Should I panic if wife didn’t come home?

My wife (31F) and I (34F) have been married for just over 5 years. In that time we’ve had two kids. The older is 4 and the younger is 10 months. Over the last few months she’s developed a friendship with a girl who was a customer at an old job and they’ve been hanging out more than I’d like. I don’t socialize much, so I’ve tried to be understanding of her need to hang out with other people while also managing my own anxiety about her being gone so much.

When I say too much I mean seeing this girl most days of the week and going out with her for long stretches probably 2-3x per week. I suggested visiting her on her lunch hour since I work from home and can watch the baby for an hour or two. But she will also go out with her after work, meeting up at 3 or 4, and then stay out until 9-midnight. We’ve gotten into arguments about it and I’ve let her know I don’t appreciate being the sole caregiver so often when she doesn’t actually need to be gone. I thought we’d come to an agreement late last week that she’d have a night a week to go out and see this friend, but we agreed on Sunday night since Monday is a holiday, but she ended up seeing her for 4-5 hours on Saturday as well.

Yesterday (Sunday) she worked from the morning until 3ish. She let me know she was off and was going to run an errand. I went to dinner at my parents house and sent her a text that she replied to around 5:30 where she confirmed she was already out. I brought the kids home, got them to bed, and went to bed myself. I assumed she’d be home late, like maybe midnight or one, but I woke up at 2:30 and she still wasn’t home. The baby woke me up again at 4:30 and she still hadn’t shown up. When I got up at 6:30 she wasn’t back and when I called her it went straight to voicemail twice.

Now I understand that her phone likely died. And I know she may have fallen asleep and not woken up because an alarm didn’t go off because the phone was dead. But I didn’t get any communication from her past 5:45 and she has a cord in her car to charge her phone. At what point should I start thinking she might be hurt? The kids will be waking up soon and the big one will ask where she is. I don’t know where this friend lives or have her phone number. I don’t even have her full name. And my wife used to share her phone location but stopped a few months ago. Not that I could see it if it’s dead but still, it would’ve shown me her last location.

I don’t know. Anyone I’ve told about this has said it sounds like infidelity, and as I typed this out I was having a hard time wording things to not just blatantly suggest that. But are there other options? Could it just be my wife has a really hard time with boundaries and isn’t being respectful of me and our family? Could she be doing something else harmful? Could she have gotten in an accident? I don’t know… I’ve debated posting on here for weeks but this morning it’s just too much.

I’m not sure why I can’t scroll up in the app to edit the beginning of this post to say that in the past when they’ve hung out and she hasn’t been home till the middle of the night they’ve been drinking, which adds to my worry. Any insight or advice is really appreciated. We have our own issues within our relationship, but being out overnight without letting me know is not something she’s ever done before, and I don’t know if I’m being overly worried or not.

Edit: since a lot of people missed the opening line amidst everything else, we’re two women!

Second edit: it’s currently 8:30 here and she’s not home yet. So she’s only been out of the house for 24 hours, some of which were work. I may wait till noon to report her missing, but I don’t feel totally great about that.

Update: she is home and safe. I won’t go into super detailed details, but I think we are (yet again) working on things. I’m expecting some major changes on her part or I will have to call it quits. Hopefully I’m not on here posting again anytime soon…