I'm curious how other people feel about this since I had an experience recently that brought this issue up for me.

So my wife went out with a friend at 7 to catch up and grab ice cream. I had no issue with this. I've known this person since high school and she's great. My issue is not with who she hung out with at all.

My issue was that she never checked in to give an update on when she was likely going to be home. We've been married for almost 22 years and we have a pretty normal routine of how we do things and when we go to bed and stuff so when we deviate from that it is noticeable.

We both openly share our locations so that we can see where the other is without having to text or call. Sometimes this is convenient so that we can meet up easily when we are out of whatever. Neither one of us has an issue with this. I knew exactly where she was the whole time if I wanted to look.

My issue is that I wanted an update on when she was going to be home without having to bug her during her night out. We needed to be up by 6:30 the next morning to be somewhere and she knew that. She stayed out until almost 12:45 (and of course I can't just go to sleep when my wife is out and I'm waiting and wondering when she'll be home).

So, my question here is really this:

Is it unreasonable for me to expect an update here or there when the hang out goes beyond a normal time? Like, by 11 should she have checked in? Would I be overstepping to have reached out and interrupted her evening by asking when she'll be home? She is an adult and I don't need her to check in every hour or anything but it seemed like she should have checked in when the evening got close to midnight and she hadn't started to come home.

I'm not crazy mad about this or anything. I'm just curious where other people lie on the issue.

I definitely would of been pretty annoyed if I was in your shoes not like enough to say something and cause issues but yeah I think it's fair to expect an update at some point when you know you have to get up early.

She definitely should have checked in. It wasn't planned to stay out for so long, and when plans change even if unexpectedly giving an update hurts nobody.

The fact you both had something to do early in the day after further calls for a check in. I mean, even without that and if you and her would wake up at different times, you need to state when you'll miss usual routines like being home for dinner or just in time to go to sleep or things like that. But if you both are going to do something together, she being late affects the whole plan and thus needs to be noted.

I don't think you would have overstepped by reaching out. As I said before, it wasn't planned to drag this long, so there's no wrong move in asking if she'll be home as planned or expected. I highly doubt she or her friend would have thought bad of this since both know you and your marriage all too well.

Speaking for myself, I'm super prone to time blindness. If I was out with an old friend and enjoying myself, it wouldn't have been hard for that much time to just disappear on me haha. That said, my wife reaches out all the time to get updates and check in if I'm out longer than she expected, and that just feels normal to me. I think a quick "Hope it's going well, should I wait up?" question would be a good way to get the info for yourself without coming across as overbearing/annoying/etc. Puts the focus on the way her being out late changes your plans, rather than putting her on the spot or disrupting the flow of her time out.

That said, I also don't think it's unreasonable to want her to reach out on her own either. Just would make sure that's a conversation ahead of time, rather than one that happens retroactively.

With the added context of you explicitly waiting for her, and her likely realizing this since you mention that you two typically follow a routine, I agree that a simple check-in from her without initiating is not an unreasonable expectation to have. However it is very easy for things like that to slip someone's mind, especially if late-night events are out of the ordinary for her, so I would simply assume she just forgot and would have texted asking if things are okay. I guess the question then is mostly how to frame this request for an update, without making them feel like you're being impatient and are rushing them (assuming that was the intent). I think merf's framing would have been perfect for that.

Speaking a bit more personally, I am a horrible judge of "how much time do I have left until xyz?", and I can be late sometimes too, so I do give people I'm waiting on about ~15-20 minutes of leeway from a scheduled time, since I won't hold anyone to a standard that I can't consistently hold myself to. After that time period though I will absolutely reach out, simply just asking for an update of some kind. This is something that I typically let people know of ahead of time though, and my usual friends have come to expect that sometimes I can be late, but in turn I don't really care if you're late as long as we're in communication.

I'm glad other don't think my reaction was unwarranted.

I probably should have reached out with a quick message around 11 or 12 just to make sure things were okay and figure out when to expect her home.

I didn't want to be the kind of guy that has to reach out and know where my wife is all hours of the day. It's silly but I've made an effort not to be that guy. I trust that my wife isn't doing anything that would be a betrayal to me. That's never been an issue for us.

Anyway, I'm just glad others do agree that I wasn't unreasonable in my response to not hearing from her for 6 hours.