. If you don’t get this under control, he will eventually feel resentful about it. If you had a cheating ex, this is quite likely insecurity connected to that person’s behaviour. Go and talk to someone about it if it is really affecting you, or train yourself to let your boyfriend have some space and freedom without feeling he has to keep checking in with you so you feel secure. Really, that’s going to get old very quickly.

@Earthbound_Misfit It sounds like her boyfriend is telling her he will be home at a certain time, or can’t give a time, or will call, and he isn’t doing it. That’s bullshit. I don’t care if I’m married to you, or if you’re my parent, sibling or friends just living together. If I expect you home and you aren’t going to make it on time you should call. It’s common courtesy. Maybe I’m missing something.

This boyfriend is promising her something I’m guess he does not want to do. He doesn’t want to be bothered doing what will make her comfortable so he says he will (liar) and he doesn’t do it.

My husband lived in Bogata, Colombia for months without me there. It was fine. I wasn’t freaking out, or jealous. Here at home I’ve never had to wonder where he is. If he is going to be late he calls. If he’s going to spend the night away and for some reason I haven’t heard from him I know I can call and he is always fine hearing from me. I rarely have to feel like I need to call though, because we touch base, or he isn’t very late coming home. He doesn’t have to be on the dot, I don’t care if someone is a half an hour late. Within reason though.

What Chelle describes is a bad sign to me. A red flag. I hope I’m wrong. I can’t quite tell with the OP’s relationship. I used to think they are young and it’s partly figuring out how to balance relationships and other parts of life, but now they are getting older.

Sometimes I’m very sure a guy is a cheat and a liar, with her boyfriend it’s less clear, except to say I do think he is a liar by most Anerican standards. Other cultures look at lying differently. My FIL lies, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t see it as lying if his intention is to try to fulfill the promise. Even if all of us know that his ability to fulfill the promise is almost impossible. He also outright lies. But, he does that because he knows the people around him won’t like the truth. I am not talking about little fibs and white lies.

@Mariah But, you weren’t late right? Just incommunicado for a few hours.

@JLeslie I totally agree with the common courtesy thing, he should call if he is going to be a lot later than expected but he shouldn’t feel he has to “check in” with “mommy” every few hours either, but yes, if he says he will call and then just blows it off, pays lip service but has no intention of following through that is a problem, one that may stem from his own, childish resitence to feeling like he is being told what to do. Gah, relationship drama, so glad I am free of that these days. haha

He’s not cheating, I have no reason to suspect it at all. He texts me when he leaves but then I’m not sure how long it’ll take. He ended up falling asleep in the car on the way back and didn’t answer his phone.

Like I said, I’m trying to find a way where what I want is reasonable. Like if he says he will be home and is leaving, I’m thinking ok point a to b. Not leave and drive to point a, clean the fish for an hour, point b to drop someone off and then point c to pick up the car, and then really head home.

How was he lying?

@JLeslie, he’s gone out with his friends. She knows that. She trusts him, and has no reason to suspect he’s up to no good. As long as he’s not coming home a day or two later, why should he give her a time when he’ll be back? If he says “I’ll be home tomorrow sometime”, that should be fine. He’s not her child. He’s her partner. He’s also not going out with his mates and getting drunk all the time. She’s being controlling and this is about her issue. He’s not done anything wrong.

It’s more of a question of courtesy, in my mind, than control. When my husband goes out of town, overnights, I always ask him what day he’s going to be home, and he tells me. If that changes, he lets me know. (Well, I have to ASK him, and then CALL him to see if it’s changed, because, as I said above, it doesn’t occur to him to volunteer the information. This last time he said he’d be home around noon the next day. Noon came and went. At about 5:00 the next day I finally called him. He was about an hour out.)

But…she may have to do what I did, in the end, and just let it go. Don’t even worry about it any more. If he gets stuck in ditch with a dead cell phone out in the boonies, and nobody is wondering where he is, or looking for him, that’s his problem. He made it.

This reminds me of an old, old situation. My oldest daughter’s biological mother made an appearance in her life for a couple of years, from the time she was 4 until she was 7. It was mostly a game on the BM’s part. One time she had her on an overnight visit, and we had tornado warnings out the freaking ears. The weather was horrible, and we couldn’t get ahold of her to check on our daughter.
When we got on her the next day, when she brought her home, she said, “Well I knew she was OK!”
WTF?

