OH has brought it up yet again, and I need opinions.
OH is from Slovakia, but has lived in the UK for about 14 years. We have a DD who is almost 2. A few months ago we bought our first house, and I hoped that OH would finally be happy, as he hasn't been satisfied with his life in the UK since I met him 9 years ago. A couple of weeks after we moved in, he was told he needed a heart op due to a genetic factor we knew nothing about. Since then, he has understandably altered his views on life and feels it's too short to be in a country he's not happy in, and he is also concerned he won't be able to stay in his job. He is even more miserable than usual with his life, stating that he has no friends, not much time with DD or me, stressed, and we don't get much help from my family despite having moved closer, so we don't get any time together as a couple. This is particularly bad as our relationship suffered after DD arrived and we don't have the opportunity to discuss issues as they come up, and he's not very good at handling issues anyway.
So he's asking me to consider selling up and moving to his home town in Slovakia, where his family is willing to help out and give us time to ourselves, and he would get a job in his sector with fairly good pay as he can speak English well. We would get a new mortgage for an apartment, and I would teach English as I have a teaching qualification.
I like his home town, it is a main town not a village so I wouldn't feel too cut off, but I don't speak much Slovak, and I find the way things work over there quite infuriating at times. His family is also quite overbearing. There are more pros than cons for DD and OH, but more cons than pros for me. It's a good place for DD to grow up, as the air is clean and there are lovely mountains and countryside, kids have a more innocent childhood there and it is child orientated, the pace of life is slower and education and healthcare is fine. But I'm well aware of the sacrifices I would make, such as being further from my family and not having much money to visit them etc.
I think I want to get it over with so we can both see if it really would be the solution OH thinks it would be, as I've tried to avoid it for so long. But I was just settling into our lovely neighbourhood and had such high hopes here.
WWYD?
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Sell up & move to OH's home country? WWYD? (Long post)
Squeakyswing · 21/03/2013 16:44
Thanks for your replies, They've stopped me feeling so stuck inside my own thoughts IYKWIM.
Bakingaddict, that sounds like a better plan than selling straight away. My friend even said she'd like to rent from us, and OH has been feeling tired and ill today and said something had to change, so it might be on the cards.
Sibble, I can identify with a lot of what you said, especially about the tension. It has been coming up for years and I've tried to improve our financial situation several times to try to steer us away from the possibility of going, but without success. I'm looking for a PT job at the moment but it's not going to make much of a dent after childcare costs. Anyway, my outlook has changed since having DD, as there are lots of reasons why it would be good for her if we went. I think a lot of why I was against it before was because years ago I moved to Ireland with a previous boyfriend, and I was really lonely and homesick and it broke the relationship. But that was a long time ago and it was a very different situation, so we'll see. 
We're going to Slovakia later this year so we will be able to get some perspective on it then.
Hi Squeaky
I am with those airing on the side of caution, I really wouldn´t rush into it and please don´t sell your house.
Speaking as one who knows, however much you have visited a country and "love" it and think you know every thing about it and the people, it is very different when you actually go to live there, especially when you have children and realise there really is no going back.
As others have said, you may find his family overbearing (apologies if they are not), you may find it very hard to settle (it has taken me years and not sure if I am properly settled even now) and that feeling of being an outsider/foreigner may be very hard to handle.
Yes, it may be a beautiful country, fresh air, good for DD and all that but on a day to day...how are the Winters? Tough, I expect? The weather may prevent you doing much...it may very well be "child-orientated" but what does that mean exactly? Spain is very "child-orientated" but you struggle to find restaurants that have high-chairs and changing tables and Mother and Toddler groups are non-existant, day to day it is very hard to find things to do with small children.
Make sure you ask a lot of questions before you make any decisions.
Good Luck, it´s a tricky one 
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Lookingforhome; my OH keeps saying he doesn't want to die here (he's become very aware of his own mortality since the health probs), and he's always envisaged retiring over there, although I have explained to him that his views may change if the grandchildren are all here, or maybe not, who knows.
Timetoask; I agree, I really don't like Bratislava, it's a boring concrete city. But his hometown is very different, and I do feel quite at home there and potter around by myself whern I visit, although I would have very different requirements living there with a LO. I'm not someone who needs many friends but at the moment I have no one where I live, so I do get a bit lonely sometimes. I am chatty enough to people I meet, but don't feel inclined to get to know them further, although when I lived in Ireland I really tried, so I think when I'm in a different country I make more of an effort. My one friend lives about 25 miles away and I don't drive, so I don't see her that often. I actually think I'd have more company if I moved to Slovakia, as OH has female friends and family there with young children, plus if I did some teaching I'd have some conversation in English.
Riverboat; I know what you mean about how homesick you can get. When I was 22 I moved to Ireland with an Irish boyfriend. I thought 'How homesick can I get, it's only Ireland!' It was actually a massive culture shock, and no one really understood how different the culture was when I came home (without the boyfriend) 7 months later and I tried to explain how I felt like an alien, especially in Catholic situations, and how hard it was for strangers in a small town to talk to you! People still don't get it when I say I have more in common culturally with my OH than I did with my ex. And when I came home I realised that my sentimentality had clouded my memory of life back home, and at any rate I didn't feel like I fitted in there either.
OH is a bit neurotic at times and often swings from one opinion to the other, especially when he visits his family. Often at the end of the holiday he'll say he doesn't fit in anymore, but he forgets all about it a few weeks later and denies he ever said it, and so it goes on. So it's times like that I think, 'Just get on with it and find out for sure!'
I'm going on a bit, sorry for the rambling post. 
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