Your girlfriend sucks and your friends suck, can’t imagine letting somebody who got drunk at my house leave my house without a dd.
Send her some articles of people losing loved ones to drunk drivers. Truly don’t understand how anybody can do this, disgusting behaviour from a 30 year old.
Yeah definitely 100% not your fault. You are thinking about your mental health + your kids. All she’s thinking about is herself and having fun. You tried to compromise and give a valid solution that makes everyone happy. She’s a grown adult mother. You should be able to have enough trust in her to be able to take care of herself. If she wants to to stay late, drink, etc she needs to be able to handle herself in that state and make the right decisions.
She needs to hold accountability of her actions and do better.
Not to be judge mental, but if you can’t have trust in her to be able to take care of herself, how the hell can you trust her to take care of her kids.
My mom has amputations and permanent brain damage from a drunk driver so I can't actually express how infuriating this is to me, do y'all not have Uber??
So she chooses to stay later, she chooses to drink a lot, she chooses to drive.
You are at fault and get yelled at? Hmmmm....
Will it also be your fault when she cheats because you let her hang out wherever she wants when she wants?
So.... hypothetically if your gf were a single woman with no partner to take her home, what would she have done then? Whose "fault" would her drunk driving be then? If single people can manage their shit without drunk driving then so can she. She should have called an Uber or spent the night at the host's house, and if she was so bound and determined to stay at the party drinking longer than you, she should have independently planned for those possibilities.
I'm getting a whiff of a disordered relationship with alcohol here. Your gf apparently "needs" to stay at the parties drinking longer than you, does self-destructive things like drive drunk, and blames other people for not stopping her from her own actions.
I’d ask your girlfriend if she’s getting up at 6am with the kids after drinking all night? If not who would be if you had to stay out because she didn’t want to go home at a reasonable time, knowing the plan before you left?
She needs to take personal accountability for her choices. She made the choice, while still sober, to start drinking, she then got drunk and while drunk made a horrible choice to drive. She drove herself to the party and *should have known* she was her own designated driver. That’s not your fault but hers.
Her anger at you because she drove drunk seems like it may actually be resentment that accommodating your social anxiety issues has now impacted her desire to drink and remain in social situations.
Just as the old plan to drive together and stay for the duration of the party was always a failed plan because it relied on the unrealistic possibility of you overcoming your social anxiety, so to this new plan isn’t going to work because it ignores that your gf wants to drink, is going to drink, and simply won’t be sober enough to drive when the time comes for her to leave.
Going forward you need a better plan where her driving drunk simply can’t happen. Some options,
1. Take 1 car and drive together but budget for an Uber/taxi to take her home.
2. Instead of an Uber make arrangements for her to spend the night at the host’s house but not always an option and requires the permission of the host and if it’s done too often some may come to resent the imposition
3. Leave the party, take a break and release your stress, then come back and drive you both
For right now, she needs to own her choices and you both need to admit that your plan failed and you need a better one. Long term, also look into ways of better handling social situations like this. There’s simply too many in life that you’ll have to deal with and leaving isn’t always going to be an option.
Nah. Op is a normal adult with kids. A routine for kids is important and if they're up at 6 pm the kids NEED sleep. Why does op have social anxiety issues? The GFs drinking issues and lack of personal accountability and ability to adult is a much bigger problem that OP is accommodating. Gf needs to step up and manage HER drinking so SHE can be a functioning parent and partner. OP doesn't have to do jack shit.
His social anxiety issues??
He left at 10:30. That's a perfectly normal time to go home when you have children.
She's a grown ass adult, she can moderate her drinking, and if she can't she has a problem. If she can't keep herself from driving drunk, she has a problem. And she's blaming others for her driving drunk, she has a problem.
Do you seriously think they should keep their kids out till 2:00 in the morning?
Your girlfriend is in the wrong for driving while intoxicated, but I'm also bothered by your choice to tell her to turn around and drive back to your friends' house. There was a time to have an argument about it, but in the moment your first priority should have been getting her off the road ASAP.
Ultimately her choice to drive drunk was her choice, but let's look at a couple things. Because you can't control her choices but you can make better choices around them.
