Ok, so DH has some good qualities, but communication isn't one. This is not only me who says it and it is also verified every time he has to do one of those psychometricy type test when he applies for jobs (about three times in the past two years) - i.e. it's not just me being moany.
The general theme that causes the most problems for me, primarily because it inevitably ends up with me being in an awkward/embarassing situation and not fully realising what's going on until after is when we're in his home country. I have learned the language to speak to his family, but I definitely don't understand everything. A general example is that a plan will be made for us all (going to a restaurant, outing, what we're doing before dinner - anything) and then something will change and family will tell him, or he'll be involved in the change discussion. He then doesn't tell me. I go ahead with plan A, and end up in an awkward situation, where I'm getting people to hurry up so we're on time, getting children in a car when they don't need to be, ordering food when we're supposed to be leaving a restaurant, whatever, and family are too polite to say anything. I then get frustrated, because I don't understand why things are strange and don't understand everything being said so can't tell if people are a bit irritated, or if I'm just not understanding something else.
The most recent situation resulted in me being really embarrassed, doing something rude that I'd NEVER normally do and it would never have happened if we'd all been functioning in English.
DH agrees that it was his fault because he didn't tell me something and made a decision on my behalf without telling me and agrees that my actions based on his info were rude.
I've tried different things. Obviously I've asked him, told him, pleaded with him to not forget about including me in the info. I've also mentioned it - gently - to his mother (they're a "sweep it all under the carpet" type family, rather than "talk openly" type) to ask for her to tell me things directly sometimes, rather than go through him, I've (again, gently) mentioned it to his sister and still it happens. I've also learned more of their language so I can understand a bit more (it's not a quick process though). I've tried to take more active roles in organising things, or being involved in things, but it still happens, so now I have become more passive as this reduces it a lot, however, it doesn't not eliminate the issue we have with communication.
Does anybody have any ideas? I'm really so embarrassed about this latest thing and I'm going to have to apologise, even though I actually did nothing wrong based on my info and if I start to explain that, it's not going to really be an apology.