This is not my idea of a 10k holiday !

[Itwillgeteasieripromise]

Ex pats, heading home for Christmas after a tough year, not taken any leave really in 12 months and just finished an ivf cycle with one in the freezer for when we get back. We need a rest, DH and I are shattered.
I love my family dearly, but dear god the demands !!! Every day I'm literally sent a list of 'events' to attend, including helping my sister with her kids while she has to work late. Coming home is expensive, all
you seem to do is be expected to come to people because they are so busy with Christmas. Everyday day I'm literally sent a new invite, if it's not a birthday party, it's a school play ! It doesn't help that DH and I are from opposite ends of the country (and his family think I'm a spoiled bitch) If you think of what a holiday would look like if you spend 10k I can promise you, I wouldn't be rushing around like a headless chicken, spending it sat in people's living rooms seeing their kids and being an unpaid babysitter for family ! (Rant over) I am excited honestly, but it almost feels like an ex pat tax that you have to pay every couple of years .....

The irony is that if insular and parochial people hadn't voted for Bexit, chances are we could have moved back to be near my parents. Now the UK is going to hell in a hand basket my DH isn't so keen. So thanks for that.

Yeah I get it OP. A friend refers to it as spending £2k to walk the dog. Christmas hols are a funny non-holiday for most people but for most of us it costs a tank of petrol but did you it costs ££££ to the same end.

Sometimes the choice we make is not the one we would have made if we had have chosen selfishly.

And sometimes we can really be polishly our halo and congratulating ourselves on the comfortable choices we made when actually, we were just serendipitously able to make the choice that aligned with what we wanted to do in the first place.

The thoughts I shared are from the other side - the family at home side, that’s the bit I live through.
My SIL lives thousand miles away and acts like she is the most devoted daughter ever, but she can’t be, that’s just not physically possible with the distance - it is what it is.
My Brother also lives thousands of miles away but freely admits his adventurous nature / career / relationship has higher priority for him than family, he’s very honest, he knows himself well and lives by his choices.
My brother is the easy one ......
We all make choices and the choice to move so very far away comes with the acceptance that these visits will be necessary if you want to stay connected and they are hard physically and emotionally unfortunately.

To refer to it as a £10k holiday is daft.
Accept that people will want to see you and know that some of them will be thinking that the effort should be on your side as you were the one who moved away.
If you’re exhausted and in need of rest then control your environment, like others have said. It doesn’t seem like there are many other options but that’s part of just how it is.

OP
Please don't listen to the ex pat bashers. You and your OH have obv worked hard to be where you are, and who knows may not have had a choice about the move (we didn't with one of ours - it was if you want a job, off you go to the States, so we did). It's tough making your own little life overseas, and you seem to be having it extra tough with the IVF. As someone else said, try to control the situation so that you get some rest and quality time rather than racking round like a blue arsed fly and benefitting no one xxxx

I think this idea that you all live close to your family really depends on where your family is based, I grew up in an area with depopulation and young people for the vast majority didn't stay, there was no further education and no jobs. So moving was something I grew up knowing I would have to do as did my parents.
DH coming from London was more surprised to be moving overseas as was his DM because it wasn't a cultural norm growing up.

I agree plaid. My Scottish, Irish and Polish family... no one stays where they are. Unless they enjoy unemployment.

I don’t think you need experience of living abroad and only seeing your family and friends from ‘home’ once every 2 years to realise that’s tough on your family and that if you need to dash about when you do visit. fitting everyone in to make them happy but not particularly enjoying it yourselves then unfortunately that is the price you pay for living far away. Either that or don’t see them. It’s not being mean it’s just fact. People make choices in life and if you want to live abroad then you might have to sacrifice real holidays to go back home periodically. So all you ex-pats can comfort each other on this because I don’t see how people can moan about it really.

I agree with sb. I accept its not a holiday. But when I visit family in the UK where I live, I am not going on holiday. I sit in living rooms while relatives update me on what they have been doing. So of course visiting from abroad is not going to be a holiday. Why would it be any different? Thats what I don't get the expectation that it would be.

So of course visiting from abroad is not going to be a holiday. Why would it be any different? Thats what I don't get the expectation that it would be.

