to not want to stay at my parents' while DP stays with his?

[irritatedOfTunbridgeWells]

We have lived together for 4 years. We are about to move overseas together. Every time we go back to our home town to see our families, he wants to stay with his parents by himself while i stay at mine.

My mother has various issues but one of the bigger ones (at least for me) is she wishes I'd never been born. and tha ti am disgusting and extremely silly for living with someone without being married. She tells me all this fairly often. My dad always sticks by his wife, and will absolutely never stand up for me when she is being vile to me.

I've been over all this again and again with DP, saying can we please find a different arrangement for going home. But he doesn't want me to get in the way of his nice catch-up with his parents.

I think we're adults, we live together, we should'nt be staying with out parents ike teenagers, and we should address this as a pair. But he doesn't want to. He loves his parents and doesn't want my weird family dynamic spoiling his visit to see his parents. This has happened now 5 times. He will not budge and says I should fix my problems with my family and they're always perfectly nice to him.

I am about at exploding point on this. I am seriously considering not moving overseas with him (even though I don't have a job at the moment).

I don't reply to many threads but I felt that I had to post on yours. I was prepared to be tolerant if he had been 24, but knowing that you are both a decade older then I feel there is not much to be gained from persisting with this situation.

At the moment he is sending you really clear signals that he is not ready for any kind of serious commitment. He does not see himself as being part of a couple. Oh, but, if you are happy to sink your savings into a mutually owned house then he will be happy to string the situation out for another few years....

There is only one way to possibly bring him to commitment and that is to make it clear that you are going to leave. Not give an ultimatum (they almost never work), but make it clear, in a very low key way, that you are making plans X, Y and Z that are taking your life in a different direction to his.

However, this won't work if you are doing it out of any desire to see his reaction - your plans have to be 100% focused on yourself.

PP...have you ever lived in Australia ?

just askin'..

No, you offerin'?

I have, and it was the same as the Uk with marginally more sunshine

Not at this time of year, trust me!

No fun at the mo anyway - all up in the air with the flippin general election going on... [grr]

like I said....marginally more sunshine

Don't start me on bloody general elections... god, why do you think I moved to the UK... I was out burning effigies of Howard in the streets in 1996 with all the other university types.

Spending the rest of my life subsistence hunting in greenland up a fjord totally away from broadcast media is exceptionally attractive in comparison to the idiocy that passes for political debate in Australia. There's a highly educated and academically brilliant aussie on this field trip and she is driving me fecking INSANE wittering on with her right-wing xenophobia. Grrr.

Discussion is still happening.

If Gillard gets in, will you come back?

No, ok, I wouldn't either. Um. Brown?

I think I am going to vote Green this time. The Democrats are a mess, can't bring myself to vote for Tony Abbott (but possibly would have Peter Costello) and am un-impressed with Labour generally.

Morloth, you are Australian? Did i know this?

Pleeeeeease, you can't vote for Abbott. the man is a sleazy horrible anti-choice wanker who uses his daughters' virginity as a publicity stunt. And talks about the "housewives of Australia" and their ironing. And lies. A lot.

< shameless attempt to influence election>

Well mostly his ears stick out funny so I can't vote for him.

Like I said I think I will just go green, usually tend towards Democrat if I don't feel I can vote Liberal but this time not so impressed with them. I actually voted Labour last time because I felt that we had had a conservative Government too long and they were getting a bit too big for their boots. Won't be doing that again, Labour are hopeless.

Besides we cannot have Abbott & Costello in charge, it would just be silly. Unless they come up with an amusing routine...

DH was actually considering voting for TOny Abbott because he was most put off by the Gillard Takeover - but I have convinced him not to - the Work Choices (by any other name) is such a godawful policy and he won't refute it, or the possibility of something similar being put in place. ARGH!

Morloth - that is really funny! Have the news people picked up on the Abbott and Costello connection? Haven't heard it yet but they could have a field day with it!

