My [M41] wife [F40] wants to reserve her right to stay over at male friends’ houses

My wife and I have been married for 18 months, together for seven years. She’s a party animal. She never says no to going out and will almost always be the last to leave when she is. I’ve never met anyone who likes being out as much as she does. She’s always been like it, I knew this and accepted it, even though it can get irritating being woken up at 0145 a couple of times a week. A couple of months ago she was out till 0100 four nights in a row. Our alarm is set for 0600.

Almost all of her socialising is with work colleagues and occurs during the working week. She drinks but rarely gets drunk. She just loves being out. I rarely mix with her and her friends. I have my own friendship network and will usually be out once or twice a week myself. We don’t have any children and aren’t planning to have them. I’d say our relationship is pretty strong. We have regular sex. We enjoy each other’s company. All is good.

Until a couple of weeks ago she always came home. I woke up about 0130 on a Friday morning aware she wasn’t home and found she’d messaged me to tell me she’d missed her train and that she’d got a hotel. I didn’t really think anything of it, except that she was only about 30 mins from home in an Uber. She doesn’t drive though so doesn’t really know driving travel times.

A week ago it happened again. I woke up in the early hours aware she wasn’t home but this time found a message on my phone saying she was going to sleep on the floor of a male friend’s bedroom. In the same town she got the hotel in the previous week or so. This guy, I’ll call him Joe, is a new friend. Three months ago I’d never heard of him. He’s 24.

I think it’s only natural to raise an eyebrow at this. I told her I wasn’t happy and that I thought she should have got an Uber. She says Joe is just a friend and that she’s disappointed I don’t trust her and questioned her judgement. She also says it’s clear that I don’t think it’s possible for people to be just friends and now doesn’t trust me if I did the same thing with a female friend. I said I wasn’t asking her not to see Joe, I just wanted her home at the end of the night. She’s taken this to be a direct challenge to her right to pick who her friends are. She said I wouldn’t have cared if it had been one of her girlfriends and that’s true, I wouldn’t. She’s not budging and thinks she’s done nothing wrong. She says I simply don’t trust her. I think she’s right. I’m never going to be content with her staying with Joe.

It’s starting to feel like a big enough issue to split us up. How do I learn to accept this? I can already feel myself withdrawing from her and I’m finding it difficult to be normal with her, which of course she’s noticed and is upset about. To her this about defending her freedom. She’ll never compromise.