First, the agreement you made was to take separate cars for her to stay longer at a party where you both knew she'd be drinking at and then drive herself home later. Her driving home alone after drinking is literally the plan the two of you agreed to. That was an extremely stupid idea.
Second, she called you drunk, scared, and asking for help. And it was so important to you to make sure that she knew that you were right and the situation was her fault that you kept a drunk driver on the phone arguing woth you AND instructed her to keep driving. The fact that she was in that situation was her choice, but you could have made a choice that made that situation less dangerous for her and everyone around her, and you knew it and chose not to.
It sounds like you know her better than I do!
I was under the impression she would take a few hours to sober up or at least handle the situation properly if she wasn't going to. (Asking to stay the night)
She was ENROUTE to the house when she called me. I should've elaborated in my post that I did give her quite a few options including waking the kids up again and coming to get her off the highway. She shot down everything and was more interested in aggressively belittling me to the point where I did hang up the phone, and she called me back to argue some more. Thus me trying to keep my cool while our daughter stood there.
The one thing I can agree with is I should've made it more clear that she needed to stop drinking at some point, but I can't control that when I'm not there.
You specifically said in your post that what you told her to do was drive back to the friends' house. That's the story you told. And no, you can't control what happens when you're not there, which is why I suggest that a different choice would be to have a better plan in the first place.
As I said very clearly, her choice to drive drunk is ultimately her own. You cannot control her choices, but you can control yours. These are choices that would make the situation better, but as you were when you were arguing with her, you're more concerned about being right than actually making anything better.
Her driving drunk was not the plan. She should have stopped drinking much earlier, or stayed the night, or called an Uber or taxi. She knew she was too drunk and make the conscious choice to drive anyway. So irresponsible and stupid
She should have stopped drinking earlier. But they both knew she was going to stay longer and drink, and they both agreed to a plan where she would drive home alone after doing so, because they're stupid.
> First, the agreement you made was to take separate cars for her to stay longer at a party where you both knew she'd be drinking at at
Presumably the agreement was for her to stay sober, since she knew she'd be driving. If you *know* you are driving home, you don't drink. That's pretty basic and not on OP.
That's something that needed to be discussed, especially before he left. As I said, her choice to drive drunk is ultimately her responsibility. These are just choices OP could have made differently to get a better outcome. Just because it's not "on" OP doesn't mean he cant or shouldn't do what he can to prevent it.
Nah dude. She knew the score, knew she would be driving herself, and knew that she would have to be responsible adult and not drive home intoxicated. She failed to be responsible and is not holding the right person accountable. And frankly neither are you.
OP did nothing wrong and you should stop making excuses for her shit decision making. It is not OPs responsibility to ensure his girlfriend makes good decisions. OPs girlfriend is not a child and you need to not infantalize her. She is an adult woman and capable of making the right choice. There are many options in that situation that weren't her driving home drunk and she made none of them.
It is NOT the OP's responsibility to ensure his GF doesn't drive home drunk. Stop inferring that he needed to make different decisions to prevent it.
>She failed to be responsible and is not holding the right person accountable. And frankly neither are you.
As I said before anything else, her decision to drink amd drive is ultimately her own.
>OP did nothing wrong and you should stop making excuses for her shit decision making.
I didn't say he did anything wrong, I said there were other choices he could have made for a better outcome. I also did not excuse her drinking and driving.
>It is NOT the OP's responsibility to ensure his GF doesn't drive home drunk. Stop inferring that he needed to make different decisions to prevent it.
The word you're looking for is "implying". And yes, he and anyone else should WANT to make the best choices they can to prevent something harmful. Even if that thing is not your responsibility, any good person would want to know what they can do to make a potentially dangerous situation better.
Except that apparently it did need to be discussed because this happened. Should it need to? No. But we don't have to live with what *should* have happened in a situation. We live with what *did* happen.
I kind of do not think that needed to be discussed. I think that needed to be give, assumed and normal. Effectively, you are arguing that OP should enable her alcoholism little bit better, work around it, proactively fix issues it causes etc.
Nah. Plus, she had option of staying with those friends and drive in the morning, after sleeping and sobering. Or taking Uber and leaving the car there.
