To want to hear from DH during the day?

[whitth]

He isn’t a surgeon or pilot or anything, but he is away most of the day (7am - 7pm) and sometimes stays overnight. Last night he stayed over and he rang briefly but then all today I’ve heard nothing; no idea when he’s back, even if he’s back.

AIBU to feel he could send me the odd message, just to let me know he’s thinking of me?

You haven’t read the thread.

op what did he say about the hospital? I’d be furious and say if the minute he walked out the door every day he was no longer a dad and husband then let’s make that permanent. I guess he doesn’t take leave when they’re sick either. He could easily have a second family and they’d not get you exist- doesn’t take any messages any calls doesn’t do anything for emergencies. This man has only half a foot in the family, and kids that age are hard work.

do you have parents you can stay with? I’d consider taking the kids for the weekend, he can find out when he gets home as I wouldn’t be calling him or picking up when he calls. (Does he get angry? I’d hide key papers and valuables before this if he does). Then tell him you’ve been reconsidering and you aren’t happy, next weekend is his time to solo parent, and several evenings a week since he does no extra parenting at all and won’t answer his phone when his family are in hospital. And do some real thinking, because it doesn’t sound like he’s a partner. What foes he do when at home? Are finances shared?

So what did he say when you brought this up to him?

Quite frankly, I get irritated when DH sends me small-talk messages asking me how my day's going or how the kids are.

If there's an urgent problem I need help with, I let him know. If not, we can catch up on the general day to day stuff once he gets home. I can't be bothered with constant back and forth texting about which park we've gone to play at today or how DC did on her spelling test.

I have a friend who is in constant contact with her DH whilst he's at work, she rings him for a 'catch up' every lunch and break time without fail, as well as when she's walking to and from the school run. It sounds absolutely exhausting to me.

Nothing sad about a couple working and not contacting each other - I’m sure they catch up on their day when they get home.

Each to their own but no need to be so judgemental

Neither do I.

But I'm not knocking the salary and I've had far, far worse paid roles where unpaid overtime and zero breaks wasn't just expected, it was demanded. If DP were to call during the day, a) I'd wonder who died and b) if he wanted to know what I was doing, I'd probably start wittering on about Lookup tables, mapping and the frustrations of people not submitting their data on time.

Wait for the end of the day and he'll get somebody capable of a conversation that isn't a mixture of SQL, VBA, Cloudflare Markup (yes, I do deal with archaic systems) and much whingeing about creating new lookup tables at zero notice.

You know what she meant. There’s no need to take it so literally.

We message sometimes but we are in work mode at work, even travel we have our moments, we dont need to contstantly be in contact to know we love each other, we are perfectly able to look after ourselves and it has been working for nearly 30 years

Needing to be in regular contact feels needy

I don't know if there's a backstory here. My DH often away for a day or two or three and we might exchange one or two messages or 20-30 depending. I'm usually out the house for 12 hours stretches to work and it's very unlikely I'll message DH regularly. Our time together is great and our time apart we have a similar view on how often to communicate so it's fine. You're not quite telling us where the disparity comes from I think

Your OP is very misleading which is skewing the results.

You don’t want him to check in to say he’s missing you or anything, you want him to check in because you have small children together. That’s totally fair.

Me and my partner didn’t really message much during the day before kids.

Now - if he’s on his way to work, he’ll ring and ask me if the kids were ok this morning or ask if he needs to bring shopping in later.

If I am travelling for work, he will send me little photos of their day and I will ring him when I can to see how they are.

He will keep an eye on emails and text me to check I got some info from the school.

It’s not a lot but enough to show he cares.

Having small children can be lonely and hard work, I'd be annoyed by radio silence for 48h too. I also don't believe that most people are too busy at work to send a single message all day, it takes all of 10 seconds.

People on here always think it's really needy but I personally don't think you're unreasonable. My husband and I have always sent each other a couple of messages throughout the day, it only takes a minute to send a txt.

How often do you message your husband and ask about his day OP? Do you text him to say you're thinking of him and ask him to unload all is work problems onto you? You are 100% doing your part too, right?

Of course you don't

I couldn’t be with anyone so needy and dependent.

