Aibu to expect oh to leave the country for work?

[Gangie]

Job offer yesterday. It's in Scotland ( we are in Ireland) it's not in his actual field but similar. The pay is not great, we prob would not be any better off than we are at the moment ( on benefits though )

I want him to go because it's a job and it's easier to find work when you are working. He doesn't want to take it as he will be away from us (2 kids 3, 1) and not gaining anything ie. money, experience.

Currently not talking after huge argument. Its 4years since he has had full time permanent work. He has had sporadic work throughout this time and works hard and long hours when it's there.

Having moved all over. I would say he should go for it.
however
I would expect you as a family to move together, unless he's happy being away Mon-Fri. If he's not then you need to go as a family.

Some people are happy to travel, stay away, commute for hours, relocate etc for work opportunities. As a family we are.

Lots of people aren't.

Personally, I believe being flexible does create more opportunities, and financial gain. But this isn't everybody's priority.

But, honestly, could you leave your small children for months on end with only Skype and phone calls? Really, could you? Because there is no way on earth I could physically do it. It's unimaginable to me. So it seems incomprehensible to me that you could advocate this for another family, whether it is the mother or the father being expected to leave.

I'm not sure it is a troll thread. I know lots and lots of families where one parent in absent most of the week. It's hardly unusual.

But, honestly, could you leave your small children for months on end with only Skype and phone calls?

DH lived it. So yes.

The job he's taking wouldn't allow him to get home to see his children very often because she said it would be "too expensive". hinting that the job her partner is taking isn't that well paid.

That is not the same as being so badly paid as to be insufficient to support the whole family, which is what was said in the comment I was replying to.

Her studying for a masters is more important than his time with his children.

She has not said that. She has simply said that it is something she would like to do in the future, but she accepts she can't afford it at present.

Why do people make up the facts and then form judgments on what they have made up?

Sorry, my comment was to amicissima and I also would repeat my earlier comment about there being more ways to support your own family than just financially.

The thought of hugging my 3yo goodbye, knowing I wouldn't see them for weeks or months on end...I couldn't do it.

impty being absent in the week is one thing - going away for months is quite different. And I would miss my husband too much as well if he did it.

Saying that you want to get work and getting a job are two entirely different things. She has been on benefits for the last 4 years and prefers to stay home with her kids while her husband works. There is no need for her to say she wants to live on handouts, it is pretty obvious as she hasn't done anything to change that.

She clearly hasn't been on benefits for the last four years, as her posts clearly state that her husband has had work from time to time. As has been pointed out repeatedly, it isn't easy to get work where she lives, and the work she could get would have left the family worse off - particularly as she could not assume that her dh would provide childcare as he has been taking short term jobs from time to time.

Yes, I agree that there's more than one way Jelly. My children were fortunate because they had one parent at home all the time.
That sacrifice then- now means that dh is home all the time (well each evening).As teenagers they are more than happy with the lifestyle Dh and I created.
Sometimes you have to look at the bigger picture, and try to shape the future.

To a poster who told me it wouldn't be possible to work regularly as have children of 1 and 3 - well toots, I'm looking at 'em AND I've worked! Parenthood and bringing in a wage are not mutually exclusive!

So did I. But I had a job before I had the first child, and therefore full maternity rights and maternity pay; also I had a degree and a professional qualification. It's a very different situation when you've had to leave college due to pregnancy and you live in an extremely depressed area where jobs are hard to come by even when you don't have a baby with prospective employers assuming that you will probably have another.

Oh my god I'm not a bloody troll. I haven't been able to reply much as although I am unemployed I have 2 small children and a house to run. My oh is gone to the neighbours to get help fixing our ancient car to save the cost of mechanics.

To clear a few things up:

I AM looking for work. What I meant about enjoying looking after the children was that I got a bit complacent when my oh was working and I should have looked harder for work (I was looking for just my field in my naïveté) at the time I was enjoying my new baby. You must remember my oh works when he can for a few weeks/months/small gaps/longer gaps.

Since I lost my job while pregnant I have done a foundation level course for my future field. Have volunteered in my community. Did a short but relevant course (think first aid but different) to increase my prospects. I have applied for tonnes of jobs, I am either under-experienced or over qualified. I worked over Christmas in a bar at night (in my home town, I used to work there years ago) and the money I earned went specifically towards the course oh needs to finish.

Those who think I am completely heartless in they I didn't mention how my oh would feel being away from us, I try not to think too much about that as I know we will just have to get on with it as the time comes. His ideal job is on rigs anyway so we have to get used to living apart. That is another reason that I don't want to relocate the whole family.

I love my oh very much and would miss him more than anything, But it is hard on us both living in each other's pockets with little money and lots of stress that comes with that. I know from experience that he is much happier when working.

All these people saying OP should have been going out to work for the last four years, do tell us whether you leapt up from childbirth and nipped round to the Jobcentre? And, if you were working previously, whether you took any maternity leave?

And is it your view that all army and navy husbands and wives should insist that their respective partners pack in the army/navy so as to avoid the prospect of being apart from their families?

