After 17 years of supporting my wife's career, am I wrong to expect the same?

What are you hoping to gain from this? It seems all you want is for people to agree with you and tell you how unfair your spouse is being. You seem to feel very hard done by. I spoke upthread about how I made a similar choice to move when I got married. I didn't make a sacrifice for my DH. I chose to move. My DH owes me nothing.

Maybe now is the time you go to couples therapy or you split up? Holding on to so much resentment isn't healthy. I fear that you will turn down this opportunity and then become even more bitter. Don't be a martyr.

If he doesn’t go and the resentment simmers she is going to be left far more in the lurch if they divorce

Is this woman incapable of looking after her own house and children especially as she insisted they live near her parents and extended family so she isn’t without support.

I come at this from the harm your wife is doing to her children by being away from the family so regularly.

My now exh did a job similar to your dw in being away for a portion of the month every month

Dc don’t have a good relationship with him. They were so used to him not being there, he became an inconvenience when he was there

Not saying that the wife is anything like now exh but all those weeks/ two weeks away each month will have had an affect on them.

You going away for a set amount of time but you having planned trips back and they have holidays spent with you in a different country and with the rise in your salary to make it a fun time when you are around and more of an adventure the lasting impact will be negligible.

I think your wife is scared that after a year of having to think of others not just herself and having the mental load of having to organise, even If it is just packing and ferrying dc to her parents / extended family members for a week or 2 each month and keeping on top of the house/ laundry / cleaner/ grocery shop that you will comeback more as her equal or higher earner and the status quo which she knows suits her at your expense will be changing

I am not changing anything. In my personal circumstances I would not have moved abroad when I was young so if I met someone from abroad they would have to come here or the relationship would end. How am I saying you chased your wife and she didn’t want to marry you? You are being ridiculous!

What I am saying is you moving to Spain was a choice. You could have chosen differently. You cannot or rather should not try and hold that over your wife.

It is not unreasonable of you to ask this of your wife but it also wouldn’t be unreasonable of her to say no. However it isn’t fair for you to say I did this for you, now you should do that for me. Each decision is separate.

I don't think what you're asking is reasonable, no. That's the simple answer.

I have a feeling your dw doesn't think it's reasonable either.

But it has to be something you BOTH decide you want after you have discussed it all dispassionately and without emotional baggage and resentment. And something that fits in with all your family.

Uprooting children from their peer group, especially at their ages, and dropping them into a new culture, educational system and teaching language is not a small thing and this is not your wife's fault, so please do not resent her for these inescapable facts. Friends mean so much to children of those ages. The implications of this need to be thought through in the context of your children as they are and their different emotional needs.

There will need to be compromise on both sides, but so hard to achieve in the context of your resentment.

You both have changes to face whatever is finally decided but do not expect her to leap at it .... you have suddenly pulled out the rug from under the whole family's feet, for what you see as good reasons, but remember she is blindsided.

Until you park the resentment and start to look at it as a joint family decision there is no way forward.

I think it isn’t ideal but it is workable. I’m not sure I could fly back for only 4 days it’s bloody knackering (I can’t sleep on flights).

It would be fantastic if your DW could take a sabbatical and move out there for a year. You would need to check about health insurance cover for all of them for the year.

What are Spanish school holidays like? Would the in-laws help with the DC childcare.

I think the money is very relevant here. If he goes abroad for a year, his wife can easily employ a nanny to help with the children, or whatever other household help would enable her to spend more time with the children herself.

I have a friend who did something similar for 2 years

Biggest issue she had was settling back down into family life when she came back. Although because of the experience it gave her, the company gave her a huge promotion and with the bonus from the project she is now a board member. It meant that family could move house and buy their dream home.

Exactly.

You say you moved to Spain for her but surely you also did it for you? Because you wanted to be with her? You chose to marry someone from another county and move there. You didn't have to, it was a choice. This does not give you the right to use your choice as a stick to beat her with years later. You are now established in Spain, you work there, your children are there. I don't believe you have been resenting or regretting your decision - certainly not if you have the great marriage that you say you do. You make choices together throughout your marriage. You just can't stack up all the things you have done over the years (seemingly without complaint) and then to just expect her accept your plan on the basis of them. You are massively changing the goal posts here. I think in a marriage if one person says no to something then it is a no, be this having another baby, getting a pet, moving to a new place etc. Just because one of you once said yes to something, doesn't mean the other one then has to do the same. Of course if the something is a dealbreaker then you have the right to leave the marriage.

You need to talk to your wife and explain how important this is to you and your career, explain that you have enabled her to soar in her chosen career and now that the children are older you feel it is your turn to soar in your chosen career.

If you don't go will you be able to deal with the resentment that you will feel, as that would be the worrying thing for me.

It sounds like an amazing opportunity and the money you would be earning is eye watering. I would love if myself or my husband were to be offered this opportunity to earn that kind of money.

From your posts I don't think the money actually comes into your decision, it is more that you feel that you put your career on the back burner to be the parent at home and now you would like to feel the same from your wife.

