AIBU to feel my wings are clipped

[Tattycorum]

Just that really. DH and I have been together since we were 28. 42 now. Two DC's who are 7 and 10. I took maternity leave for both and have always worked part time. I am now on 35 hours, the most I have done since they were born.
I love my job. I'm public service, new role leading am important national project that involves international travel and international organisations. I was 15 years in my previous role and I feel the whole world is at my feet. I'm ambitious, want DC's to have lots of opportunistic to learn and grow, want them to see the world. I am British but have lived outside of the UK since I was a teen. Would love to do a year or two back in the UK and show the DC's where I am from. This job would qualify me for some great roles in the UK.
But D H wants none of it. He gets a nasty sneer on whenever I bring it up. He wants things to stay as they are, never move house, never move countries, never extend ourselves. I feel I have to make myself less than I am to keep the peace, at a time when I feel like I have no limits. I feel like a caged bird!
Rant over, sorry for the essay.

Well you will not be able to take the children out of the country you are living in without his consent (Hague Convention). So living in other countries before the children are grown is not going to happen, together or apart.

But his drinking and not wanting you to have a social life are definitely issues to be addressed.

I’d say that you feel like travelling away because of how miserable your home life is with him. If you had a fully happy, fully invested husband who you had interesting/fun times with then you probably wouldn’t feel the urge to flee! Every weekend of your life is consumed with his drinking/hangovers. No wonder you want to get on a plane somewhere! You can see your life slipping away in his drunken haze while you do the lions share every weekend on your own. How boring and tedious. I’d suggest making your home life more interesting first. Spend the next 6 months doing mini adventures with your kids. Every Friday night book you and them into somewhere interesting like a nearby beach apartment then hit the beach on the Saturday or places like centerparcs/legoland/chessington. Start exploring within 5/6 hours driving distance from home. See if that helps and also see if that encourages him to come along. He can stop you taking the kids abroad but he can’t stop you showing them fun times in your current country. IT might also make you feel better about where you live now

He wants us at home as a family but weekends are a write off as he drinks heavily fri and sat night and is incapacitated with hangovers sat and sun. I just feel so trapped. This is enough reason to leave him, even if he wasn't a nasty, sneering resentful cunt. He hates you. I used to live like this. It breaks your spirit. Please LTB

@bastardkitty I have definitely gone through times when I have felt that he dislikes me. There has always been a strong undercurrent of contempt. I won’t bore you guys with how we got together but it wasn’t great and there was some stuff when the dcs were v young that would have me packing his bags now. The balance of power shifted a bit a few years ago when he had his first experience of having MH issues and was v dependant on me. So the nastiness and contempt is buried but does flare up now and then. If you asked him he would swear up and down he loves me, thinks I am great but there is this part of me he has never respected or liked much.

I'm sorry this sounds very hard. If you were to separate I don't know if you could relocate with the kids without his say so.

I am fairly sure you could take your kids on holiday thought.

I couldn’t live with a man who drank too much every weekend - if he works during the week and is drunk or hungover on the weekends, when is he a good father or partner ?

It sounds very familiar @Tattycorum . It's no way to live. Mine hated me even more when I left him and has been a dick at all times but I am so much happier without him literally ruining my life - and you will be too.

I would be going solo, organise to meet up with family and friends, take your dc and go.

You can still be a couple and have your own life.

If he doesn't want to go, fine, he can stay at home and you can go and enjoy new experiences, he may come round when he sees you are serious.

Life is too short for clipped wings, I have a bucket list running now.

I can't stand drunks so that was the worst thing for me in your post. All the rest is in your hands. Be reasonable...the kids can visit the UK, the states, Ireland, you can go stay for a year or so on your own once they are grown. No need to take them out of school.
Just book 2 weeks in the UK and take it from there.

Tbh I think you probably shouldn’t have married and had children with him. But hindsight is a wonderful thing and it sounds like you had hardly any self confidence. But please I mean no malice in that statement, and it’s a situation many men and women find themselves in, and it’s awful I know, realising you’ve been held back and wasted your life.

Your children will most likely grow up believing where they grew up to be their true home. That isn’t the UK.

So I think you should wait until they grow up before you emigrate, as likely you need a separate to do so. If you do separate to emigrate now Your children may not want to emigrate with you and you may never or hardly ever see them again. Or you could take them with you, and they grow up hating you for why they don’t see their dad anymore.

By all means go have a social life where you live. He is not your keeper, and even leave him if he doesn’t stop drinking, controlling you and agree compromise on a holiday to the UK. It’s a toxic relationship and not healthy for the kids to see. But if you stay local to them they get both of you in their lives and hopefully be unaffected by the change.

Emigrating now will wreck your family/children forever. It’s not your children’s fault you made a mistake.

The moving thing is irrelevant. Your DH is a nasty controlling alcoholic who makes you miserable.

OP are your wider family living in the country you are living in now? you mentioned your mum and Aunt. If you got jobs overseas where international school ect was part of the package then that would be a great experience for your kids. I don't blame you for wanting to travel and with the right conditions it can be a positive experience for your kids. But I think without your husband on board it will probably be impossible. I suppose it depends on where you are living now.

