Business trip

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When your partner goes away for a business trip but is unavailable for talking/phoning at times when they know you are, they have no actual schedule, regularly occurring. Alarm bells or paranoia?

Yes!! This was my life - business trips, unavailable to talk.. he cheated over and over and then went to work overseas and lived a whole double life. Question is why wouldn’t he want to check in and talk to you? It takes minutes to say hi and ask how you are, not a huge inconvenience surely.

I would expect a checking, even if for a few mins. I have e traveled in the past and always check in. It is nice to hear their voice when away from home. It might not be every day but I make contact.

Ex worked away a few days a month. The few days he was gone he would check in but there was limited time for him to socialise on them trips as he was there to do jobs it was the 'conferences' and three day 'team bonding' trips that were the problem in the end but the work trips themselves he was able to check in at will.

I used to travel regularly out of the country to my works head office. I had a desk there and while I was there for two to three days every month or so I would have no schedule. I was there to catch up with the team and learn about where help was required.
I stayed locally in a very nice hotel and so did several colleagues from either my office or elsewhere.
Some nights we'd all go to dinner other nights I would visit family I had nearby or I'd just have a night to myself.
I would message and try to call each day to hear my wifes voice and to talk with the kids. I'd try to say goodnight everynight to the kids at bedtime or send a voice note.

I have no idea what your partner is traveling for or what they have on.
But either you trust them or you dont. Listen to your gut and if you have questions, ask them. Set boundaries if needed and there should always be some time to talk or at least send voice notes.

I’d never expect Dh to ring me when he’s away. I don’t ring him when I’m away! I would certainly expect to hear from him a bit on WhatsApp throughout the day. If it’s really busy or no signal, maybe not much or til the evening when he has more time (though usually has to be out entertaining people in the evenings so those are also busy). I would get some sort of communication, but not necessarily loads. Frankly, I’m busy at home and have better things to do that chat with him. 😂

The only thing I’d expect is that he has his location on so I can see when he gets back to the hotel in the evening. I like to know he hasn’t gotten lost or fallen into a river or something, so it’s reassuring when I can see he’s tucked up in bed and means I don’t actually care if I hear from him much. I see he got home safely.

You have to have trust in your relationship or what’s the point? I’m a recovering addict. Dh is not sitting around at home freaking out because I’m on a weekend away and he hasn’t heard much from me. Because he knows me well and trusts me. If I was going to relapse, I’d just as easily do that at home.

You’ve answered your own question.

You’ve asked ‘would alarm bells go off’ and someone have said no, some say it depends and others say yes.

if it’s yes, then you don’t trust him. And that will
be because there are other reasons as you’ve listed above.

so your post is redundant.

I was in a similar situation where my partner worked abroad for around half the year on and off annually, I absolutely hated it. When you’re away from home you are occupied with the new/different things (and people) going on around you and it’s completely different for the partners and children being left behind where the only difference is the absence of the partner/parent. They are going away to work but they will not be working 100% of the time. Even scmoozing with ‘boring’ people (for FOUR HOURS??!!!) for evening meals (and presumably breakfasts and lunches) every day, is completely different to the daily responsibility of family life which they have left 100% up to the other parent.

What made it worse for me was I accompanied my partner on a few of his jobs before we had children and wow did it make my resentment grow! Watching men (and women, but predominantly men) relaxing from the early evening to the early hours, boozing, eating decent food and enjoying the company of their colleagues and strangers (and yes, flirting and affairs) and generally having a fun night out each night, while their partners were back at home, missing them, getting on with the daily grind of sorting the kids, bedtime routines, the school run etc, telling them daddy misses them too etc - and then the hero’s welcome on their return for slaving away to bring home the bacon for their families🙄 - 🤮 it made me so mad to witness.

Lets just say it made it harder to swallow when I had to return to my 9-5 and away he flew again, knowing the full picture. There were a lot of relationship break ups and broken families in his industry and we both know why. Thank god those days are over.

Wives, husbands and partners of people with similar jobs have my full sympathy, it can really suck. And even the ‘nice’ guys disappointed me with the way they behaved at times while their families pined for them at home. Talk about having your cake and eating it.

Alarm bells but that’s because my partner didn’t answer the phone lots when I called in the morning on his business trips and he was in bed with another woman every single day. So that’s probably colouring my suspicions of men in general

My DH travels a lot for business, as did I in the same industry before I had children so I understand what the trips involve.

He has always made time to call / text and check in. Its a way to make sure I feel myself and the kids are still a priority to him and we don't just get ditched for his all important job. It's feels really important, especially since we had the children otherwise it's easy to feel I have the short end of the stick with the day to day whilst he's off somewhere.

I know those trips are work but in our case they can be fun and often involve social time with colleagues.

To be honest though I'm often too busy at home to have much time to talk to him!

I wonder if from time to time you could arrange to go with him. That would reassure you I think. Also you would be able to have some time with him. A friend of mine used to go along with her husband from time to time when they both worked and sometimes they were able to get a trip abroad for a few days at the company's expense apart from the travel I think.

Yep you’ve summarised this wonderfully! I too went on a work trip with my husband before children and saw the exact same thing as you. And now, this week, I’m here again whilst he had 3 nights of partying after a hard days work and has no doubt been hanging out of his arse for the next day of work…I say “no doubt” because yet again I’ve had hardly any communication.

Nobody is too busy to not be able to find time to communicate with their partner when away if they want to. Even if you are out with colleagues there is always an opportunity to step away for 10 minutes to make a call if you make it a priority. Both my partner and I have travelled on work and business and always communicated at least once a day. It's just if you want to or not. That's the only limitation.