when is it too much?

Question

so before i begin i am in no way going to deny my husband friends. thats not what this is about. but i need opinions on when is it time to speak up and sort of draw the line on how much time my husband spends with one of his friends. 
back story: my husband is a car freak. he's had more cars than i can remember. so about 2-3 years ago he made friends with this other guy who likes cars. this guy is married to someone i went to school with but was never really 'friends' with (more like acquaintances). so it became almost a weekly thing where we would hang out on the weekends. they have two kids and our daughter is right in between them in age so they all got along great. then my husband made the decision to get rid of his "hobby car" for a truck. we had just bought a house and the car sat in the garage about 85% of the time so my husband made a more practical decision. well the week after my husband got rid of his car he heard from his friend maybe once the day after. (this guy would text my husband every single day , no lie) so after some time my husband just said screw it and put that friendship away.

fast forward to now: the truck was about to die so we traded the truck in and my husband got him a "hobby car" again. the week after we get the car, this old friend messages him on facebook... and so the friendship begins again. which i have no problem with...

here's the problem... 75% of the time my husband is home, he is texting this friend. he even texted him while we were out to dinner with my family for my brothers birthday. friday night i took our daughter to her school because they had a family movie night. my husband didnt want to go so he stayed home. well i thought he stayed home. he ended up taking his car out to meet his friends and i had no clue until we came home and him and the car were gone. come to find out they had been setting up meeting that night all week. but whatever. he spent 2 hours out with them and came home. then the next day they had already planned to go to this car show. i had to stay home because my MIL wasnt going to come get our daughter until later and we didnt want her there. so he spent 3 more hours there with his friend. then he is texting his friend to see what they were up to later and we rode out last night and he spent another 2 hours hanging out with this friend. in between each of these meet ups, they are texting each other...

i literally stayed in the car the entire time last night. since he got his car back, whenever our daughter is spending the night at the grandparents house, it's always riding out to meet up and is never just a night for us. he asked me what was wrong last night when we got home and i said "i just think maybe you should just move in with him" and he got all defensive and mad and started acting like i was telling him he couldnt have any friends. so i didnt say anymore. we went tobed without saying another word to each other.

am i wrong to be upset? (im also 31w pregnant) i felt that since he had already spent so much of is time this weekend with his friend that maybe we could have gone out to eat alone or something just us. am i overreacting? and if not, how do i handle this without making it seem like i dont want him to have friends at all? im glad he has friends but im starting to feel like he would rather spend more of his time with this friend than with me...... i dont feel the love...

Answer

Have you had a mature conversation with him about this? And no, your comment about him moving in with his friend wasn't mature. It was sarcastic and your SO likely felt blindsided and attacked. That's not fair.

Men can be dense, and he certainly can't read your mind. Tell him what you need and set clear expectations. For example, if you want to have a date night just the two of you, tell him when and what you want to do ("I feel like we have not had alone time in a while. Next Saturday, I want us, just you and I, to go to dinner and a movie").

If he doesn't respond to that, then I'd say you have a bigger problem than just him wanting to hang out with friends, and need to have a heart to heart about his behavior.

Answer

You absolutely refuse to tell your DH to stop being friends, which is wise but is it wise to try and dictate when he texts him or sees him?  Rather than focusing on his relationship with his friend, I suggest reminding him that you two are a UNIT you are ONE and he should want to continue to keep your relationship healthy and on course. A lot of couples make the mistake of getting into a rut when you should be constantly making sure you "stoke the flames".  That would be my focus when I talk to him; otherwise, he's just going to be on the defensive trying to justify his actions. Once a person gets into that place, you only go in circles. Your problem is not the friend, it's your DH not spending the time with you that is needed for a strong healthy family.

Answer

another thing to mention that also makes me feel a little strained in the situation... for our anniversary we were going to olive garden but rhen my husband came home from work and said his boss was going there too and said there was like a two hour wait so he didnt want to go. instead we go hang out with his friend. the entire time i was hinting that we could still go and even his friends wife was hinting that we could still go. it was 9 when we left them. we were about to pass olive garden and i asked him what we were going tohave for dinner and he said "i dunno yet" and kept going. we ended up at KFC....

when is it too much?

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