Am I Asking Too Much?? - Torrance,CA

He is disrespecting you as his partner in life. You need to explain to him he doesn't need to ask permission to go pick up his daughter but he does need to inform you. It doesn't matter if he is walking down the block or flying to another state. The child will be staying in your house also. You need to be prepared.
What if you had made plans to be gone also, or had just found out you needed to be at a meeting for work out of town all week or weekend and hadn't had the chance to tell him yet.
To me it is a simply good manners to let your family know where you are going and how long you plan to be gone. Such as 'hey, I need to run to the store we are out of almost everything, back in about 2 hours.' You don't just grab your keys and walk out and let them wonder where you are.

My husband travels a lot for work. As soon as he makes his travel plans he sends me his itinerary. Seems to me, letting someone know your plans is just a curtesy and frankly common sense. I’m not sure why he doesn’t get that his travel plans effect you too.

if this is what it looks like 'finally starting to get better' it must have been drama central at the beginning!

i'm sure there's a ton of stuff unexpressed here, but just going on the bare bones of the post, you are quite right. i can't imagine my husband making plans to fly somewhere and not discussing them with me first. we never had the blended family issue to complicate matters, but common courtesy and more, common sense dictate that partners communicate the details of their schedules to each other. hell, even roommates generally do that much.

is it possible you've thrown a fit when he's made these plans before and that's why he's sliding around the blow-up now? if so, face THAT head on before assigning blame. of course, he's still not right in trying to simply not discuss a potential problem, but make sure you're not the cause of the drama.

if y'all have been together for two years, and this is what it looks like as things improve, it honestly sounds as if you didn't go into it thoughtfully and with preparation, both as a couple and as co-parents. the upheaval is not good for the kids and deadly to your marriage. i suggest you work on developing much better communication tools. you need a strong family and parenting philosophy, and to create a paradigm for making sure you're being clear and respectful with each other, modeling it for the kids. an example would be to plan to discuss the upcoming week's schedule with each other over the weekend, making sure that chores and extracurriculars are made clear to everyone, and that you use good communication hygiene such as using 'I' statements and mirroring.

there's no shame in getting a counselor to give you a hand in setting this up.
khairete
S.

You guys need to work on your communication.
I have a feeling the "lot of drama trying to blend as a family" might have got in the way.
Sometimes to avoid the drama people will avoid bringing anything up in an attempt to not make any waves.
You need to be able to talk and leave the drama out of the equation.
Some marriage counseling might be a good idea to get the communication flowing.

Sounds like you and your husband have been so busy blending the kids that you forgot to work on your identity as a couple.

Part of working on your identity as a couple includes setting boundaries (you deal with your kid, I deal with mine), defining roles, and learning how to make decisions together (sometimes as a silent partner).

One idea might be for you and husband to sit down on Sunday night alone and ask each other “What does your week look like?” Let the person talk, and give them the opportunity to talk about “their” kid’s plans. Each of you has a turn.
BUT you have to be willing to listen, and not take over. AND you need to see how your role in this may be hurting or helping the process.

Let him have his say, let him take care of his kid, and then if you want you can ask if ‘How can I help?’ But be sure want to first.

Blended families are hard, and I think the best advice has been stated by others, and that is to get professional help to learn how to blend your family and define your marriage.

Is this why your husband is divorced?

He and his ex should be making decisions about the daughter (medical, religious, educational etc.), but you should be informed especially because she is in your home part of the time, and you'll have to be on board with these decisions. Travel plans? That's insane to make plans and not even tell you! It's dismissive and disrespectful. He could certainly say, "I'm planning to travel to X with daughter for such-and-such reason. Do you have anything going on that I should know before I make the reservations?"

You say there used to be drama and now things are better? How are they better? He doesn't consider you his partner. Continuing to surprise you by having you find out accidentally about what's going on is pretty passive-aggressive. I don't know what your pattern is re informing him about issues involving your child though. Anything off about that?

Marriage counseling. Now. If he won't go, you go without him.

