Wife wanting to move country

[Bookriddle]

Hello, hope you dont mind me posting here!

So me and the wife have a 9 month old daughter! But for the last 6 months something hasnt been right with my wife, she refused to tell me what is up with her, even tho something is clearly up but last night she actually opened up to me, she says she is depressed, and has been for a few months, but she is refusing to go to the doctors, she is a nurse herself so i would think she would know its the right thing to do!

Anyway during our conversation last night she told me she wants to move back to her home country (Europe), for me its not something i want to do, i have my family here, i didnt choose to live in another country and i have also found it hard to learn her language, so even if i did want to, i would struggle for work!
She suggested that she moves back with our daughter and i come visit her every month, this is not what i want, i love my daughter to bits and love spending time with her, i would be lost if she took her away, and i really dont think its fair on our daughter either!

Not sure what i wanted out of this post, just some advice, i dunno

[category12]

She may have post natal depression, I would try to get her to the gp. Maybe when she feels better, she won't be as homesick.

Had you never discussed the possibility of moving to her home country before marrying and having children?

[OryxNotCrake]

It sounds very difficult.

Your daughter is legally resident in this country at the moment and your wife cannot take her abroad without your permission. If you agree to her leaving the country and settling elsewhere then legally, I don’t think you would be able to force them to return. So I would avoid that at all costs.

It sounds like your wife is very unhappy though. If she’s depressed, she needs to sort that before making any life changing decisions. So a trip to the GP is the first thing, I think. Does she know what is at the root of this? Is she homesick? Missing family? Does she think you’d all have a better quality of life back in her home country? What’s driving this?

[Thingsdogetbetter]

Is she depressed because she wants to be at home with her family, or wants to move home because she's depressed? Wanting to 'run away' is often a symptom of depression. We see it as a magical cure far from our problems, without realising the depression travels with us.

Did you meet your wife in the UK or did she move here for you? Was her plan always to stay here? Does she have real support here, or is all her support in her home country? I could imagine being in a foreign country with a new baby away from family would be very difficult. Is there a support network of her country's nationals that she can access where you live? Is she feeling isolated at home with a baby? What support, other than you, has she had? You have your family here and want to stay close to them, she has her family there and wants to be close to them. She's had to learn a new language to get work, but you would find it difficult to do the same (have you really really tried to learn her language? Have you properly researched job prospects?).

You should 'suggest' she goes to the gp (and you get to go too if possible, to make sure she doesn't minimise) before you will contemplate any moving, but actually think about this, rather than your gut reaction of nope, don't wanna. You instantly refusing to even contemplate her idea is dismissive and may make her dig her heels in and want it more.

However, get advice on whether you how to stop her taking your daughter without your permission and put steps in place to make sure that can't happen.

[Lalaloveyou2020]

I know a couple who did this and it did actually work. Partner went home to Eastern Europe where it's much cheaper to raise children and hubby arranged work so that he had one extended long weekend a month and then a week or two here and there. It is very hard to raise a child in a foreign country and some people do need the support of extended family. It can work!

[Bookriddle]

Thanks for the replies! Just to answer a few questions!

No i met my wife in the uk, she had been here 2 years already, so she has been here for 8 years total! She has a good support network here, through friends and colleagues, i know personally what its like to be home sick, i spend 2 years in Canada!

She is to stubborn to go to a gp unfortunately, i have tried but she just refuses!

@Thingsdogetbetter i have ttied to learn her language but it is one of the hardest in the world, i can hold a basic conversation!

She is really close to my family, especially my mum, they often do stuff together, even before baby came along, but i know its not the same, and she does miss her mum, they facetime twice a day!
One of my other concerns is, if she did go, our little girl is really close to her grandparents and she has alot of cousins, if she went home, she wouldnt have any cousins and her mum doesnt even live in there home country, but next door, her father is not on seen!

@Lalaloveyou2020 dont get me wrong, i could see the benefits of her living there, she has her own flat there, but from my point of view, i want to see my daughter everyday, my own dad was in the military for 26 years, so spent alot of time away and i dont have the closest of relationship with him, i wouldnt want this!

Just so hard, i want my wife to be happy, but i want to be with them

[forrestgreen]

I'd say that wanting to move can be a form of depression and that's not on the cards until she's got her health sorted
After she's sorted medication then you could talk.
Offer that the baby stays here and she takes long weekends to come back and visit. I'm sure she'd be horrified, so why should you have to do the same?

[LucyLocketsPocket]

Don't go if you don't want to and don't let her take the baby either. Your wife will have to decide what's best for her but you should do what's best for you.