My suggestion was more to make him realize what it feels like to be on the receiving end of someone saying they’re coming home and then not showing up till the next morning. He may be ok with it, it may piss him off but it will open the discussion.

@jca – I’m really not sure how your idea is anything other than game-playing. He’s doing it, so she should. That’s not an adult way to be in a relationship.

At some point, we have to either accept who the other person is and how they do things – or we choose to leave the relationship. Playing games doesn’t add anything to the dynamic.

@BellaB I have found that turning the tables is often a good way to get through to someone, like my husband. I mean, it depends on the situation too. For example, if I caught my husband cheating I wouldn’t go out and cheat on him in return.
But there have been situations where turning the table seemed to be the only way to get through to him when requests, discussion and arguments wouldn’t.

In the beginning of our relationship he thought it was great fun to come up behind me while I was standing at the kitchen counter, working, and cup my breasts from behind me. I found it annoying as hell, but he wouldn’t quit. I guess he didn’t believe me that I didn’t find it attractive or arousing or anything but totally annoying.
“I’m just having fun!”
“Well, I am NOT having fun and I do not enjoy it so quit doing it!”
“You’re just no fun any more.” Pouts for an hour.
Nothing I said got through.

Finally, I started coming up behind him, when he was at the kitchen counter, and unexpectedly grasping his balls. He didn’t find that to be great fun at all, certainly not arousing. After a couple of times he quit doing it to me.

I don’t think I could be in a relationship with a person who behaved like that, so I guess I can’t imagine how it would work.

@BellaB: It seems that the OP’s boyfriend feels it’s ok to do what he’s doing (maybe it’s ok, maybe it’s not). So if it’s ok to do to a partner, then she should be able to do it, too, without any repercussions. If she does it and he gets mad, then the question is why, if there’s nothing wrong with it.

There is nothing controlling in your attitude. You just worry and it’s absolutely natural. Tell your partner what you feel but do it calmly, in an emotionless manner. Explain to him that it disturbs you, be honest and tell him you can’t sleep at night because you wait for him. Emphasize that you trust him. Tell everything as it is. Just omit that you become crazy. You should not sound unreasonable or selfish. If he loves you, he will try to find a solution that will satisfy both of you. But it is better for you to be prepared to meet halfway, too.

@chelle21689 I don’t think he is cheating, I think your ex was.

He is a liar in that passive aggressive way of too often saying he is doing something, or going to do something, and he doesn’t do it.

“I’m on my way.” The fuck he is. He is on his way, it takes 30 minutes to get home, and an hour later he isn’t home and he didn’t call to say he got detoured. Is that right? And it happens constantly? My husband would say, “I’m heading back, but I might stop at X, if I’m not home by 4:00 I’ll call.” He would pad in time thinking about the stop he might make. If he’s early that’s great.

Also, if he perceives you as being controlling of his time he might be being passive aggressive, which is ironic regarding what is said above. He doesn’t want to have to answer to you maybe, and he thinks you shouldn’t be so uptight about it, and so he doesn’t respect you enough to simply say, “I won’t be home until X” (some late hour) and not play this game. He knows you prefer he come home early. He does care about your happiness. So, he tells you the earlier time either to make you happy or shut you up. Let’s think positively and go with the former. But, if he is doing that to please you, but constantly doesn’t follow through that’s either being immature, irresponsible, or it’s a lie. I call it a lie, but that’s my terminology after dealing with cultures with men who look at lies very differently than how I was raised. Anyone on this thread who has never dealt with lying, cheating, macho, selfish men would have no real idea what that is like. It’s almost impossible to know without experiencing it.

Now, your guy might not be that extreme of the macho, lying, cheater. I believe you that he is not, but he has these little things about him, like his inability to give you a reasonable estimate of time, how he sometimes treats in regards to his family, as far as I know he hasn’t asked you to marry him (maybe you don’t want to be engaged either, and that would be a different story altogether) and I just worry a little. After saying all of that, this might just be a little blip, and overall he might be a great guy. Of course here, we tend to ask questions about things we are concerned about, and it gives a one sided view, not the full picture, so I hesitate to say anything too negative, while on other Q’s to other jellies I have said to drop an SO like a hot potato.