He’s not great with them if he’s hung over every Saturday & Sunday.

It’s good your eyes are starting to open, but you’ve got a way to go before they’re fully open.

If he’s worried you’ll leave him, I’d use this to make him move very close to your Mum & Aunties. It’s only 40 minutes from where you live now and if you have family support it will be easier to build up a life that could be independent of him if he doesn’t sort himself out.

It’s ok that he doesn’t want everything you do, it’s not ok to be a heavy drinker or to sneer at you, nor to simply say ‘that’s not happening’. Stop letting him think he gets the final say.

You can do this. You have to do this or in 15 years you simply won’t even recognise yourself, let alone have the energy to do any of these amazing things!! Don’t let him kill your passion for life - it’s a rare & amazing thing (especially post children!).

This post is similar to me and my husbands issue. He comes from another country and settled with me in the uk and now with 3dc. Since I was pregnant with my eldest (8) he keeps banging on about moving country and now it has increased in frequency where he brings it up every 2 weeks. He’s bored and wants stimulation in his life. I’m bored too but do not want to uproot the kids. We have recently came to a compromise... during the summer holidays we will stay in a different country for at least a month (we’re very lucky that he can work from anywhere and I’m sahm) and when the youngest reaches 18 then I’ll follow him wherever he wants to go. It’s hard for him but it gives him hope and the long waiting time is broken up by little tasters of foreign living along the way. If this really is a partnership then both peoples views need to taken into account, and some sort of compromise given.

In reference to the fact that he doesn’t want to holiday in uk or USA is definitely because he feels threatened and that it will make your resolve about moving even more intense. So he’s “nipping it in the bud” now in the hope that you’ll relent. I too am anxious about going to Spain this summer holiday... I’m worried that he won’t want to come back and then I’ll have an even grumpier husband when we return and that the fights will begin again. I’m really excited but I find myself dampening my reactions in front of my husband in case he uses my excitement as another reason why we should go.

But although I have the “trump card” with the kids being here, I still need to take his needs into account. Explain this to your husband- if you allay some of his fears then you might find him a bit more compromising too.

Also... could it be that he’s stuck in a rut too and bored, hence the drinking? Maybe he needs excitement too but needs to start smaller with day trips instead of a big move?

Your husband sounds like an alcoholic, controlling arsehole. I would be seriously considering whether you want to stay married to him, and what you get out of this marriage. If he's basically checked out with a hangover every weekend, he's not even being a great dad, but splitting up and shared custody means he can carry on being a good father if you think he is one. He's being a crap husband.

However, regardless of how crap he is, you will normally need his permission to move the children out of the country, even if you're divorced. Doesn't sound like he'd give it. So I'd concentrate on building the best life you can where you live now, until your children are grown up. But consider that that doesn't necessarily need to include your current husband...

Kids are far more portable in primary age. It gets loads more complex when they are at high school. It’s great for them to live in different countries and experience different cultures.
I don’t have to tell you that you’re in a tricky situation. He sounds very controlling and you certainly can’t control his drinking. He’s using classical control techniques and he may have good points but do you want to see this deteriorate further? You sound like such a motivated energetic person who wants to show her kids the world and who is very capable of supporting them. Can you really say that if you let this go on for another 10 years and stay where you are, he carries on not being a decent dad because he’s hungover every weekend and you stay put and the kids don’t get those experiences that you want for them that you won’t resent him? Follow what you know is right for you. If he loves you and wants to be a father more than he wants to drink, he’ll follow you. xx

I think focus on getting yourself and the kids away from this prick first, then decide on travel plans. If there hasn't been violence in the past, there is a risk of it now. Depending on where you live, look into the legal position and what support services there are for women getting rid of abusive men. (He is abusive. Unquestionably so.)

He sounds awful. Honestly, he is controlling you, limiting you, sneering at you. Is this the sort of relationship you would want for your own DC?
Add in the drinking, and I would LTB, no question.

Would you actually be able to leave the country with the DC if he vetoed it? Hague Convention etc?

Unfortunately you may find you are stuck

At the end of the day you only get one life. When you are 80 what life will you want to look back on. One where you are alone, your husband having died of liver failure or some other drink related illness years before where you gave up the things you wanted to keep him happy. Or a life you lived as you wanted having adventures and making memories with your DC. Moving abroad may not be possible just yet but this really doesn't sound like a happy marriage and your DC will pick up on it, every time your DH mocks your heritage he is mocking them as it is their heritage too.

So just stop doing what he tells you. He only says it won't happen because you aren't doing these things. Put your house on the market and tell him you have had enough and you are moving. He can either come with you or divorce. His choice. Stop being such a doormat.

I'll surprised at the number of people on this thread who have never heard of the Hague Convention. Taking your children to live in another country without the other parent's consent is called kidnapping and severely punished.

As for taking the children on a holiday abroad without the other parent's consent, it depends on the rules of the particular country. It's allowed in the UK, but not where I live.

Tell him the only certainty is that you won’t stay in a relationship with no compromise on his part.