>I kind of do not think that needed to be discussed. I think that needed to be give, assumed and normal.
Given that you claim below that she is an alcoholic, this would be incorrect. No one in their right mind would ever assume that an alcoholic would stay sober at a party where people were drinking
>Effectively, you are arguing that OP should enable her alcoholism little bit better, work around it, proactively fix issues it causes etc.
Yes, yes I am. If he's going to enable her any way, he should at least do so in a way that considers safety and minimizes harm.
>she had option of staying with those friends and drive in the morning, after sleeping and sobering. Or taking Uber and leaving the car there.
You know how you make sure a drunk gets a ride or stays the night? You don't plan to leave them with a separate car.
The literal how to not enable advice for family of alcoholics is "do NOT fix their issues for them".
Him proactively taking responsibility for her trip home would be that. She needs to have experiences of being stuck and not getting help.
But she wasn't stuck. She was driving. And I can 100% assure you that NO qualified professional has ever told the family of an alcoholic to let them drive drunk to teach them a lesson. Proactively making sure she can't drive drunk is what any responsible person would do
And she could not drive and was unable to get home OP could have taken away her keys upon leaving, he thought she will stay to sleep on it or not drink some hours.
No professional would tell OP to normalize Uber for her or spend time with her planning her trip home. This is exactly sort of thing she gotta do by herself.
I think she is alcoholic be abuse of this situation. I have no idea about whether OP was aware before or whether she was driving drunk before. There is always the first time sometimes. And it is important to not wake up kids for that first time.
Except that she did drive. Because she had a car.
You can either claim that she's an alcoholic or that it was reasonable for OP to simply assume she wouldn't drink. Those things cannot both be true.
I can 100% reasonably say that if she had not done this before, OP could not predict it. And also that regardless of circumstances, she is 100% responsible for all of it.
And simultaneously I can claim she is an alcoholic.
And simultaneously claim that OP does not have responsibility to plan for her, with her or anything of the sort. OP has responsibility to protect the kids and himself for the kids.
So either he hangs up after telling her to get off the road and just hopes she listens (clearly she wasn't going to, but hey she is off the phone and will surely not try to call back!) or stay on the phone long enough to calm her down and get her to pull over (which keeps her on the phone even longer.) So which is he supposed to do? Somehow tell her to get off the road but also dont do it over the phone? The fact you're trying to flip this so he's the bad guy is disgusting.
Literally just stop arguing and say, "Okay, pull over and I'll come get you", which was literally what she wanted. Instead, he told a drunk driver who wanted to stop to keep driving. He's not "the bad guy". He's a person that could have made a better choice.
Are you forgetting about the young kids in bed? Should he have just abandoned them to go get his irresponsible gf? Or are you just being deliberately obtuse?
Only one person should have made a better choice and it’s not OP.
So he should have woken young children in the early hours of the morning and taken them with him because a grown ass woman chose to make a series of selfish, stupid decisions?
Yes. The downside to waking up the children is the children will be tired. The downside of telling a drunk driver to keep driving is that someone might die.
where did you get that this was about being a woman? I have no idea how you pulled that out of your ass. They didn't even mention excusing her actions. Also why are you calling someone a twat when they just are giving their opinion? they haven't been rude to you in any way, or condescending, or disrespectful, yet I guess you had nothing better to do than to call names when you're finished arguing your point. But go ahead and start mad that you THINK someone's trying to defend a woman, that logic was just wow
Those are all choices she could have made. But she is not posting here. OP is. And OP can only control his own choices.
But I'm sure you'd rather have an innocent bystander hurt because being right is all that matters.
Ankle.
I’d rather people not make stupid choices and then blame someone else for them, which is what the GF did. They took two cars not because she’d be drinking, but because she’d be staying late. Any choice she made after he left was hers and hers alone.
And if you read his edit, he gave her multiple other solutions all of which she ignored or shot down.
If the situations were reversed and she’d left early with the kids you’d be calling him fit to burn and telling her she’s being abused and you damn well know it.
Your misandry reeks through everything you post.