I feel for you. I don’t think YABU or needy.. you have a family together. And even without kids, I’d hope dh would miss me or be eager to hear my voice/check in even if it’s 2 minutes at the end of the day. So much can happen in a day and I just think it’s nice to know the other person is doing okay..

Husband and I never contact each other in the day unless for a specific reason. We are both working. That said if he goes away we will usually have the odd message and phone call to catch up.

This.

when my dh worked in an office I’d literally only hear from him if it couldn’t wait. I’d text him random thoughts during the day, so I didn’t forget to mention things. But it was an unspoken rule that he would completely ignore my messages unless I used a particular emoji and then he would know it was something he needed to respond to urgently.

if you need to feel thought of while he’s working, that shows insecurity and I’d look at therapy

You sound like a bit of a cold fish.

Being annoyed by a message from a loved one saying they love you is so weird to me.

I am not saying any particular poster or this thread but when I hear "we spend all day texting sonnets to each other and he spends all his evenings giving me massages and tells all his friends how wonderful I am and lays by the floor pining away while I am at the shops getting milk" I do wonder who mutual this ''we" and I wonder what the partner/husband feels of his version

I think your title and "let me know he's thinking of me" are a bit misleading and colouring the replies you've gotten.

I work a high-stress job with a lot of overnight travel and I'm generally someone who feels anxious and smothered if I'm expected to text while I'm working or give frequent updates. My DH is more chatty but understands I'm different and isn't clingy, so it's easy for us to go all day without texting and if I'm traveling we may only check in once so I can say goodnight to him and the DC - I think before children we probably went a day or two without contact even while married.

But basic communication about schedules is part of being a family unit. Regularly not bothering to tell your spouse and co-parent if you'll be home for dinner/evening childcare or even at all that night is not ok IMO. DH and I can go 24 hours without talking but we know which of us will and won't be home in the evening to care for our children and how many people dinner needs to be prepared for. Even our teenagers know they need to show the basic courtesy of telling us whether they'll be home for dinner or not. Not responding to any communication during a hospital admission for your young child would only be ok in a few situations when he's truly uncontactable. As is, your DH has made it so that you have to plan to parent and run the home solo at all times because he comes and goes with zero communication but also have him dropping in whenever he pleases - you've got all of the obligation and restriction and he has all the freedom. It doesn't sound like this man is your partner in any way other than bringing in a paycheck, and that wouldn't be ok with me. I also wouldn't want my children growing up with a parent they couldn't count on to be there in a reliable or predictable way.

Yabu. When I'm at work, I'm flat out. I seldom get a lunch break. I couldn't cope with a partner who expected me to exchange trivialities in the middle of the working day.

Something urgent that can't wait, is different

Yabu really, he's working - why do you need to text him at all? Do you want him to message you when you're at work?

I think it very much depends on the individual. My DH and I have been together 11 years and he often goes away for work. He is also much more social than me and goes on nights out.

He texts me at least 5 or 6 times a day when travelling and will call every day. When he isn't travelling I get updates about his home time. He will text that he is an hour away, then 30 mins etc lol.

He will text me random things he sees when out with friends and updates me on any gossip he thinks I will like.

He used to call several times a day but I told him he was annoying (we have that kind of relationship, and he laughed).

I know he does it because he loves me, but it drives me crazy. I honestly would be happy with just a call once a day and maybe the occasional text. I kind of hate communicating for no reason and I enjoy my space.

There's a happy compromise to be had! You should be able to share your needs and meet in the middle in a healthy marriage.

Sounds like you work in an awful sector, however great the salary is. Glad that I’ve never worked anywhere with those expectations.

Why is it needy? DH and I speak most days during the day once or twice. He is a medic so busy but had gaps, I WFH. We have loads to chat about during the day. Between us we go out about 4 times a week in the evenings apart from various things with friends / exercise classes / cultural shit / the pubs. It means we can get lots of the dry conversations about picking up kids (we have 4), shopping, who's cooking, walking the dogs, medical stuff out the way meaning when we are together we can have more interesting conversations.

Everyone’s different I don’t think there’s a right or wrong
were both very much we’ll be in touch if something wrong
if something was wrong at home id expect you to ring

personally I’d find it a bit suffocating