Hello, I am looking for some advice. My wife suffers from anxiety and OCD and has struggled to ever let me take short but necessary business trips which causes me huge worries about keeping my job. I very seldom take any trips and Corona fortunately gave me a 3 year break. I live in my wife’s country where my native English means very few jobs are available to me and am the sole breadwinner. I have a necessary trip in October over 4 days which is the company’s annual strategy meeting and where I have to attend as a regional director. In the past I’ve hired a babysitter/driver to help my wife and to stay with her at home, but last time 3 years ago she had a complete breakdown due to the separation anxiety. In other words, arranging full time care for our 7 year old child and to assist my wife full time at home did not remedy any anxiety. The issue for my wife is not the actual task of looking after our son but my absence from the home, or even the thought of it, that causes her extreme fear. It’s very hard for her to have this condition. My freedom of movement and to even work efficiently is very limited, but I’ve managed to navigate especially due to the pandemic shift to teleworking. Therapy has helped a little bit, in that I can now get out of the house for 1/2 a day to work at the office. My main question here is what do I do about my impending work travel? Obviously, no amount of hired support such as getting a nanny with a drivers licence to assist is going to calm my wife down. She is refusing this trip in that she says I cannot go regardless of any consequences from my employer, but I fear that if I duck out my job could be at risk. I’ve explained that I cannot easily get another good paying job and that for the other 360 days a year I can be at home for , do school runs and telework. Is there a solution to this issue besides trying to talk to my employer about this dilemma, or perhaps cancelling my trip last minute?