To not want to throw in my job to live in France for a year?

It sounds like a terrible plan. It also sounds like you are struggling a bit, so I think you should try and take some time out to come up with a better plan. If you stay as is, how can you cope better? Clearly not by your dh taking on more planning and responsibility as he sounds totally incapable at this.

Or this.

"Since you're not willing to be adult about this, I am going to have to do the adulting for both of us. Uprooting our children to take them to France for a year with no plan for how we are going to support ourselves, where we will live or how the children will keep up with their education is insane. You need to get over this idea because the answer is no. Your last chance to do this is not now. Your last chance was about a decade ago. Time to move on."

Let him get the logistics together. First he needs to start an intensive French course to get to the minimum of the B1 European framework level. Without that all communication other than the supermarket will be too difficult. It’ll be costly but necessary and hard work. At the same time he needs to register with schools and find French classes asap where you are now for the kids. That’s for starters … admin for health insurance and housing. He’ll need a job in France. Let him sort it all out. Once he’s organised everything then it’ll be ok. I doubt he’ll do anything tbh.

Be more direct.

"DH, how exactly do you think an 11 year old child is going to be able to pursue his secondary education in a language he can neither speak nor write? He's not in preschool. Talk me through how you think this will actually work. I'm all for resilience but I think you are underestimating the enormity of what you would be expecting him, and all of us, to do, in order to facilitate YOUR dream."

Keep working on it?
just tell him no, end of conversation!

Agree with this. It’s like he’s made the decision and you’re desperately trying to make a business case to disprove it. He should be doing all the work here to prove to YOU that it’s feasible.

Agree with all of this.

Working on what ?

I say it again. He is being incredibly selfish.

His want doesn't trump the rest of the families needs and well being.

If you didn’t have school age children I’d would say explore if your work would let you take a sabbatical or work remotely or hybrid coming once a month or so but…you do have school age kids so the idea is a pipe dream and you DH needs a reality check

I just don't see how this is reasonable risk taking, it's a massive risk to take on so many levels. Hard no from me.

I've lived abroad as an expat for 4 years, it takes a year to settle in then it's just still incredibly tough.

If he said the Kids are resilient thing I'd reply is it because the adults are not ?

I don't understand why you aren't even the tiniest bit angry here OP.

Both of you should be putting your DCs first and instead of that he has some hare brained scheme to drain the family resources and seriously mess up the DCs life, oh and scupper your career whilst he's at it. All for the sake of a year !

Why are you even entertaining him? It's preposterous and you know it.

Do not move an 11 year old who doesn't speak French to France unless you absolutely have to.

Terrific idea, though, when kids are grown up. People can do voluntary work abroad in their 50s and 60s, even older if in good health.

This! Once the kids are off at Uni you and your dh are free to travel as much as you like and spend time living abroad.

In the meantime please prioritise your children, especially the 11 year old starting at Secondary School.

I’ve lived and worked in several different countries, OP, and I remember how challenging and lonely that can be, as well as exciting, interesting etc. I was single and childless, as I expect you were when you did your year in France. I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would be with children.

Less lonely in one way, as you’d be with your family. But perhaps more isolated in another way as you couldn’t throw yourself into the singles life. Also I’ve found it harder to make new friends after moving to another town, even in England, as I get older.

Enormously more difficult and complicated sorting out DC’s schooling etc. DC having to cope with the huge changes. (Friends who have done this found the kids coped well and of course picked up the language much faster than adults do— but they stayed abroad for several years.)

Probably hard for you and DH to find suitable work, and for you to slot back into a good job when you return — unless you’d agreed a year off with your present employer.

Your DH has his head in the clouds I’m afraid. And these days, how can he even consider spending all your savings on this?

Terrific idea, though, when kids are grown up. People can do voluntary work abroad in their 50s and 60s, even older if in good health.