[Notjustabrunette]

I have lived in a separate country to my husband (for his job) and we would both agree that it just does not work. It very nearly ruined our relationship and the relationship between my husband and children. He was also going through some mental health issues at the time which he was trying to conceal from me. So yes as another poster has said wanting to move (or run away) is a sign of depression. It will not help her depression I think it would make it worse.
How do convince her to seek help? Unfortunately I don’t have the answers to that I’m. My husband sort help after I told him he was a shit husband and an even shitter farther and if he didn’t change things around he would lose us. I’m not sure this would be effective in your wife’s case though.
Good luck

[mummy20169]

Is your wife still on maternity leave?
I live in the UK away from all my family and when my son arrived i felt very home sick. Every day felt the same, i was so stuck in the routine of feeding, washing, cleaning etc. I think in a way i was a bit bored which made me think more about my home country. I think it is very natural, having a baby is hard at the best of times, but when you are away from your home you start looking at places with a lot more sentiment.
I would say if she had a job to go back to things would improve for her. Also, taking regular holidays to her home country would be very beneficial for her amd your daughter.
When my son was about 10 months old i took him home for a month and to be honest after i month i couldnt wait to get back to my home in the UK. Eventually you realise that life back home is just the same and loved ones have their own lifes and routines.
It is a very emotional time when you have a child and makes you rethink your life. I think it sounds like your wife needs a holiday and break from daily routine.
She is lucky to have a good relationship with her MIL
Good luck

[AbiBrown]

Aaaaagh I was writing a really long post and it disappeared. Anyway to cut a long story short, I was in your wife's shoes. I became very resentful of the fact that my husband didn't care about my mental health and wellbeing and couldn't see just how much worse raising a child in the UK was to my home country (that's how I felt)... What helped : I had counselling + antidépressants which made me take a bit of a step back, I got really fun work in the UK, I grew to like my neighbourhood but mostly my husband (after trial separation and couples counselling) started to really listen to my concerns, learnt my mother tongue and began to consider scenarios for moving away
We now have a 2 year old. I would say he's now actually keener than I am to leave!! He's very disillusioned with the situation in the UK especially post COVID. But we can have sensible discussions with different scenarios, one of which would be to move to my home country for a a year, whilst keeping a foot in the UK. I'm now a bit more rational as well and don't imagine it's the paradise that I envisaged it to be, so I also think upping and leaving might not be the answer...
Importantly, we don't know what the future holds and both of you can change your minds about things. If you love each other it's worth a compromise and a very honest talk. She most probably needs a break from the UK. I did it for 4 months and it saved us. Could you consider something like this? A 6 month stay in her home country? Rent an Airbnb somewhere else entirely? Could you work from home?

[Bookriddle]

@mummy20169 she is on her last month of maternity, she will be going back to work on the first of September, we normally take regular breaks to her home country, but due to covid, its been hard, her country still has a 14 day isolation for people from the uk! Her mum hasnt even met our daughter yet, partly down to her but mainly to do with covid!

[Bookriddle]

@AbiBrown thank you for your reply! Fortunately for my wife, i really care about her mental health as i have suffered from severe depression myself before!
While i agree her taking a break to her home country would be great, we cant afford for her to disappear for 6 months, we have a house to run, i was recently made redundant and currently working for an agency because theres not many jobs in my area, so money is even more tight! Once she is working, she is the breadwinner, she is a nurse practitioner!

[AbiBrown]

Is there any chance living there would be cheaper for the time being? One of my reasons for wanting to leave was that I was struggling to find work at that time and my husband wasn't earning much at all... He's now retraining in a couple of fields that mean he can work from home and from pretty much anywhere. I think even the hope that you'll do that in the near future would mean a lot to her. I bet she's feeling very trapped. So maybe have a plan to save up and go for a few months, or one or both of you train in a skill that means you can work remotely? By no means immediately but it could be something to work towards...

[Bookriddle]

@AbiBrown she has her own flat over there, doesnt have a mortgage, was inherited, so yes it would be cheaper to live there, thing is she has a really good job over here! I dont have any qualifications, wouldnt know what to do, im not very academic, always done manual labour jobs! The only way is for her to go on holiday there! But she would have to isolate for the first 14 days

[Bookriddle]

Im just thinking about my daughter aswell, over here she has 2 grandparents she sees regularly, she has uncles and aunties and cousins she sees regularly, if my wife goes back, my daughter wont have any of that, my mil doesnt even live in there home country anymore!

[AbiBrown]

That does sound like our situation. Does she love her job in the UK? I was earning more than my husband but didn't particularly like what I did so gave up and chose something else and ended up pretty much unemployed. He said the same thing, what would I go do there? I wouldn't be able to work. Again, this is just our situation and of course, it will be different but just to give you this perspective... Over the last 2/3 years, he's learnt enough of the language (initially just to speak to our daughter a bit or at least understand me) and this summer he's embarked on an English teaching course so that if we were to move however briefly he can always teach English and pick up work quickly. I'm now the one dragging my feet 😊
Our minds changed, our circumstances changed, so trust in the future and Allow for possibilities. So it's not much of a risk, we're treating it as a bit of an adventure : let's try and live there for 6 months to a year, we can both do a bit of a work, see the sights, visit the country, live fairly cheaply and if we fall in love with the place and find our feet we'll stay longer, otherwise, if it was fun but the grass isn't greener we'll go back to the UK... I totally appreciate your circumstances might not allow this exact scenario but it's just to show you the many compromises and possibilities there are.
4 years ago, there's NO WAY I would have believed we'd now be on the same wavelength and very happy together with our child. There was no way I was going to stay in the UK, and we had very much separated with the view to divorce b because our positions were so irreconcilable and I was so angry at him for not going along with my wishes and him with me for seemingly deciding to up and leave....