Constantly not giving a reasonable time frame is a function of either culture, passive aggressive activity, or something fun comes a long and the person doesn’t care about anything else.

Here’s the thing. It seems to me two things are going on. You feel he should not be out past a certain time, and he can’t give you an accurate time he will be home. If he tells you, “I won’t be home until 6am,” then is it ok? If he gets the time right will it be ok? If not, then how will you both be happy on this topic? You will be controlling his time if he doesn’t do what he wants to do to please you. He doesn’t want to fight with you as he walks out the door, or even during his fun, he lets the fight happen afterwards.

@Earthbound_Misfit “Tomorrow” is fine with me. A vague idea of before or after noon I would probably appreciate personally, but doesn’t have to be on the dot.

@JLeslie he doesn’t do it all the time. Normally he is good but that night he happened to fall asleep in the car and didn’t answer his phone. His friend ended up waking him up when I called. I don’t know you but I feel like you’re not being respectful by calling him a blip, I don’t know if you’ve seen me update before but I’ve responded to old posts about what had been done. I come here to ask questions of there is a problem or if I have anything wrong so all you see is bad bad bad but you never ever see me announce to the world our problems fixed. Every couple goes through problems, I tend to ask more questions so you never ever see the good of it or what he has done for me. So like you see, you see one side.

At 1:30am he wasn’t home so I texted and he said soon. I didn’t know what soon meant so an hour later I asked him when he might be home I need to know a time so he said 4:00am. He wasn’t home at 4am but he texted me 4:30a that they were leaving.

Like I said before, I see some compromise I need to make on my part. I hated that he came home that late but I can’t control someone and I know even though I rarely do it, I wouldn’t want it.

@chelle21689 We are agreeing. I said on Fluther we often only hear the bad, because we all come here for advice and some support sometimes, and so often what we share is very one sided. We don’t hear about all the wonderful things.

I don’t know what blip is either?? Did I write that? Typo?

If he doesn’t do it all the time then it’s no big deal. If this is one time in 5 years then no big deal. Stuff like that happens. My MIL is still mad at my husband for being an ass when I had to go to the emergency room and he let me go alone, because he had a motorcycle class scheduled. That was pretty crappy of him. He still thinks that me spending a lot of time with my friends at our wedding was inconsiderate of him. I guess maybe it was? I see him every day. I see them once every few years. We all have stories of each other disappointing each other.

So, since you are defending him, I think you answered your own question. Everything is fine. It’s just a one time thing. Or, very incredibly rare thing.

I found my blip. I didn’t call him a blip, I said this incident might be a blip. A blip is a little mistake on a page, or minor bump in a road. A blip is a negative barely worth mentioning, because it doesn’t affect the overall picture. Or, in this case doesn’t affect the overall relationship, and doesn’t represent him as a person in general.

Edit: Definition of blip

Most of the answers here scream “if it’s good for one it good for the other.” This is part of why America has lost the stable marriage. People don’t know how to treat each other. A husband or wife who leaves home wtihout telling the other what time they expect to be home has no respect for their spouse. If they are out and realize they will be late, they should call their husband or wife. This is having mutual respect for each other. What your boyfriend does is disrespectful, period. If it’s a pattern that you cannot discuss and break, I hope you will not marry him. Get your own place and enjoy being single. It’s a wonderful life. However, living together playing house part of the time and acting single part of the time is not the ticket to anywhere good. Send him on his way and go back to having dates. Dating is so fun. Then you get to go to your very own home with no worries.

I think America has lost the stable marriage because in the last 40 years women have become empowered, and aren’t forced to stay in horrible marriages, trapped in a house where the husband is King and Master.

@Dutchess_III That may play into the reason for a higher divorce rate, but does not speak to stability.

What, exactly, speaks to stability? Statistics? All statistics can tell you is you don’t see many marriages lasting 30, 40, 50+ years any more. They don’t speak to the stability of the actual flesh and blood relationship, hidden behind closed doors.