Best of luck whatever you do, OP.

oh what a shame he didn't do anything like that when he was younger - now he needs to grow up and realise he is married with children and the time for a year out has passed.

esp as you have a good job.

how long will it be before the savings are all spent up ? then nothing to fall back on.

why disrupt the children for a year, for a whim !

it would be different if it was your company offering you a year in France in a different office kind of thing.

he needs to grow up, and put aside his fomo

yes we only live once and life can be samey, but to disrupt everything in his family's life for a whim !!!

I had parents who moved around a lot in southern Europe and a third world country, lots of different schools and languages with a constant refrain of ‘how lucky us five children were and children are resilient’. More extreme than your husband is suggesting but coming from the same selfish place.
This is how it affected us: as a child you are resilient because what else are you going to do? You get on with your own reality of going to school, answer questions about your weird parents, learn the language, wish your life was just normal and didn’t have have to keep saying goodbye to friends. We didn’t have time to learn much academic stuff because the language and social and moving took up so much space, none of us graduated with any kind of meaningful qualifications or progressed much in work.
Children need stability and parents that have their back and encourage them. Dragging them around because they are resilient does them no favours at all.
Spend some money on your husband getting a kick arse therapist so he can explore his own feelings of inadequacy and find his own way to feeling more satisfied with his life.

Another thing I would add is that the job market is pretty brutal these days and a lot of companies are moving to a 5 days a week in the office, no flexible working model.

If I had young DCs and a flexible high paid position, I'd not be giving it up for anything, or jeopardising my position by suggesting a year long sabbatical.

Maybe the way to go is heavily push how lovely it will be for him to be the main wage earner worrying about paying the bills. Suggest you get somewhere with a vineyard and you could make wine, or something equally outlandish and unprofitable. Say that absolutely you can live off the savings - you had hoped that you could both retire early 60s, but it's so important he lives his dream that it's worth sacrificing that and both working until 70s. He can get a minimum wage job if he can't do his old one anymore. Guaranteed he will give up on the idea.

And what about schooling for the kids? Teaching English as a foreign language isn’t going to pay three sets of International School fees. The other choice is to deregister and homeschool them, which with the ages OP has would be extremely difficult to service without simply sticking the older ones in front of youtube lessons all day.

In England you absolutely can’t miss a year and then catch up by joining the year below a year later, as a PP claimed (assume it’s the same in Ireland). The kids would have to rejoin their chronological year and deal with having missed a year of teaching.

The ‘adventure’ glaring omits the needs and practicalities of three maturing children, plus the OP losing a good, senior flexible job to be a TEFL teacher 🤷‍♀️

1. Your DH is highly jealous of your career and subconsciously trying to sabotage it.
2. France is not an adventure.
3. Your eleven year old is already too old for a ‘year out’ a move at that age to a foreign language country would be extremely hard and harmful and he’d be unlikely to recover his social confidence.

I mean if you wanted to take a glam job in New Zealand I might say go for it but… France?! Pah. It’s like England but with ruder people and a confusing language. If you really want to move to Europe at least do Italy or somewhere fun.

Sounds like your DH is a selfish fantasist having a mid-life crisis, he needs to grow up and prioritise his children.

So let me understand, you are the main wage earner and are struggling because you're not very good at housework? And as a result your DH thinks uprooting 3 DCs and losing a well paid job is a good answer because it rains too much here ?

Get a cleaner and go on more holidays. Tell your DH to focus his attention on his DCs futures or holiday projects.

There was a great line in another thread that suits your DH "Wherever you go, there you are."
He's not going to be any happier in France not speaking the language with very little money. Although I do take his point on the rain.

Because she doesn’t want to?

Can you take a one year unpaid sabbatical from your job l? That's what I would do, don't give up both of your jobs but just take a year off unpaid so you can return after a year. You could teach English for a year wh8le out there to earn money. I'd do it but I love an adventure.

The EU has freedom of movement, sure, but even so EU citizens cannot move to another EU country for more than three months without proving how they will provide for themselves. That has remained national legislation.

Do you have any evidence for that? I'm curious as have an EU passport myself and have not come across such rules.