Maybe this is why he got divorced the first time? He doesn't sound like a partner-type person. Of course you should talk about your plans! And of course you should at least be informed about his daughter, especially if she is coming over and you help take care of her.

I think this could apply to any marriage - not just blended marriages - where the husband doesn't communicate plans that will affect the wife/rest of family. That's where marriage counseling (to work on communication) can be very helpful.

Sounds like your husband is just not very considerate or respectful in this one regard - especially if you've mentioned your concern. It would bother me also.

As far as blended families go - my good friend's guy is very good with this. He updates her regularly, and lets her know of every text and email that comes in. My friend is like you - goes to great lengths to make his kids feel welcome. I think she'd feel quite put out if he made plans without telling her. It would impact her and her kids too.

Think of it this way - if it weren't his child, but say his friend who was coming to stay, or his brother - or anyone else ... and he didn't inform you of his plans - wouldn't you be just as bothered? I would be.

Oh honey I'm sorry. I've been married almost 2 years too and we also have a blended family (I have one son and he has 2 teenage daughters).
My husband definitely forgets to tell me stuff. I used to get so angry and felt so left out, but i continue to talk to him about it because when it comes to the kids, I'm still the mom of the house and I need to know. We don't fight about it per se, but he does get frustrated with me bc he says I act like he's purposely leaving me out. I truly believe he just doesn't think to tell me and I try to move forward with forgiveness but it's HARD!! I absolutely do not think it should be separate (my kids my business etc), hell no. I'm a bit speechless about him making flight plans though girl!! There's no way that slipped his mind! I do agree with one of the responders that said he doesn't respect you as a partner. :(
As much as that sucks to hear that.
But what can you do?? You can't make somebody do the right thing.
I do not agree with getting him back and intentionally not being at home. What good comes from that?
I guess I don't have any advice bc I experience the same problems, but i try not to let it be a problem. My only strategy is natural consequences because there's nothing else I can do. I thank him when he does remember, though! Good luck honey, it'll get better. :)

Well, if my husband was planning on flying off anywhere he would tell me as soon as it was a possibility so we could get it on our joint calendar. I would expect to know when my husband is planning a trip out of town. On one hand I think I would have made family plans on the day I'd heard him talking about and then told him he was expected to be there. Then see what happened.

What does he think about you just hopping on a plane to go meet your ex or go have lunch with friends? Why not just leave and not tell him where you're going? Then be gone all day or even overnight and just not tell him what your plans are, see how long it takes him to figure out you're not where he thinks you're supposed to be?

Was he truly just going to go to the airport one day and go out of state and come back without you knowing? What if the plane had crashed and you had no idea where he was when he didn't show up at nighttime?

My husband would also let me know about the expense of a ticket because that's not cheap and it would affect our household spending. I can't imagine not knowing where my husband was in regards to something like this. If he was at work and went to lunch someone I wouldn't care where he went, it's not the same thing. It's not like he'd fly off to another state to have lunch. He'd have lunch someone around town and be back at work on time.

I wouldn't like this but I would go out on my own and just never tell him where I was going or what I was going to do or who I was going to do it with. I'd skip dinner and eat with friends, heck, I'd even just go someplace I enjoy eating out at that he doesn't like. So I could enjoy the meal without him bugging me to go.

He'd get the idea when he went into the kitchen expecting you to be there cooking his dinner. Or go to the bedroom to play house, and you weren't there either.

Communication is the key to a happy and successful relationship (married or not). I understand that some people struggle with this for various reasons but, if you are in a committed relationship, communication regarding anything family wise should be a concern for both of you. I would suggest sitting down with your husband (away from your children) and seriously discussing how a blended family needs to communicate even more than other families. Try to set up a date night (even if it's at home) with your husband so that you can have that time with just him to go over what is coming up in the next week or so. Maybe that will help him communicate with you and not 'forget' or think it's irrelevant.
My website might give you some other helpful ideas. I am a stepparent so I have been in a "blended family" for about 6 years now. www.stepparent411.com/top-10-parenting-tips/