Aren't the Greens doing something a little interesting with their votes? I saw something in a local paper (so it might just be a local thing) that if the Green candidate didn't get in, their vote would go to the next nominated representative - so if you voted Green but put Labour as your next choice, and the Green didn't win, your vote woudl go to Labour. I am not sure if they are allowed to do this but it seemed like a jolly good idea to get more Green votes!

I can kind of see where he's coming from. You sound pretty needy to me, you have a lot of problems with your family and by the sounds of it his family are kind and supportive when you are with them. The thing is, do you, your issues and life dominate the conversation when you are together? If so, then your DP is correct when he says your presence will upset the (probably really relaxed, easygoing) family atmosphere.

Added to that, you don't seem to have any friends of your own. You talk about DP and ExP's friends, but not about your own. If you are staying with him at his parent's then you are going to be with him all the time and he wants to spend his time at home with friends and family he rarely sees and not have to worry about looking after your needs. Is that really unreasonable?

That said, you are obviously having second thoughts about moving abroad with him. Think carefully before you do as it is a big commitment and it does not appear that you make friends easily, so you will become more dependant on him. Maybe not finacially, but emotionally.

As for your mother and your father: You say that she had no issues, when she certainly does, it is just that you are currently unaware of them. Perhaps your father is aware of these issues. Let him know what effect his and your mum's behaviour have on you.

I saw something in a local paper (so it might just be a local thing) that if the Green candidate didn't get in, their vote would go to the next nominated representative - so if you voted Green but put Labour as your next choice, and the Green didn't win, your vote woudl go to Labour. I am not sure if they are allowed to do this but it seemed like a jolly good idea to get more Green votes!

This is the way Australian politics works. It's a preferential voting system. If you vote below the line, you specify the order that your vote goes in. So I want my vote to go to the Pro-Tortoise Party, but if they don't get in my next preference is the Exo-Skeletons Are Great Party, and if they don't get in my next preference is the Slow And Steady Coalition.

If I vote above the line, for the Pro-Tortoise Party, then whoever they've done a preference deal with gets their vote. The Greens often do a preference deal with Labour, so it's quite common that a Green vote will end up in Labour's pocket in the Lower house. It is always worth checking who they have a preference deal with if you're not voting Coalition or Labour, because your vote might go somewhere you don't really want it to. E.g., around here, Family First have done a deal with the Pro-Sex Party. This is mystifying.

Sorry, OP, total hijack.

OO thanks tortoise! I don't vote yet, I don't think, so I don't know how it works. That is really useful to find out.

Sorry OP! Will stop hijacking now - have you come to any conclusions about your P yet? Or told him where to stick his plans and his family? I hope you have made peace with the situation in some way (I still say he's an arse and you're better off out of it, try and find someone who thinks you're worth being part of his family)

"The thing is, do you, your issues and life dominate the conversation when you are together?"

(Big) IF that is true other comments might be not unreasonable in your post, Dione

"You sound pretty needy to me,"

seemed quite the opposite to me...

"you have a lot of problems with your family"

I'm not sure whether anyone would be able to 'not have problems' if mother was a bit of a bitch, and father does nothing but roll over and accept the views of "she who must be obeyed".

I'll have to go back to see if I have missed siblings, but felt sure I had a moderate understanding of OP's situation, family wise.

"by the sounds of it his family are kind and supportive when you are with them."

Indeed, but unless OP's needs dominate, then she sounds quite reasonable in wanting to be with her partner and not packed off (by him) to visit her parents. If anyone is needy, it seems to be him, unable to 'share' - unwilling for the OP to get to know his friends better, or have more opportunities to stay with his parents, as if she's a threat to him, as if he'd lose his friends or parents 'to her'.

As for OP having her own friends, I guess up to a point as an academic, it may be that bit harder to make friends, esp if not currently working.

