AIBU to end my relationship over this

[dmsz]

Every few months my BF needs to spend 1-2 weeks in one of his company's international offices, these are in Asia, USA etc. so not a quick trip to Europe.

In the last year 4 out of the 6ish trips he made I didn't find out until the day before he was due to go, there was one instance I didn't know until he was actually at the airport, about to board a flight to Asia for 2 weeks. He had various excuses for not telling me - he forgot, he thought he had, he didn't want to start a fight about him going (yes, we have fought the day before him going on all 4 of these occasions purely because he's not telling me until the last possible moment, I really wouldn't care about him going as I know he needs to if he actually had the decency to tell me in advance).

The last time he went away it was another instance of him telling me the day before, and at this point I had reached breaking point with his absolutely dire communication, why don't I deserve to know in advance? I felt totally disrespected and worthless that he doesn't see that I'd be hurt at being told "I'm going to Asia, I'm not going to be around for 2 weeks", and of course that starts another fight over the issue, things came to a head and he said this would be the last time, he won't do it again, next time he'll tell me in advance etc. I agreed, it would be the last time, if he done it again I'd be walking away.

I thought we were getting somewhere - in April he mentioned there were plans for him to go to another office for 1-2 weeks in May/June, he wanted me to be aware to avoid historic problems. A few weeks later he mentioned it was going to be pushed to June but "I'll give you at least 4 weeks notice".

Fast forward to now, and you can see where this is going. He was away for the weekend, and called me when he got home last night to tell me his trip is... tomorrow (today). The irony of it all is his excuse for not telling me about it is when the dates were finalised we were in the middle of a pretty big fight about surprise... his terrible communication, something which he started seeing a counsellor for as it was destroying our relationship, and he didn't want to cause another fight by telling me he's going away in a few weeks. He seems to be missing the point here entirely, the fights are over him not telling me until the day before, not because he needs to go. If he'd told me the response would have been "Ok, thanks for actually letting me know in advance".

Obviously I told him that the last time was supposed to be the last time, there was no point making that clear if I was then going to go back on it, and ignore the fact that a few months later nothing had changed, he's behaved the same way etc.

Now I'm lost, it's killing me to lose my relationship over this, I love him but I can't say "don't do this" then just accept it when he does. I just feel like its opening doors to be treated like a doormat and walked all over as it doesn't matter what I say, or what he does, I'm just going to stay around anyway.

You're both having soooooo many fights, I'm surprised he hasn't finished things, tbh.

"We were supposed to be moving in together in the next few months"
Silver linings - you haven't uprooted your son.

"I kind of feel like I owe it to him to at least wait until the end of the therapy sessions to see if any changes are actually possible."
No, you don't owe him this. You don't owe him anything. He owed you the respect to keep you informed of his schedule.

Two years and thinking about moving in together is crunch time. He does a thing that you can't tolerate, now's the time to either accept it or move on. It doesn't really matter what the thing is, really. All that matters is that it doesn't work for you and he knows that and shows no sign of changing his behaviour as a result. So either you need to accept it and move on from finding it annoying or you need to move on. I'd say the latter probably tbh but it's up to you - as another poster said above, sometimes you accept these things because the greater picture is still good.
In your case accepting these absences while living together would be a serious inconvenience though.

I bet he was a secretive child. Are you able to do some detective work and find out if this was a factor in his marriage breakdown?

I think him not telling you is shitty, but I echo what a PP says. He forgets to tell you - you get annoyed. He then thinks every time he tells you, you'll get annoyed, so he puts it off until the last minute, so that when you are annoyed, he's not around to deal with the fall out.

But, poor communication is a really shitty thing to deal with. It's really frustrating when you're the last to know or when someone you're supposely close to just doesn't bother telling you things. I couldn't live with someone who has proven himself to be incapable of telling me was going on a business trip in a few weeks, but that's just me. You need to decide whether it's a dealbreaker for you too.

It does sound like it, but are you sure he knows exactly when the trip is going to be. DH is away this week (yes half term, thanks for that DH) - four weeks ago it was happening, two weeks ago it wasn't, last Monday it was, then Wednesday it was going to be leaving Saturday for a week, on Thursday it switched to going on Monday until Friday and then eventually it ended up being going away on Sunday and coming back the following Friday. Drives me crazy, but as DH's work is client driven, he has to go along with their plans.

DH thinks I always get mad about him being away, so dreads telling me and makes it a big thing, when actually what annoys me is that I cant make plans/sort out childcare for my work as its always last minute, so that does cause problems for us.

Whatsgoingon - He doesn't want to end it, he chose to go to therapy because he wanted to resolve the issue which leads to the fights.

Lambzig there was a lot of its cancelled, its postponed, its the end of May, its now going to be in June in the lead up to this particular trip which he kept me up to date with to avoid this, but the dates were finalised at least 2 weeks ago from what I've gathered and he did choose not to tell me about it. Out of the other 4 occasions one he says he didn't know about until the day before as the person who was supposed to be going was ill, and 2 of the others he claims he'd forgotten about/thought they were in a few weeks, not the next day. There was one where he was pretty distraught about realising he had to go away the next day, but at the same time he'd known about that particular trip for weeks, he should have told me the day it was booked rather than thinking he'd tell me nearer the time then forgetting.

This isn't really going to be something where I can say "ah well your communication is terrible but i'll just accept it". I cant really get him to understand that the problem isn't him going away, its not telling me about it until the day before. It's him knowingly upsetting me with his shitty behaviour then running away on a 16 hour flight to a completely different time zone to avoid the fallout.