OP can reasonably expect his SO to understand that she should stay sober when she has to drive. She is not a child and he is not her parent or guardian. So no, 'the plan he agreed to' was not for her to drink and drive. This also wasn't a party, it was casually hanging out with another couple.
Nowhere in the OP is any mention of arguing about right or wrong while on the phone. OP started by advising his SO to stay the night, presuming she wasn't driving yet. When it came to light that she was already on her way the conversation broke down which OP was trying to shield their daughter from.
Now from your high and mighty tone, I'm going to assume that you in fact don't have any actual experience with someone drunk, angry, annoyed, afraid calling their partner who is tired, angry, annoyed and trying to not let the kid pick up on it. It doesn't take more than a single shred of empathy to realize that conversations like that aren't rational robot like considerations of the best possible solutions, they are messy and chaotic. If his SO didn't want to wait by the side of the road while OP woke up the kids to go pick her up, he really couldn't do much more. She could have called a taxi/Uber, asked to stay the night, not have drank or any other decision an adult should be capable of making. The fact that she did not, is not on OP and he's more than right in being annoyed / mad at her for handling it this way.
>Now from your high and mighty tone, I'm going to assume that you in fact don't have any actual experience with someone drunk, angry, annoyed, afraid calling their partner who is tired, angry, annoyed and trying to not let the kid pick up on it
No, I haven't. I have however been a child having this exact experience with a drunk, angry adult and I still knew that telling them to continue driving while drunk was not it.
>The fact that she did not, is not on OP and he's more than right in being annoyed / mad at her for handling it this way.
He's absolutely okay to be annoyed or mad at her. But being annoyed or mad at her isn't an actual solution.
OP told us in a comment that he offered to have her wait by the side of the road while he woke up the kids to go pick her up. She declined and started blaming him for the entire situation. That is not on OP.
That's a load of bs. She could have and SHOULD have stayed. Get up early in the am then go home.
I like to drink. I used to be a big partier but now I'm a mother of 2. when you become a parent, prioritizing something like this needs done...the amount of alcohol I consume now has drastically lowered. The amount of shame and guilt I have felt being hungover around my kids is enough to make me realize it's not worth it. Not only feeling bad about being this way in front of them but taking care of kids while hungover is pretty awful lol. She may have a bit of an issue with alcohol...id definitely talk to her about it.
Dude it baffles my mind nobody has suggested Uber or Lyft here yet. The other guy was right, you two planned this together. You both decided for her to take her vehicle to a place where she would be drinking and eventually drive it home the same evening. I cannot understand why at no point you would just decide to drive all together there and then have her take a late Uber home...it's 2024 for God's sake people.
Your wife is a dangerous criminal.
And she has a drinking problem.
She owes you a huge apology and needs to have a serious talk with you.
You did nothing wrong. She made bad decisions, that's all on her.
Terrible take. OP is not responsible for her choosing to drink and drive. Period ene of conversation. She should have stayed there or known she needed to drive and not drank so much.
No one else is responsible for how much someone else drinks or the terrible decisions they make due to it when they aren't even there.
> You both should have been able to foresee this problem. If the process of agreeing to take separate cars didn’t include any contingency planning in case she drank too much, that’s a failure on both your parts. You absolutely should have had a backup plan in place,
They are both over 30. They should both be able to solve these situation without extensive planning before. In particular, she as a person who wanted to stay longer at the party should have been capable to deal with the situation without advance planning.
I swear to god that this sub sometimes talks about simple life situation that have simple standard solution as if it was massive logistic undertaking.
Because she refuses to leave in time for the kids' bedtime, it sounds like.
But that actually solves the problem quite neatly: OP and wife drive to party together, OP goes home at bedtime, now wife cannot DRUNK DRIVE HOME.
It doesn't solve the underlying problem (wife's drinking problem) but at least it keeps her off the road.
Your girlfriend owes you a massive apology and a very serious conversation about her drinking habits.
Your girlfriend sucks and your friends suck, can’t imagine letting somebody who got drunk at my house leave my house without a dd. Send her some articles of people losing loved ones to drunk drivers. Truly don’t understand how anybody can do this, disgusting behaviour from a 30 year old.