And i think that's the bit where OP was 'unreasonable'- i think the majority of people, including current and former 'expats' agree she had unrealistic expectations of her holiday and should have been more proactive in planning how to see people without finding herself spread too thin and dreading the whole trip.

So yes, 'unreasonable' but she still didn't deserve to have her commitment to amd love for her family called into question.

OP i hope you manage to distill the good and kind advice here whilst ignoring the haters. Enjoy your trip and good luck with TTC

I don’t think you need experience of living abroad and only seeing your family and friends from ‘home’ once every 2 years to realise that’s tough on your family

Alternatively, perhaps you don't need experience of living abroad and only seeing your family and friends from 'home' once every 2 years to realise that it's tough on the person spending 10k for the privilege of coming home and running around like a fool in a fit so that everyone feels they've got their pound of flesh/that due fealty has been paid. . . who is knackered from the year, and the trip that quite frankly takes days if not weeks to recover from if it's on the other side of the world.

Oh wait. Perhaps you do. Perhaps you are otherwise actually just sitting there smugly thinking 'oh well, that's just the price you pay'. . .

Hence I don't call returning to visit family as a holiday. I say I'm visiting family. It's not a holiday.

What drives me batty are DHs employer whose HR at HQ says 'oh well we give you 4 weeks vacation and pay for your vacation every year'. No you give him 2 weeks vacation and no you don't pay for our vacation. You cover the cost for us to go home to our family you fucking imbeciles because we live 3000 miles away from home for the Company's benefit. That's why we are expats. You pay us well because you couldn't find anyone to do the job in the local market and you are using DH to retain control over operations.

Well it’s costing me over £1k to go see family in England and I live in Shetland! So I can easily see how it would cost £10k from abroad. £450 on flights, £200 on train tickets, £450 on 4 nights self catering £220 on 3 nights in a hotel. It’s not going to be a holiday - it’s a visit to allow my kids to build relationships with my family. First time they’ll have seen my sister in a year.

OP - I hear ya! I posted something similar (on the much more considered Living Overseas board )

I purposefully haven't added up how much it has cost us over the years to come back for Christmas, because I think it would make me feel a bit sick

Ex pat members of my family have stopped coming back at Xmas for just this reason; they have young kids now and find it too tiring. They come back in June instead and it works much better for them.
Put your foot down oP.

For those posters that have made the comments about the importance of living near family - how would you feel if your own children moved abroad? Would you try to stop them?

Good point Shanghai. My eldest is just at the age where that could happen and working in an area where it is possible. If it was a giid opportunity and worked for him and fiancé and say grab it. I'd Mia his hugs. But he already lives 250 miles away. And I'd get on a plane and hope they might do the same in the summer (we live in a guild ace to be in the summer). But how could I stop him? Unthinkable! Just as my parents blessedly didn't lay anything on us when we upped and left with a toddler and bump and board. Bless them all

how would you feel if your own children moved abroad? Would you try to stop them?

Sb has said that she would be devastated and would move abroad to be near them Shanghai

One of the questions I got asked in tones of horror by members of my family was what would I do if my girls decided to stay permanently in the UK. (We intend to move back home ultimately, even if it's when we retire). We pointed out that they could always have ultimately decided to move to the UK anyway. A bit like how THEIR kids had moved to Australia!

I'll always encourage my kids to follow their dreams, and to go where the opportunities they want to grasp with both hands according to their wants and needs are. And if you've got more than one kid, then you do need to realise that they may be in very different parts of the globe, which could make it potentially very difficult for you to trot along in their wake, as you may fondly imagine yourself doing. Of course, when push came to shove, you might convince yourself that your duty and love of family meant that you really should stay exactly where you are already comfortably situated. (And, um, potentially they might not want their parents trailing along behind them!)

For my Mum, it would be a bit difficult - as I said, she's got one daughter in NZ, close to home (which is a blessing for Mum, and for us other girls - oh, and also for that daughter who has a doggysitter on tap, and for her granddaughter, who has a doggysitter and childsitter at the ready), one on one side of Australia, one on the other side of Australia - a 3 hour plane ride from the other Aussie sister, and now one in the UK. . .