I understand your point logically, impty, it's just if I imagine actually leaving my toddler it's too painful and that overrides the bigger picture for me. I know my dh couldn't do it either, whatever the future gain. I understand how and why it can work for other families but because it's a choice we couldn't make, I couldn't advise someone else too - so I find some of the responses on this thread a but shocking as I'm not sure that everyone saying he should go would actually do it themselves.

I hope it all works out for you, OP. It sounds like you are in a very difficult situation.

Dolomites I think that's the problem people are having - that she's choosing a lifestyle and it's simply up to her hubby to fund it. In which case, she married the wrong bloke

Isn't that the cause of so many problems you read about on here.

Actually, in dh's industry people from all over the world work together for months at a time away from their families. Yes, its hard. Yes, they miss them. That's hardly a reason to turn down an opportunity which may well keep them all solvent.

I'm astonished at the lack of drive and ambition!

Successful people often do make personal sacrifices for long term gain.

OP you can report troll hunting I did

As for the rest, mners especially on aibu love finding the obvious big change and encouraging it. If a move to Scotland is not to be then you'll jointly have to find another way to make 2014 your year.

I think the issue is how you define success - my dh abd I work to provide a reasonable life for our dc but we won't be wealthy and there are many things we can't afford. However, I feel that having a happy and loving close family is more a measure of success (for us) than career success. My drive and ambition is to be happy and get fulfillment, which for me comes from family rather than work. However, this is a bit off topic from the OP where the problem is obviously a lack of any work at all. But even in desperate circumstances, I wouldn't consider working away as an option.

I understand where the OP is coming from. It is very hard to get a job when you are unemployed. When you are in work you are more attractive to prospective employers and you are also in the loop so get to hear about other opportunities. It is also probably more strain on their relationship him being at home and not working than it would be him being away and in work. DH was out of work for almost a year and it was incredibly stressful. He eventually took a job he didn't like but through this job he found another better job within months. He needs to get out there and break the cycle, if it's only a short term thing then it could be the making of your future and the saving of your relationship.

I can see where the OP is coming from. After 2.5 years of my husband being jobless I was starting to talk to him about him looking for a job in the Far East--for six months. We weren't claiming benefits and we could just about manage on our savings,but I felt that my husband's mental state would benefit from a paying job (he had been doing lots of voluntary work). I felt he needed to be back in corporate life and that it would be better for all of us if he went abroad for a finite period, with us visiting him and him having home leave. It would have been a sacrifice for everyone but I was dreading having at home for a third January, with ghastly weather, on tight finances and nothing much happening.

And yes, I would do the same thing myself.

Fortunately he got a job in the UK a few weeks later.

Nenny until recently my employer only gave three months paid maternity leave, it's now four, so although I don't know anybody who returned to work with a new born i do know people who returned to work with a two and a half month old at home.

I am glad you have made a decision that you are both happy with op, good luck with the future.

YABU

I imagine Gangie wasn't focusing on how much her husband would miss the children because she couldn't afford to on economic grounds if this was the decision they came to. I think the UK posters who are dominating this thread (and some of whom are being repellently judgemental in a way that really suggests they don't understand the plight of an awful lot of Irish people in the current climate) are just not as culturally used to a family member going abroad for work, on a temporary or semi-permanent basis, and sending money home to support his/her family.

It's highly unusual for it to be happening to people who are on the breadline in the UK (I am excluding well-paid expat postings, where a parent may stay on in the UK to be with schoolgoing children in exam years or the like), it's appallingly normal in Ireland. Both my parents had fathers who spent 14 years in one case and 10 in the other working as carpenters and labourers in London and Manchester, sending their wages home to support their families and coming home for a fortnight a year on the boat.

It's not always men these days, either. I currently know of a midwife from rural Cork - a woman with youngish children - who works at a south London hospital all week and commutes home to see her family on the weekend.

I know a man from Mayo who works as a builder in Luton and can only afford to travel home by ferry to see his wife and children for a weekend every month or so. Getting home involves traveling to Holyhead, getting the boat to Dublin and then getting across to the opposite side of Ireland on a bus. He gets about a day at home before returning the same way. Both of these people miss their children desperately and are unhappy, but this is the only way they can support their families.

Neither of these stories is unusual. You may consider that the OP was being unreasonable in subjecting her husband to this, but in the context of Ireland (and many other countries), she is not suggesting anything particularly unusual. She's detailed the seasonal part-time work she has been doing, and her efforts to make herself employable. Unfortunately, it's just well-nigh impossible to find work in Ireland at the moment.

Have just read the whole thread and don't get why no one's mentioned the flaw in the OP's whole 'I can't work cos we'd be worse off' argument. Everyone, pretty much, is worse off when they work full-time and have little kids. That's how it is and we do it because staying in work is worth it in the longer term. So to say she's not going to take a low paying job because she's better off financially not working is missing the point. Fine if she can afford to be a sahm but that doesn't seem to be the case. It just seems more convenient to make OH be the earning because of his greater earning power. Although this doesn't quite fit with his lack of work. And the OP's lack of earning power doesn't fit either since it became clearer that her getting pregnant as a student wasn't at age 20 but at age 30 and she had in fact done all kinds of work before. The fact that dc2 was 'planned' last year when oh was earning well also doesn't fit with the initial years of no opportunities desperation. I guess the debate's winding up now and the decision is made, but really the whole story seems inconsistent and shifts to fit what suits OP.