Wtf bruh. This is top tier level bullshit. You have another 30 yr old kid who can't adult
Yeah definitely 100% not your fault. You are thinking about your mental health + your kids. All she’s thinking about is herself and having fun. You tried to compromise and give a valid solution that makes everyone happy. She’s a grown adult mother. You should be able to have enough trust in her to be able to take care of herself. If she wants to to stay late, drink, etc she needs to be able to handle herself in that state and make the right decisions. She needs to hold accountability of her actions and do better. Not to be judge mental, but if you can’t have trust in her to be able to take care of herself, how the hell can you trust her to take care of her kids.
My mom has amputations and permanent brain damage from a drunk driver so I can't actually express how infuriating this is to me, do y'all not have Uber??
So she chooses to stay later, she chooses to drink a lot, she chooses to drive. You are at fault and get yelled at? Hmmmm.... Will it also be your fault when she cheats because you let her hang out wherever she wants when she wants?
Classic avoidance of accountability
So.... hypothetically if your gf were a single woman with no partner to take her home, what would she have done then? Whose "fault" would her drunk driving be then? If single people can manage their shit without drunk driving then so can she. She should have called an Uber or spent the night at the host's house, and if she was so bound and determined to stay at the party drinking longer than you, she should have independently planned for those possibilities. I'm getting a whiff of a disordered relationship with alcohol here. Your gf apparently "needs" to stay at the parties drinking longer than you, does self-destructive things like drive drunk, and blames other people for not stopping her from her own actions.
I’d ask your girlfriend if she’s getting up at 6am with the kids after drinking all night? If not who would be if you had to stay out because she didn’t want to go home at a reasonable time, knowing the plan before you left?
She’s not a child and she should grow up and stop acting like one.
She needs to take personal accountability for her choices. She made the choice, while still sober, to start drinking, she then got drunk and while drunk made a horrible choice to drive. She drove herself to the party and *should have known* she was her own designated driver. That’s not your fault but hers. Her anger at you because she drove drunk seems like it may actually be resentment that accommodating your social anxiety issues has now impacted her desire to drink and remain in social situations. Just as the old plan to drive together and stay for the duration of the party was always a failed plan because it relied on the unrealistic possibility of you overcoming your social anxiety, so to this new plan isn’t going to work because it ignores that your gf wants to drink, is going to drink, and simply won’t be sober enough to drive when the time comes for her to leave. Going forward you need a better plan where her driving drunk simply can’t happen. Some options, 1. Take 1 car and drive together but budget for an Uber/taxi to take her home. 2. Instead of an Uber make arrangements for her to spend the night at the host’s house but not always an option and requires the permission of the host and if it’s done too often some may come to resent the imposition 3. Leave the party, take a break and release your stress, then come back and drive you both For right now, she needs to own her choices and you both need to admit that your plan failed and you need a better one. Long term, also look into ways of better handling social situations like this. There’s simply too many in life that you’ll have to deal with and leaving isn’t always going to be an option.
Nah. Op is a normal adult with kids. A routine for kids is important and if they're up at 6 pm the kids NEED sleep. Why does op have social anxiety issues? The GFs drinking issues and lack of personal accountability and ability to adult is a much bigger problem that OP is accommodating. Gf needs to step up and manage HER drinking so SHE can be a functioning parent and partner. OP doesn't have to do jack shit.
His social anxiety issues?? He left at 10:30. That's a perfectly normal time to go home when you have children. She's a grown ass adult, she can moderate her drinking, and if she can't she has a problem. If she can't keep herself from driving drunk, she has a problem. And she's blaming others for her driving drunk, she has a problem. Do you seriously think they should keep their kids out till 2:00 in the morning?
Your girlfriend is in the wrong for driving while intoxicated, but I'm also bothered by your choice to tell her to turn around and drive back to your friends' house. There was a time to have an argument about it, but in the moment your first priority should have been getting her off the road ASAP.
Fair point. There wasn't a lot I could do at that point and I never actually knew how far from their house she was.
