DH Radio Silent On Work Travel

[Anonymous]

This was my husband. Travels regularly, mostly to the UK in the last few years. Lots of drinking at pubs, which I understood. He would call me regularly to tell me he missed me, until about a year ago. Same thing, late nights, only the occasional text and not responding to mine for hours. Found out a few months ago that he's been having an emotional (mostly, some kissing) affair for the past year with a UK work colleague. The change in behavior was what made me suspicious.

NP; I’m sorry PP. How did you learn this, and how did you handle it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH travels to Edinburgh for work travel about 5 days every two months. Flight out on Sunday, meetings M-W, and home Thursday night. About a month ago the people on the contract changed a bit. I've not met them. Since that point, he no longer calls before bed. In the past 4 years of doing this, he'd always call at 6ish before he turned off. That stopped.

The last two days (he is gone now) he has just gone silent and texted in the morning that he 'got caught up' at the pub. When presed by me tonight to respond (my mother is undergoing various serious health appointments and one kid is mid applications to college) he replied that he just had not looked at his phone. While at a pub. For 5 hours.

I genuinely don't think he's with another woman, but am I wrong to be .... irate... at this level of checking out?

This was my husband. Travels regularly, mostly to the UK in the last few years. Lots of drinking at pubs, which I understood. He would call me regularly to tell me he missed me, until about a year ago. Same thing, late nights, only the occasional text and not responding to mine for hours. Found out a few months ago that he's been having an emotional (mostly, some kissing) affair for the past year with a UK work colleague. The change in behavior was what made me suspicious.

Why do you believe it was just an emotional affair?

[Anonymous]

I found out accidentally because he hadn’t properly closed out of his web browser. And then, because of the sites he’d been visiting (flowers sent to someone overseas) I got suspicious and went digging. It was - is - painful and although I believe he didn’t sleep with her I think he hoped it would get to that stage. So couples therapy for us and a lot of tears for me. No way of knowing if we’ll make it through this but we’re going to try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: These trips would be stopping, or I’d decide I no longer wanted to be married. For those wondering why op “needs this info right now”, that is incredibly dismissive to her role as a wife and mom.
If your husband is responsive, then you don’t really grasp how frustrating and demeaning it is to be married to someone who just doesn’t respond and then to be minimized by people who don’t know who you are married to. Women tend to get the brunt of this “do you really need to go shopping today”? I’ve never heard a man ask that of another man and men have their toys just as much as women do. “Can’t you just decide what to sign the kid up for” “Well, I could, but we talked about baseball and soccer, both have deadlines this week, what are we doing?”
People can and do expect things from women that they don’t of men. Women are expected to in many cases work and think alone and then hope we’ve made the right decision and if our husbands don’t understand or double down on why we did whatever we did when he would have done it much differently, well, that can make you really despise being married.
I told my husband I need him to praise what I do and how I do it. I often have insight into what our kids need that he doesn’t, partly because I’m a stay-at-home mom, partly because 2 of our kids are girls.
When my husband and I were talking, I told him that I know how to be single and I know how to be married, but what I don’t know how to do and what I won’t learn how to do is be married but function like a single person. If I’m married, then I need a partner who responds to me and is proud of what I do however boring it may be. If my husband has information about something even as minor as a schedule, I’d hope he’d give enough of a crap about me to text me and say ‘It’s Tuesday” Put another way, the husband doesn’t need to drink any more then the wife needs the schedule information, and say what you will about work culture, all of are free to say “I don’t drink” or “I need to go back to the hotel and call my wife” and if they don’t, it’s not an environment where you want to work.
Also, very few men would put up with a wife handling everything at home. Think about it, would you like it if you got home, found a missing bedroom and your wife said “The kids trashed it and I couldn’t deal with it so I called a guy with a chain saw and he took care of the problem for me”. I doubt it, but well, she handled the problem the way she saw fit.
Obviously my example is silly, but women need to make decisions all the time and it can suck when you don’t have the support or even awareness of a partner who did promise to love and cherish you forever.

Agree; wives and moms are too emotionally fragile to go without constant reassurance. Mentally, they are just too weak. You are right, PP.

[Anonymous]

I am the wife and I travel for work and never call DH. I will text in the am before heading to work and that’s it. Dinners out and going to the pub with coworkers is part of the deal and I am not calling home to hear about schedules. DH is perfectly capable of handling it all without me just like I do when he travels.

[Anonymous]

I want his job

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: These trips would be stopping, or I’d decide I no longer wanted to be married. For those wondering why op “needs this info right now”, that is incredibly dismissive to her role as a wife and mom.
If your husband is responsive, then you don’t really grasp how frustrating and demeaning it is to be married to someone who just doesn’t respond and then to be minimized by people who don’t know who you are married to. Women tend to get the brunt of this “do you really need to go shopping today”? I’ve never heard a man ask that of another man and men have their toys just as much as women do. “Can’t you just decide what to sign the kid up for” “Well, I could, but we talked about baseball and soccer, both have deadlines this week, what are we doing?”
People can and do expect things from women that they don’t of men. Women are expected to in many cases work and think alone and then hope we’ve made the right decision and if our husbands don’t understand or double down on why we did whatever we did when he would have done it much differently, well, that can make you really despise being married.
I told my husband I need him to praise what I do and how I do it. I often have insight into what our kids need that he doesn’t, partly because I’m a stay-at-home mom, partly because 2 of our kids are girls.
When my husband and I were talking, I told him that I know how to be single and I know how to be married, but what I don’t know how to do and what I won’t learn how to do is be married but function like a single person. If I’m married, then I need a partner who responds to me and is proud of what I do however boring it may be. If my husband has information about something even as minor as a schedule, I’d hope he’d give enough of a crap about me to text me and say ‘It’s Tuesday” Put another way, the husband doesn’t need to drink any more then the wife needs the schedule information, and say what you will about work culture, all of are free to say “I don’t drink” or “I need to go back to the hotel and call my wife” and if they don’t, it’s not an environment where you want to work.
Also, very few men would put up with a wife handling everything at home. Think about it, would you like it if you got home, found a missing bedroom and your wife said “The kids trashed it and I couldn’t deal with it so I called a guy with a chain saw and he took care of the problem for me”. I doubt it, but well, she handled the problem the way she saw fit.
Obviously my example is silly, but women need to make decisions all the time and it can suck when you don’t have the support or even awareness of a partner who did promise to love and cherish you forever.

Agree; wives and moms are too emotionally fragile to go without constant reassurance. Mentally, they are just too weak. You are right, PP.

You’re an idiot.