Info Between Sessions

Tag is questionable because it’s not really a dispute since I haven’t brought it up yet.

I play in an online group that meets twice a week, 6 hours per session. Between sessions, the majority of the group, DM included, are spending hours each day on voice calls with each other. It’s all unscheduled and at random times. I have a full time job and also just a social life outside of this group so I’ll pop in for an hour or so but cannot be there most of the time.

A lot of prep/planning seems to go on in these sessions. Most of the time it’s where the main storyline is going, character relationship building, etc. This has led to me feeling left out of some of the roleplaying aspect as I’ve definitely become a bit of a side character due to everyone being involved in a plan I wasn’t privy to, which is not my favorite but not a dealbreaker to me. I don’t need to be the main character.

I was just told that we were supposed to all have prepped something major for the end-of-campaign BBEG fight, and this had been decided during one of these calls and no one relayed it to me. My character is basically out of the fight without it, and now I truly don’t have time to prep this before session. I’m just kinda bummed that this has apparently been an ongoing discussion and no one thought to give me a heads up.

I am aware it is my choice to stay in a group or not. We were planning on starting a new campaign after this one and I was all in because it’s a good group of people but now I’m second guessing myself, because it feels like the only way I’ll ever not be a secondary side character is to spend hours on voice calls every day to make sure I’m not missing anything. 12 hours of play a week is already more than I’m used to- I enjoy this group, but I can’t imagine dedicating a bunch more time to it on top of that.

I would love to know if this is something I should keep trying to participate in, or if this feels like a lost cause? I’ve been very back and forth since it’s usually been minor stuff up until now. I don’t think I’m being pushed out of the group, because there were others who were not invited to join the new campaign after this one so they easily could’ve included me in that, but I am feeling increasingly left out.