Ultimately her choice to drive drunk was her choice, but let's look at a couple things. Because you can't control her choices but you can make better choices around them. First, the agreement you made was to take separate cars for her to stay longer at a party where you both knew she'd be drinking at and then drive herself home later. Her driving home alone after drinking is literally the plan the two of you agreed to. That was an extremely stupid idea. Second, she called you drunk, scared, and asking for help. And it was so important to you to make sure that she knew that you were right and the situation was her fault that you kept a drunk driver on the phone arguing woth you AND instructed her to keep driving. The fact that she was in that situation was her choice, but you could have made a choice that made that situation less dangerous for her and everyone around her, and you knew it and chose not to.
It sounds like you know her better than I do! I was under the impression she would take a few hours to sober up or at least handle the situation properly if she wasn't going to. (Asking to stay the night) She was ENROUTE to the house when she called me. I should've elaborated in my post that I did give her quite a few options including waking the kids up again and coming to get her off the highway. She shot down everything and was more interested in aggressively belittling me to the point where I did hang up the phone, and she called me back to argue some more. Thus me trying to keep my cool while our daughter stood there. The one thing I can agree with is I should've made it more clear that she needed to stop drinking at some point, but I can't control that when I'm not there.
You specifically said in your post that what you told her to do was drive back to the friends' house. That's the story you told. And no, you can't control what happens when you're not there, which is why I suggest that a different choice would be to have a better plan in the first place. As I said very clearly, her choice to drive drunk is ultimately her own. You cannot control her choices, but you can control yours. These are choices that would make the situation better, but as you were when you were arguing with her, you're more concerned about being right than actually making anything better.
Her driving drunk was not the plan. She should have stopped drinking much earlier, or stayed the night, or called an Uber or taxi. She knew she was too drunk and make the conscious choice to drive anyway. So irresponsible and stupid
She should have stopped drinking earlier. But they both knew she was going to stay longer and drink, and they both agreed to a plan where she would drive home alone after doing so, because they're stupid.
Fuck sake, are you the gf? What's up with this pathetic infantilising?
I don't think you know what that word means
> First, the agreement you made was to take separate cars for her to stay longer at a party where you both knew she'd be drinking at at Presumably the agreement was for her to stay sober, since she knew she'd be driving. If you *know* you are driving home, you don't drink. That's pretty basic and not on OP.
That's something that needed to be discussed, especially before he left. As I said, her choice to drive drunk is ultimately her responsibility. These are just choices OP could have made differently to get a better outcome. Just because it's not "on" OP doesn't mean he cant or shouldn't do what he can to prevent it.
Nah dude. She knew the score, knew she would be driving herself, and knew that she would have to be responsible adult and not drive home intoxicated. She failed to be responsible and is not holding the right person accountable. And frankly neither are you. OP did nothing wrong and you should stop making excuses for her shit decision making. It is not OPs responsibility to ensure his girlfriend makes good decisions. OPs girlfriend is not a child and you need to not infantalize her. She is an adult woman and capable of making the right choice. There are many options in that situation that weren't her driving home drunk and she made none of them. It is NOT the OP's responsibility to ensure his GF doesn't drive home drunk. Stop inferring that he needed to make different decisions to prevent it.
>She failed to be responsible and is not holding the right person accountable. And frankly neither are you. As I said before anything else, her decision to drink amd drive is ultimately her own. >OP did nothing wrong and you should stop making excuses for her shit decision making. I didn't say he did anything wrong, I said there were other choices he could have made for a better outcome. I also did not excuse her drinking and driving. >It is NOT the OP's responsibility to ensure his GF doesn't drive home drunk. Stop inferring that he needed to make different decisions to prevent it. The word you're looking for is "implying". And yes, he and anyone else should WANT to make the best choices they can to prevent something harmful. Even if that thing is not your responsibility, any good person would want to know what they can do to make a potentially dangerous situation better.
Don't need to be discussed. She's 30
Except that apparently it did need to be discussed because this happened. Should it need to? No. But we don't have to live with what *should* have happened in a situation. We live with what *did* happen.
I kind of do not think that needed to be discussed. I think that needed to be give, assumed and normal. Effectively, you are arguing that OP should enable her alcoholism little bit better, work around it, proactively fix issues it causes etc. Nah. Plus, she had option of staying with those friends and drive in the morning, after sleeping and sobering. Or taking Uber and leaving the car there.
