Are women / girls just so desperate to get married ?

I think it's a pretty reasonable red line. So being up front from the start is the best way.

Interestingly, my desire to find a man to settle down with completely disappeared after I had a child on my own, which I think supports your point about the biological want to have children.

Now I really don't get it at all, adding a man to the mix seems totally unappealing! However I do have friends who despite already having kids and divorced have put finding another relationship completely at the centre of their lives.

So it’s ok for you to give the bride an ultimatum that you will never move away for her AND you don’t want to even hold the wedding in her country because it’s ‘ unfair ‘ to you ?

Yes, absolutely ok.

And it's absolutely ok for her to refuse 🤷‍♂️

Always best to get these things talked out before making commitments.

I can't help but wonder, OP, why you married your DH at all, given that you don't think he is that great. I think that's the real problem here, rather than geography.

Perhaps you were desperate and you settled, but I don't think it's reasonable to assume that all women do the same.

This is such a weird thread. Most women here aren’t going to relate. Ultimately you’re the one best placed to answer your own question because you are from overseas and accepted living in the UK for marriage. Sooooo, only you can answer if it was out of desperation.

I think that it’s a good thing that they are being clear. I’ve read about people on here who have changed their mind on living overseas because their parents are getting older or whatever and it’s sad for everyone.

I'm a woman. Not quite another country, but I'm from North, DH from South. I told him I'd never move and we had the wedding in our (my) area, not down south or somewhere in the middle. It made sense as that was were we both lived at the time.
I don't think my DH was 'desperate' to marry. We fell in love, I wasn't up for leaving my family and friends, he was. End of story. No misogyny, no desperation.

I listened too much to people who said that if you as a British person get together with a foreigner, you need to avoid being parochial, that it's unfair to try to argue for staying in the UK. I wish someone would have said to me, look, you're the woman, you'll be the one taking the hit to your career to have kids, you don't know if his home country is particularly supportive of women's financial independence, you're going to be dealing with school and doctors and the authorities not in your native language, you could easily be quite isolated when the kids are small... fuck that.
(That's why I often come on these sorts of threads to say it to other people!)

For me you are looking at another form of future faking. I would much rather a partner who had no intention of ever moving abroad was upfront about that so I could make a decision on whether it was the right relationship for me, rather than tell me they were open to it and I build a life with them on that basis and they have no intention of it ever happening.

It sounds like the men in the family are all quite clear, I don't see a problem with that

If a couple live in different countries, I think its entirely reasonable that one, the other or both state that the future of the relationship for them depends on living in their own country.
I would not have moved to another country for any man, and would have felt it only fair to be clear about that. Its then entirely up to the other person to decide if they want to continue on those terms. This can be considered an ultimatum, but realistically, if that's your deal breaker, you do need to say so, so the person knows where they stand.
The women you're talking about clearly decided to leave their country for the relationship, and there could be multiple reasons for that, including not being all that bothered, or an active desire to live here. I don't think it can be dismissed as 'desperate' or something men force women to do.

'Who do these men think they are?'

They are grown ups with their own mind. They're being open and honest by laying down their preferences from the offset to give you the opportunity to decide what you want. Would you prefer it if they lied to you? I would do the same, I've lived abroad before and there's no way I'd leave the UK now. If I was at the start of a relationship that looked like it was long term, I'd make that clear too.

This is not a man problem, this is a woman problem.

you say that all the women were in the uk when they met their husbands, well that’s the reason - the men in question are settled, the fact the person they met is from abroad is inconsequential, they have no plans to uproot their lives. Quite different if you meet someone abroad. As for desperate, depending on where you live, many people are desperate to live in the uk

It isn't an ultimatum, it's a boundary.

I'm pretty open-minded and I love the adventure of moving abroad, but there are certain countries where I simply wouldn't be prepared to live. If I adopted your logic, that would mean that I couldn't ever marry someone from one of those countries, even if we both wanted to get married.

I think it's very difficult when people move the goalposts after marriage, but there is nothing wrong with people setting out their "red lines" before they commit - nobody is forcing anyone to get married, and if you don't like what you're signing up to, then there is always the option to walk away.

And it looks like it worked exactly that way for this particular family.

Definitely

When my husband asked me to marry him I set my stall out. I would only say yes if one day I could move home to my own country. He agreed and that’s what we did before having children. I have seen friends desperate to get married and end of living in places they don’t want to live. I am not saying it should all be in the way of the woman. Our move made sense as we could never have had the lifestyle we have if we had stayed in England.

I guess my experience is very different in that my brother married in England because he was moving to his new wife’s home (Canada). Immigration rules in the uk make it virtually impossible for his wife to move here following her 3 years she worked here studying and as a teacher so he will remain in Canada whether he wants to or not. He has a great life but I know he gets homesick and struggled when our parents were unwell this year with being so far away.

I think some more patriarchal British men are attracted to non-British women because they think they will be more compliant.

I think she’d have ended up with a different husband. She’d have spotted his bullshit and moved on.

This highlights another reason why women gaining experience before settling down is so important. Experience of social interaction, dating and socialising with a number of men - especially socialising with men who are talking about their relationships. Developing your own social and emotional intelligence, knowledge and field of reference gives you power. Pattern recognition. Power to identify and reject bullshitters.

No wonder the patriarchy promotes ‘princess marriage’ to young, inexperienced women.

I think it's fine as long as they tell you in good time (ie before you're too invested) so you can decide if you're happy with that. Surely it's no different to someone saying upfront that they don't want kids, or anything else that could be a potential deal breaker?

I am female. I married someone from the UK, but if I had met a foreign national and started dating them, I definitely would have told them that I would never consider moving elsewhere. It would have been absolutely off the table. If they wanted to marry me they would need to accept that they either stay in this country with me or they divorce me and leave. Their choice to marry me when they're in full possession of the facts. It's not an ultimatum, it's just being honest.

Of course I think it's likely that in general women are probably keener to marry earlier than men due to their biological clocks. Maybe this means some women make poor decisions regarding compatibility. But the compatibility issues can be anything at all, not just location.

I don't want to move countries and I'd flag that if I was in a relationship where it was likely to be an issue out of fairness to the other person. Better to deal with these things before children come than after.