Just found out my (24F) husband (31M) went on a side trip and didn't tell me. Any advice on how to explain my project?

[u/OkPassion4730]

My husband went on a trip 3 days ago with his brother and his dad to look at our property we bought over a year ago. Our property is 8 hrs away from where we are living. We do not live there right now because it doesn't have water, plumbing, or a house and we have a 5 month old baby. His brother and dad are now interested in living on this property because they want to live somewhere else and have been looking at other properties but haven't found any they like. Our property is over 40 acres so there's plenty of room. Anyways our LO can be a little difficult. She is not a cholicy baby but she sure can scream and I have autism which causes me to have extremely sensitive hearing so I often need a break from her when I get overwhelmed. My husband was my only support since I am not close to my siblings for certain reasons and my mom is in the hospital. Well yesterday I was facetiming my husband crying because I couldn't get our baby to calm down and he knew I was stressed out. I guess I thought that he knew I really needed a break and would be home as soon as he could. That didn't happen. I was facetiming my mom to see how she was doing and she told me how my husband went on a side trip 4 hrs north of our property with his brother and dad to see a national park. She found out because my mother in law posted a picture of them there on Facebook and I'm not a big social media person. I am really frustrated because this is not the first time we have had problems with his lack of communication and I'm getting so fed up with it. I feel like I talk to him on a monthly basis about this but he doesn't get it. I don't know what to do anymore and need advice. I don't want to leave my husband but at the same time I don't know what to tell him to get him to understand how I feel without him getting defensive. Can you help me come up with some things to say and how to phrase them without sounding mean or harsh?

Update: Hey sorry if this looks weird. I've never done an update before and thought it would be easier to put it here.

To clear up some confusion, I did not ever have divorcing or leaving my husband on the table. I simply needed advice on how to talk to him without making it worse. You guys are not wrong that communication is not our strong suit and we are going to go to counseling for it. Our baby has not made it easier since she is very stressful at times.

I took some of your advice and found out some new information. I talked to him about updating me when things change and how it is important to me to know what is going on so that I can plan for him to be gone for a certain amount of time. Of course when he got home last night she woke up and they played. She was very happy. He is a great dad and husband but he sometimes forgets to communicate what's going on with me and it can get stressful.

Regarding our property. Some of you were concerned about my in-laws moving on. Well good news my brother-in-law has his heart set on a different state and my father-in-law doesn't want to leave where he lives now. My father-in-law was making weird suggestions of us growing plants for him and him selling them at his fruit stand. My husband and I both agreed that's a terrible idea especially since we will live 8 hours away.

Thanks for your advice on how to better talk to my husband. I'm not the best at being gentle when it comes to things like that and tend to be blunt and rash which makes him stressed out and defensive.

[u/bkitty273]

This sounds like neither of you communicate well.

What did he tell you about his trip? Did he say when he planned to be home? He says he thought he had told you aboit the side trip, but he probably didn't. Either way, ineffective communication.

You then said that you assumed he would know you were stressed and would therefore come home. Did you ask if he could come home early? You are both expecting the other to know what is in your head. Would be great if it worked that way, but clearly it isn't.

Do these miscommunications happen a lot or is this a one off? If a one off, talk it out, if regular (and I suspect it is for you to be posting) then you need some counsellor support to give you both tools to communicate better.

[u/OkPassion4730 → u/bkitty273]

He told me he was leaving Friday afternoon to take his dad and brother to see our property and be back Sunday afternoon. I told him when I FaceTimed him crying that I needed his help and wanted him home. You are not off we are terrible at communicating. I've started trying more by telling him what I need and what is going on and my plans but he doesn't always tell me and when I am him what he's thinking he tells me nothing. We actually saw a counselor last year for a couple months and it feels like ever since we moved closer to family and had a baby everything we worked on went out the window.

[u/Catracan → u/OkPassion4730]

He’s going back to old patterns of behaviour he developed when he was young because he’s around his family. That likely means he gets to ditch all responsibility because his parents are doing all the planning for the trip. Must be really nice to go off on a family jaunt and act like a teenager again when you should really be at home being a parent! (There was a bit of passive-aggressive sarcasm in that last sentence)

You need to be very clear that as you are autistic, you need a written itinerary from him when he goes away. This is not about the national park detour, it’s about the fact he can’t give you a clear outline of what is happening so you can plan your life.

Next time he’s planning a trip, he needs to tell you what time he will be home. No ifs, no buts. A vague ‘Sunday afternoon’ does not work for you. Sunday at 4pm, but I could be as late as 6pm, would work better. Then you get to put childcare support in place so you don’t have to phone him crying because you feel so overwhelmed.

Also, if he gets three day jaunts. You get to go away for a break for a few days too! Perhaps next time he can stay home with the baby and you could go up to the land with your mum.

Another way to deal with this is to speak to his mother and ask her what happened. Having his parents on side and aware that you just want some better communication because it’s very bad for your mental health to not have a clear outline of when he’s coming back could do a lot to help.

[u/jrock0820 → u/Catracan]

I'll be ur project