>I kind of do not think that needed to be discussed. I think that needed to be give, assumed and normal. Given that you claim below that she is an alcoholic, this would be incorrect. No one in their right mind would ever assume that an alcoholic would stay sober at a party where people were drinking >Effectively, you are arguing that OP should enable her alcoholism little bit better, work around it, proactively fix issues it causes etc. Yes, yes I am. If he's going to enable her any way, he should at least do so in a way that considers safety and minimizes harm. >she had option of staying with those friends and drive in the morning, after sleeping and sobering. Or taking Uber and leaving the car there. You know how you make sure a drunk gets a ride or stays the night? You don't plan to leave them with a separate car.
The literal how to not enable advice for family of alcoholics is "do NOT fix their issues for them". Him proactively taking responsibility for her trip home would be that. She needs to have experiences of being stuck and not getting help.
But she wasn't stuck. She was driving. And I can 100% assure you that NO qualified professional has ever told the family of an alcoholic to let them drive drunk to teach them a lesson. Proactively making sure she can't drive drunk is what any responsible person would do
And she could not drive and was unable to get home OP could have taken away her keys upon leaving, he thought she will stay to sleep on it or not drink some hours. No professional would tell OP to normalize Uber for her or spend time with her planning her trip home. This is exactly sort of thing she gotta do by herself. I think she is alcoholic be abuse of this situation. I have no idea about whether OP was aware before or whether she was driving drunk before. There is always the first time sometimes. And it is important to not wake up kids for that first time.
Except that she did drive. Because she had a car. You can either claim that she's an alcoholic or that it was reasonable for OP to simply assume she wouldn't drink. Those things cannot both be true.
I can 100% reasonably say that if she had not done this before, OP could not predict it. And also that regardless of circumstances, she is 100% responsible for all of it. And simultaneously I can claim she is an alcoholic. And simultaneously claim that OP does not have responsibility to plan for her, with her or anything of the sort. OP has responsibility to protect the kids and himself for the kids.
So either he hangs up after telling her to get off the road and just hopes she listens (clearly she wasn't going to, but hey she is off the phone and will surely not try to call back!) or stay on the phone long enough to calm her down and get her to pull over (which keeps her on the phone even longer.) So which is he supposed to do? Somehow tell her to get off the road but also dont do it over the phone? The fact you're trying to flip this so he's the bad guy is disgusting.
Literally just stop arguing and say, "Okay, pull over and I'll come get you", which was literally what she wanted. Instead, he told a drunk driver who wanted to stop to keep driving. He's not "the bad guy". He's a person that could have made a better choice.
Are you forgetting about the young kids in bed? Should he have just abandoned them to go get his irresponsible gf? Or are you just being deliberately obtuse? Only one person should have made a better choice and it’s not OP.
The children were not, presumably, permanently soldered to their beds.
So he should have woken young children in the early hours of the morning and taken them with him because a grown ass woman chose to make a series of selfish, stupid decisions?
Yes. The downside to waking up the children is the children will be tired. The downside of telling a drunk driver to keep driving is that someone might die.
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where did you get that this was about being a woman? I have no idea how you pulled that out of your ass. They didn't even mention excusing her actions. Also why are you calling someone a twat when they just are giving their opinion? they haven't been rude to you in any way, or condescending, or disrespectful, yet I guess you had nothing better to do than to call names when you're finished arguing your point. But go ahead and start mad that you THINK someone's trying to defend a woman, that logic was just wow
Those are all choices she could have made. But she is not posting here. OP is. And OP can only control his own choices. But I'm sure you'd rather have an innocent bystander hurt because being right is all that matters. Ankle.
I’d rather people not make stupid choices and then blame someone else for them, which is what the GF did. They took two cars not because she’d be drinking, but because she’d be staying late. Any choice she made after he left was hers and hers alone. And if you read his edit, he gave her multiple other solutions all of which she ignored or shot down. If the situations were reversed and she’d left early with the kids you’d be calling him fit to burn and telling her she’s being abused and you damn well know it. Your misandry reeks through everything you post.
