Wife Goes Silent on Work Travel

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You know what hotel she is in. Next time she is texting that she is back in the room but refusing to talk, call the hotel and ask for DW's room. They will ring it. If she asks why, tell her you wanted to hear her voice and you knew she wouldn't answer the cell.

Oooooh, that's a good one.

Just be prepared for the lump in your throat and emotions that will come hurtling out when she doesn’t answer. And, rest assured, she won’t answer.

[Anonymous]

I’ve heard a lot of excuses, but these (thin walls, blah, blah, blah) are so lame.

[Anonymous]

It doesn't matter whether OP's wife's level of contact is the industry standard. What matters is that the person she's married to, OP, needs more contact to feel happy and connected, and she is (a) denying him that very simple thing; and (b) appearing to BS about it.

I like getting an email every morning when my SO is on travel. It doesn't matter that he's planning to call later in the morning; I like waking up to an email. He was in that habit for a long time, then fell out of it and started just calling. I told him "I really loved waking up to your long morning emails when we're in different time zones. That made me so happy. Would you start doing that again?" And he did. And he was really happy I'd told him a way to make me happy, and meant it, and was grateful.

People give their loved ones the kind of love they want and need. If you like back rubs it doesn't matter if the Official Relationship Manual says no one is entitled to a back rub. If you ask your partner for the back rub because it makes you happy, and they *want* to make you happy, they give back rubs.

OP wants phone contact. There doesn't seem to be any indication that OP's wife couldn't figure out a way to be in contact every so often. She just won't give it. Whether we have a basic human right to a phone call isn't the thing. Good partners want to make their partners happy, and that should go double for when you've left your partner alone with the kids for an extended time period.

[Anonymous]

Good partners want to feel that their spouse is competent and can manage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You know what hotel she is in. Next time she is texting that she is back in the room but refusing to talk, call the hotel and ask for DW's room. They will ring it. If she asks why, tell her you wanted to hear her voice and you knew she wouldn't answer the cell.

Oooooh, that's a good one.

Just be prepared for the lump in your throat and emotions that will come hurtling out when she doesn’t answer. And, rest assured, she won’t answer.

Ohh, she'll answer. She just won't think it's him calling. She'll think it's the hotel announcing a water outage/something or she'll think it's their travel person with updates.

How she responds will tell all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good partners want to feel that their spouse is competent and can manage

Manage to ignore their cheating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter whether OP's wife's level of contact is the industry standard. What matters is that the person she's married to, OP, needs more contact to feel happy and connected, and she is (a) denying him that very simple thing; and (b) appearing to BS about it.

I like getting an email every morning when my SO is on travel. It doesn't matter that he's planning to call later in the morning; I like waking up to an email. He was in that habit for a long time, then fell out of it and started just calling. I told him "I really loved waking up to your long morning emails when we're in different time zones. That made me so happy. Would you start doing that again?" And he did. And he was really happy I'd told him a way to make me happy, and meant it, and was grateful.

People give their loved ones the kind of love they want and need. If you like back rubs it doesn't matter if the Official Relationship Manual says no one is entitled to a back rub. If you ask your partner for the back rub because it makes you happy, and they *want* to make you happy, they give back rubs.

OP wants phone contact. There doesn't seem to be any indication that OP's wife couldn't figure out a way to be in contact every so often. She just won't give it. Whether we have a basic human right to a phone call isn't the thing. Good partners want to make their partners happy, and that should go double for when you've left your partner alone with the kids for an extended time period.

You managed to put everything down I've been thinking about this situation in one post!!! +1000

[Anonymous]

Sure but - again, the way for OP to deal with this is to speak to his wife like a grown-up, telling her what is bothering him and being prepared for a difficult conversation.

The wrong way to deal with it is to ignore it, or spy on her, or just go into a passive aggressive sulk, or ditch her.

Grown ups try to talk to each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure but - again, the way for OP to deal with this is to speak to his wife like a grown-up, telling her what is bothering him and being prepared for a difficult conversation.

The wrong way to deal with it is to ignore it, or spy on her, or just go into a passive aggressive sulk, or ditch her.

Grown ups try to talk to each other.

The thing is, his wife is NOT being a grown up, his wife is very possibly lying and will continue to lie if given the opportunity. He has asked for more talk time, she has essentially refused. I don't think ignoring it, passive aggression, or ditching is the way to go, but getting more info before really confronting (if he thinks there is something else going on) is smart.

[Anonymous]

Let us know how the deplaning goes, OP.

[Anonymous]

So, you have a wife who thinks she's some secret-agent. And a husband who discusses her on the internet. My guess is she thinks her career position is way more important than it really is, but she also has some reason not to share much with blabber-mouth husband.

[Anonymous]

I don't want this to fall off the front page and have it get forgotten. OP, we are very invested in finding out what is going on.

[Anonymous]

Ah DCUM never fails with the hypocrisy. If this was a DW complaining about a DH you'd be telling her what a selfish jerk he was. Instead, you've offered a million excuses for and accused OP of being needy and incapable of managing without her. Ok.

[Anonymous]

OP, how are you?

[Anonymous]

She’ll call you weird, crazy, paranoid, and lots of other things. Pay attention as to whether there’s an outright denial or not. Just stick to the facts about her odd unavailability. The fact is, though, that you’ll never know whether she cheated or not.