You will have to decide if this is a hill that you are willing to die on, and possibly end your marriage as the disappointment and resentment against you wife will slowly creep in and sour the relationship in my opinion.

One person’s sacrifice is another’s opportunity no? The difference is entirely subjective.

We had the opportunity to move to Europe for DH’s job. I was entirely up for that as I’m half Italian and prefer hotter countries. In the end we stayed here. But that was not a ‘sacrifice’ on my part it was a conscious decision we made together.

I’m not sure whether these were positive choices you made at the time that you’re now billing as sacrifices to justify this trip; or whether you’re just not good at making decisions in favour of other people and thus shouldn’t have attempted it.

The different is she goes away for work here and there she isn’t going for months or years at a time.

You made the choices you did to live where you do. You didn’t have to move to her country or even marry her or have children with her.

If you where saying you’ve got a job that will now give you travel then sure but from a job where your home every day and have been for years to a sudden bye I’m off for a year is a bit of a leap can’t you see that?

I know people posted about other work away jobs but those jobs are normally the norm in that persons life.

I wouldn’t marry a man in the army or who went away on an oil rig for 6 months. It’s not the life/marriage I want.

If dh suddenly decided he wanted to it would be a pretty big deal and possibly honestly a deal breaker.

I don't think you're going to get the support you are looking for @joshkenn

For what it's worth, I agree that either you should move to LA alone or the family should go as a group. It's only 1 year and an excellent opportunity. Why wouldn't you?? But majority of Mumsnet seem to act like you should cease to be your own person or have ambitions once you have children. I think if you don't it will fester resentment.

You have made sacrifices and those saying no it was a choice are being pedantic in my view. 100% it's a sacrifice (and a choice) to opt to live in wife's country where you have to then learn another language.

I think an open and honest discussion with your wife is needed.

What are you hoping to get from this thread OP?

You seem very sure of what you want, the thing now is to talk to your wife.

Think creatively - is there a compromise whereby you're away for less time? Or they all go to you for all the school hoildays?

Or a different opportunity you could take that would also make you feel fulfilled? You've got the financial freedom.

I can't help wondering whether you'd get more support here, if the genders were reversed.

The least your wife can do is to sit down with you and your children to see if there is a way to make it work. If you still can't find a solution, then at least you will all have tried. However, if she has just said no, then she is being unfair.

Based on your description of how you have lived to date your wife is being very unreasonable and selfish. A year is no time at all in the grand scheme of things and since you can afford the international travel for multiple holidays in that time it really is no big deal. She should have enough seniority in the workplace for the necessary juggling around family but if not she/you can clearly afford extra child care. I don't buy her arguments at all. If she really believed the impact on your kids will be significant she would never have chosen the lifestyle you've had to date. Of course a year IS different from the existing pattern but your kids will weather it because the necessary emotional security/healthy attachment is already established.

I could have stayed in my own country and built my career there, but instead I moved to her country for her.
What? Moving to Spain for her was a sacrifice but going to America for your employer is an opportunity.

Some people have given really insightful, thoughtful responses to this problem. Much more insightful and thoughtful than the (supposed C-suite) OP has been.

Oh come on, it is perfectly fine for the parent of an 8yo to work abroad for 1y. I’m assuming OP will be able to fly back a few times, even just for a weekend here and there.

If my DH had moved to my country, learned the language, supported my frequent work trips, I would definitely not object to a one-off one year away, especially with older children.

OP, out of curiosity, when your wife has business trips does she ask you if that is ok with you (and would accept a no), or does she tell you?

It is not always about money, it is self-actualisation, personal growth and maximising human potential.

No one is forcing women to sacrifice themselves on the altar of motherhood. If they do, that is their choice. A choice OP has gone with for 17 years but no longer works for him.

This is a family who are perfectly financially placed to outsource all the household management and grunt work of life to allow them both to have full careers.

What you're asking for is huge. You willingly agreed to move countries 18 years ago to make things work for your marriage and your family because that was what you wanted at the time, and it's not exactly fair to start pointing to those things as 'I sacrificed so much...' because it makes it sound as though those were things you didn't want. You did want those things. You GAINED so much by doing it, too.

Wanting to step away from your wife and children for a year and be on the other side of the world is a very different thing and you haven't mentioned anything at all about the impact on your wife or kids of you taking this opportunity - it's all about you and how it's so unfair that your wife won't let you do the thing you want to do. I'm sure she's made plenty of sacrifices in your relationship over the years too, but all you can see if what you've done.

At the end of the day, you entered into a partnership and big decisions have to be made jointly. Especially ones that upend everything you have spent 18 years building together. You want to check out for a whole year, and where does that leave her and your kids? Have you asked your kids how they'd feel about it? Or is it only about you? If you don't want to make sacrifices, you don't have kids. It is what it is. Sometimes you don't get to do the stuff you want to do exactly when you do it. But this is not all about you.