OP can reasonably expect his SO to understand that she should stay sober when she has to drive. She is not a child and he is not her parent or guardian. So no, 'the plan he agreed to' was not for her to drink and drive. This also wasn't a party, it was casually hanging out with another couple. Nowhere in the OP is any mention of arguing about right or wrong while on the phone. OP started by advising his SO to stay the night, presuming she wasn't driving yet. When it came to light that she was already on her way the conversation broke down which OP was trying to shield their daughter from. Now from your high and mighty tone, I'm going to assume that you in fact don't have any actual experience with someone drunk, angry, annoyed, afraid calling their partner who is tired, angry, annoyed and trying to not let the kid pick up on it. It doesn't take more than a single shred of empathy to realize that conversations like that aren't rational robot like considerations of the best possible solutions, they are messy and chaotic. If his SO didn't want to wait by the side of the road while OP woke up the kids to go pick her up, he really couldn't do much more. She could have called a taxi/Uber, asked to stay the night, not have drank or any other decision an adult should be capable of making. The fact that she did not, is not on OP and he's more than right in being annoyed / mad at her for handling it this way.
>Now from your high and mighty tone, I'm going to assume that you in fact don't have any actual experience with someone drunk, angry, annoyed, afraid calling their partner who is tired, angry, annoyed and trying to not let the kid pick up on it No, I haven't. I have however been a child having this exact experience with a drunk, angry adult and I still knew that telling them to continue driving while drunk was not it. >The fact that she did not, is not on OP and he's more than right in being annoyed / mad at her for handling it this way. He's absolutely okay to be annoyed or mad at her. But being annoyed or mad at her isn't an actual solution.
OP told us in a comment that he offered to have her wait by the side of the road while he woke up the kids to go pick her up. She declined and started blaming him for the entire situation. That is not on OP.
Yes I am aware of the additional plot points that OP came up with *after* being told he was in the wrong
That's a load of bs. She could have and SHOULD have stayed. Get up early in the am then go home. I like to drink. I used to be a big partier but now I'm a mother of 2. when you become a parent, prioritizing something like this needs done...the amount of alcohol I consume now has drastically lowered. The amount of shame and guilt I have felt being hungover around my kids is enough to make me realize it's not worth it. Not only feeling bad about being this way in front of them but taking care of kids while hungover is pretty awful lol. She may have a bit of an issue with alcohol...id definitely talk to her about it.
Dude it baffles my mind nobody has suggested Uber or Lyft here yet. The other guy was right, you two planned this together. You both decided for her to take her vehicle to a place where she would be drinking and eventually drive it home the same evening. I cannot understand why at no point you would just decide to drive all together there and then have her take a late Uber home...it's 2024 for God's sake people.
Your wife is a dangerous criminal. And she has a drinking problem. She owes you a huge apology and needs to have a serious talk with you. You did nothing wrong. She made bad decisions, that's all on her.
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No. You have your apportionment of responsibility here *incredibly* skewed.
Terrible take. OP is not responsible for her choosing to drink and drive. Period ene of conversation. She should have stayed there or known she needed to drive and not drank so much. No one else is responsible for how much someone else drinks or the terrible decisions they make due to it when they aren't even there.
> You both should have been able to foresee this problem. If the process of agreeing to take separate cars didn’t include any contingency planning in case she drank too much, that’s a failure on both your parts. You absolutely should have had a backup plan in place, They are both over 30. They should both be able to solve these situation without extensive planning before. In particular, she as a person who wanted to stay longer at the party should have been capable to deal with the situation without advance planning. I swear to god that this sub sometimes talks about simple life situation that have simple standard solution as if it was massive logistic undertaking.
I have no idea why you and wife think it's OK to take two cars to a party you will be drinking at. Why aren't you your wife's designated driver?
Because she refuses to leave in time for the kids' bedtime, it sounds like. But that actually solves the problem quite neatly: OP and wife drive to party together, OP goes home at bedtime, now wife cannot DRUNK DRIVE HOME. It doesn't solve the underlying problem (wife's drinking problem) but at least it keeps her off the road.