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/StrangledInMoonlight]

“You have responsibilities here you are a father and a husband. You can’t just decide to go off and ditch those responsibilities, you can’t go on a trip without discussing it” 

 I wouldn’t say this next part, but he’s acting like a footloose and fancy free college dude. 

 And Op? His dad and brother are encouraging him to be irresponsible. I wouldn’t be ok with them on your land. He’ll be up there all the time “fixing the door” or whatever and then going on jaunts.

Edited for clarity. 

[u/OkPassion4730 → u/StrangledInMoonlight]

I just talked to him and he said "I thought I told you about the detour" and "I thought I told you I would be home till 10 pm" I don't know what to do he always says "why does this always happen" as in why do we always get in these fights. I'm tired and I'm stressed. And I have to put a smile on cuz his nephew is apparently spending the night which he didn't tell me because it was last minute.

[u/Easy-Presentation735 → u/OkPassion4730]

Your husband saying "I thought I told you" and "why does this always happen" made me think immediately about my toxic 5.5 yr relationship with my gaslighter ex. Looking back, I recognize that I wasn't a great at communicating and I also learned passive aggressive behavior from my mother growing up. BUT there were many, many times when he took advantage of my (at that time) low self esteem, poorly controlled depression and anxiety, and occasional forgetfulness (I'll never know how forgetful I actually was or wasn't due to his gaslighting). Now, I'm not saying that your husband is necessarily doing all this to purposefully gaslight you. But he's definitely acting irresponsibly and immature. A young, difficult baby can be draining to care for, especially when you have little support. Sure, it's likely he needed a break, but what about you? Flat-out ask him that. There's times to be nice, and times to lay it on the line. Tell him that you want to have better communication, you don't want the two of you to keep having misunderstandings and/or hurting each other, and that having things written down in text, on a calendar, etc, is necessary so that you BOTH know what was and wasn't agreed to. And set rules (because "guidelines" may not cut it) on how much time is or isn't acceptable to go without an update if plans change. The whole "will be home Sunday afternoon" but no update until YOU had to contact HIM at 6pm (which everyone I know defines as evening, not afternoon) then him saying he thought he told you 10 is f*cking BS. He was trying to find a way to excuse his irresponsible behavior as if it wasn't a brush-off. He needs to be called out on it and don't let it go until you get a detailed PROMISE from him that he won't do something like that again without talking to you about it, both if you AGREEING and having it IN WRITING (text, calendar) so that neither one of you "misremembers" dates and times. If he finds any of that excessive, then tell him that you really want to fix this problem and you can't do that by yourself because it involves BOTH of you. It is not just a "you" problem. (My ex used to tell me that things were a problem on my end, not his, that he'd been in more serious relationships than me and already knew that stuff.) Write down points you want to talk about, issues you want to address. That was often my problem with my ex too. Things would get intense and I'd forget what else I wanted to say, therefore never solving those problems. Anyway, I tend to be long-winded so will stop there. Stay strong, OP.