She's unlikely to meet 'competitors' (ie staff in post) in social gatherings, may not be interested in drunken parties at weekends as many other single women in their mid-30s might be, and OP probably has better things to do than 'loiter' at the gym or library to see if she can make friends with others around her age group, let alone interests (not knowing her academic interests leaves us a bit in the dark).

Sorry, OP, to be 'discussing you' like this, but I know how some people are perfectly happy with their own company and are not "needy" or weighing down any acquaintances with their own family concerns or burdens.

NG, good response!

I actually disagree (slightly) with the consensus here. Perhaps the OP & her bf really are simply incompatible. My (very independent) brother lives abroad with his (similar)gf & they always tend to spend more time staying alone with their respective parents when they visit. Also, I've been there when my brother's visited both with & without his gf, and the dynamic is very different when she's there. All I'm saying is, it does work for some people but only if the other person in the relationship is happy with the arrangement (which op clearly isn't).

NG, anyone with a mother the OP describes here would have problems, I am not saying otherwise. To feel unwanted by a parent is horrendous and unresolved can impact all other aspects of someone's life, especially relationships and I believe that this is what is happening here. OP, would the fact that he wants to visit with his folks alone be an issue if your relationship with your own family was OK?

It is possible that OP's needs/views do dominate without her being aware of it. As you do meet up with his folks when you are home I do not think that his views are to do with him being unwilling to "share" his time with all of you or him seeing you as a "threat", just that he wants time alone with them. You are an adult capable of making your own decisions and not someone to be "packed off" by anyone. If you do not wish to stay with your own family, stay with friends, stay in a hotel or stay at home.

I don't think that wanting to spend alone time with friends and family when visiting your hometown is wrong, however your strength of feeling surrounding this issue may be indicative of deeper problems with your relationship with your partner.

Sorry but I think yopur DP needs to grow up

I disagree slightly with consensus too. DP and I spend much more time with our families on our own than as a couple.

I'm still the same person I was before I met him, I haven't become half of a two person indivisible unit.

Even now, DP knows that I will always go to my mums for xmas. It works fine, as we go together and then to his family on boxing day. But if for any reason he was to say 'this year, I want to see my mum on xmas day' I'd say 'No worries, have a great time and send her my love'.

My dp likes my family and I like his, but they're not my family, and mine aren't his. I don't agree that after a certain point, you have to do everything together. Sometimes it works best to do things apart. Although I appreciate OP situation a bit more complicated than that.

"Sometimes it works best to do things apart."

and there's the rub... you seem to have no problems whatsoever with doing your own thing(s) as and when, though seemingly accommodating, there are still certain 'expectations' as from your own comments, MZ, it sounds like Christmas Day for you has to be at your Mum's home.

Given the many threads concerning Christmas/New Year, it's perhaps not the best part of the year to include. Ignoring that part of the year, clearly you and your DP are flexible enough to accommodate being together or alone, and seems no problem whatsoever. For OP, it appears just the wanting to spend time together rather than apart, is too much for her DP to cope with, accept, or understand. His view seems to be "well I am happy with my folk, why not go repair things with your folk, and **((&&% you if you think you're coming with me" - OK, not expressed like that, but it's the very inflexibility which is probably angering the OP.

You, MZ, seem far more flexible, perhaps to a degree where many others would not quite go, though inflexible about Christmas Day. It's not, surely, wrong for OP to wish to have some opportunity to spend time with DP when they are both "on holiday". I expect OP would be flexible enough to accept 'being together' was only 50% of the time, but suspect partner would not be happy with only 25% of times being 'as a couple'. Chalk and Cheese, might be one way to compare them.

thanks for the more comments. I tend to agree somewhat more with NetworkGuy than Dione, but I see where each is coming from. MorrisZapp - it would be ok if there were some flexibility here, i have absolutely no prob with him spending time alone with family and friends (and encourage him to do so) - it's the inflexibility re accommodation arrangements and the "it's not my problem, deal with it" re my parents that gets to me though.

No decisions made yet. Which is a passive decision in the direction of moving overseas.

irritated - do you want to move overseas?