I’m going to ask a Q, because this is General and we’re getting off topic and I, for one, do not want to DIE!!!.

@Dutchess_III That would be true for me. After raising my daughter and going back to work it became crystal clear that I no longer wanted to stay in my unhappy marriage with a highly narcissistic man. Once I had the means to take care of only myself, I did. No regrets, not one, not for a second, in the last 13 years now. Sadly I am now struggling with the after effects of losing it all in the recession but not once have I EVER thought I wished I was still married.

I think that, in general, women are happier and more content after a divorce, even if their financial status tanks, and men are unhappier after a divorce because they lost their caretaker.

@Dutchess_III Agreed. I’ll never forget my ex having a major tantrum after I had gone back to work and told him that he needed to start taking his work clothes to the dry cleaners. He had a meltdown because I wasn’t doing his laundry anymore.
20+ years of never having to even think about his clothing needs and then the magic laundry fairy up and quits working her magic. lol
He also had the audacity to tell me I should get rid of my pets because I didn’t have time to take care of them anymore!

WTF! Open a fucking can of cat food if you get home first. I was SO DONE with baby man! haha
Yep, especially in our generation women spoiled their men and created monsters.

I didn’t spoil mine. Don’t spoil this new one, either.
I remember when we (my ex and I) got our first washing machine just a few months after we were married. He had left something in his pants pocket and it ruined his pants.
We were looking at it, and he said, “My mom always checked my pockets before she did the wash.”
I said, “I’m not your Mom,” and that was the end of that, and any other comparison he might have tried to give. Don’t like the way I do it? Do it yourself.
Goes the other way too. If he doesn’t do the yard the way I like it, like if he decides not to trim, I don’t bitch. I come in behind him and fix it.

@Dutchess_III Yep, glad you learned that sooner than I did. haha

It’s kind of strange that I took that route, because my mother was definitely subservient to my father….but she hated every second of it. She hated the house they had built. I asked her why in the hell she didn’t veto the plans? She said she couldn’t.
The beginnings of women’s lib was raging about this time, so maybe that’s simply where my back bone came from.

@Dutchess_III I was there too with the womens lib thing and have always been an independent thinker and questioning of the status quo, but..I also came to realize that my programming was pretty hardcore about what a “good” wife did. Really, it was a role that I, unconsciously fell into, until I woke the fuck up. haha

What always fascinated me is how most men simply do what they want to do. I don’t mean they never think about their family and are all completely selfish, but they seem to have incredible confidence. They just go along and we follow to some extent.

I think women being able to earn a living definitely contributes to the divorce rate. Also, that roles are less clear no contributes to the divorce rate. But, one thing to remember is the divorce rate for first marriages is around 30%-35%. Marriages do still stay together.

@JLeslie i know!

Hey girls, if you’re not our mothers, then we’re not your kids, right? Parents tell their kids to come back home no later than a certain time. Partners should never do that, least they want to infantilize their partner.

One thing is to call home and say “Hey Hon, I don’t know when I’ll be back but don’t worry” and get the regular “Sure Hon, have fun”... Another thing entirely is to call, only get your partner whining forever over the phone that he/she’s sooo worried and that you need to come back no later than a certain time. That’s embarassing with one’s friends, and a total kill-joy.

If you do that to your partner too often, then he/she will just not call anymore, period. No one likes to ruin an evening out.

@olivier5 You’re late, I need you at home now, and, you forgot to take out the trash! LOL

Sure Hon, as soon as I finish shag… err… fishing.

It’s just common courtesy Oliver.

It’s also common courtesy to not treat adults as children.

So when I called my husband just now to ask what time he’d be home I’m treating him like a child? If he tells me he’ll be home about 5 today and doesn’t show up until tomorrow, no phone call, no fore warning, I’m treating him like a child if I get upset?

You have good reason to be worried if he disappears from more than a few hours, but the OP is about something totally different. It’s about a women who thinks her BF should not come home after 3:00 am. That’s treating him like her child.

This isn’t an instance of “I’m on my way home, it’ll be about 45 minutes if you’re getting the roast ready”

It’s “I’m going fishing with the guys and tomorrow’s my day off. Don’t wait up for me”.