to not want to emigrate?

[pastaparadise]

DP is desperate to emigrate. He doesn't like the area we live in (too wet, too busy/ bad traffic), and wants to live abroad. He's recently decided he wants us to emigrate to New Zealand. We went on holiday years ago and both loved it, & he could get a working visa.

However, I am reluctant to leave. Dm is widowed, ill and old, and i currently live very close and see her a couple of times a week/ help out (closest sib is 3 hours drive away). I would feel terrible leaving her, guilty and very sad about this. DP feels that she should move closer to my sibling and go into a home - problem sorted.

We have 2 young dc. Dp feels i am stopping them having a much better life overseas, but i worry we will be completely cut off from friends and family, and with young children it will be impractical/ too expensive to travel back to the UK much (we dont see his family much, but i get on well with my sibling and our dc with their cousins). Worth mentioning that whilst quality of life looks great in nz, we actually live in a lovely house in a lovely safe place (although the commute is shitty neither of us have to do it often).

I also worry that should we go, dp wont want to come back and that i will get stuck their regardless. However, dp is very resentful that i won't go and thinks that I'm being selfish putting me and my mum above the needs of our own family. As history, prior to dm being ill, df was ill for a long time before dying, so i didnt want to move pre dc (although dp never had a proper job offer to go anywhere). Dp says he feels trapped and feels if we wait for dm to die before we go it will be too late for lots of reasons.

I dont want dp to be unhappy and increasingly resentful, but also dont want to emigrate so far away. AIBU to say no?

@mumof3dragons oh not this pish again... you'd prefer them closer but they did what suited their family and so they're selfish? Hypocrite much?

DexyMidnight for some people "selfish" means "didn't put my wishes above what's best for them and their children and don't have identical priorities to me".

Such people are never selfish by their own definition because they always put their own wishes above what's best for friends and relations and their children and can't have different priorities to themselves...

Also - when you hear of someone 'desperate to emigrate' - and it turns out that the place they want to move to is somewhere they're never even visited - then you KNOW that there is far more to it than wanting to emigrate.

Your DH sounds: unhappy, frustrated, unsure of what he wants and where his life is going, afraid that he's on the wrong path, scared that life is passing him by, bored.

He also sounds: a blamer, a sulker, a natural pessimist, a bit of a bully, very self centred, and a bit cruel.

Several of the second points may be a result of some of the first points. I'm not saying he's a bad person. But right now, he's certainly not a nice or happy person, and that means that the very first thing you need to do is to untangle some of this before making any big life decisions, including staying together at all. Because it goes without saying that you probably won't be successful at staying together and having a happy relationship with him feeling like this. It also goes without saying that emigration isn't necessarily going to solve his problems. He has no idea whether he will be happy in NZ. He does not know the first thing about living there. He doesn't even seem to know that it's quite a rainy place. It is quite likely that if you made the mistake of emigrating with him then you'd still be faced with a sulky, blaming pessimist who hates being so far from the UK and hates the NZ rain and hates that you aren't really happy and hates that it's his fault you're there and hates that he didn't realise how expensive it was and and and...

If he won't agree to counselling then I think that longer term you are looking at a split. I think I'd start working on getting used to that idea as well as continuing to suggest counselling. Shut down the emigration idea right now, permanently, as it's unfair to do anything else.

Controversial opinion here but I think anyone who emigrates permanently is selfish and leaves many people deeply unhappy. We have family in oz and cousins that are very attached to each other (have managed to meet anually for 12 years as we lived in Asia for 4 years). I'd love them to grow up near each other, go to each others' birthdays, etc etc. Our parents are also getting older and it all falls on us. Parents too ill to travel and we don't want to spend 24 hours on an aeroplane.

Have to say that all your reasons for why you don't think your family members should have emigrated all seem very '1-2-3 it's all about me'. . . "I'd love them to grow up', 'it all falls on us', we don't want to spend 24 hours'. . .

Why should what YOU want be prioritised ahead of what THEY want? (Or possibly one of the attractions of Oz was that it was on the other side of the world to extended family - who knows. . .)

moving internationally is HARD. Like makes-you-want-to-cry HARD.

This x 1000.

I've done it twice and only REALLY wanting to go makes it bearable. Rocky relationship and you don't really want to go? Hell no, never. The fact that your P is so in love with the idea means he will get horrible culture shock as well.

Totally agree Fizzy but to be fair, OP did talk about emigrating herself, so once upon a time, it was a common goal and could possibly still be one in a few more years.

Most people who emigrate do so because they are not happy where there are and many do find what they were looking for when they got to their new place. For some, it was just the break and startling over that they actually needed rather than what the place had to offer. For others, it definitely was what they were looking for. I emigrated when I was younger, mainly to escape but also because I felt the other place would meet my needs better and I was absolutely right but at that time it was only me for consideration.

I don't know if counselling is the answer, but I think OP needs to accept that If she wants a happier husband and therefore family life, she is going to have to stsrt listening to his needs and accept some level of compromise.

My first DH and I separated then divorced as he was desperate to emigrate to Oz. I was happy for him to follow his dreams and we went our own amicable way. I could no way have left my family behind but he didn't have a good relationship with his so wasn't an issue for him.

We stayed in touch for many years although that fizzled out as he re-married and had a family.

Sometimes you just have to do the best for each of you individually. You're not joined together.

I would echo what big choc warns of. I have friends who moved from their home country to the US. Ten years in, they have children who were pretty much raised in the US. They are splitting up now and really badly. She wants to return to their hone country with the children, for family support. He is refusing to give permission and wants to stay in the US where his job / life are. She doesn’t have a leg to stand in as her children’s whole life is in the US. No one is going to win out of this!

He also sounds: a blamer, a sulker, a natural pessimist, a bit of a bully, very self centred, and a bit cruel

These were also my thoughts when I was reading this. Be very sure that you want to go because once there you know he will never agree to your returning with the children. If my husband treated my ill mother terribly then I would be making plans to leave him, never mind emigrate. Do you think he even loves you? Really don't want to sound cruel but him saying that he would go on his own if it weren't for the kids makes it sound like he doesn't want the relationship. It really sounds from your posts that your life would be happier without him in it.

He is barely civil to dm when he sees her now as he holds her responsible.

Is this a man you want to be alone with on a strange continent? What if it doesn't miraculously make him all happy, what if there are stresses and difficulties there too?

Too many red flags about your DP

He is horrible to and about your mum, lacks empathy

He sounds sulky and selfish.

He has not even wanted to get married

Yet he wants you to drop everything for his wishes?

I have emigrated a few times, first time was a great success, an adventure, we loved it. But it took 1 year to build a life, and another year to feel really settled. It takes 2 years of hard work and a positive attitude to make emigration a success.

The second time we moved somewhere DH loved and he was sure I'd love it too. Only that place was much harder to settle, the climate was harsh, the kids were affected, the culture was too misogynist for me to fit in. It was beautiful, but a hard place to live. And you know what? I realised I was trapped, and my only way out was to convince DH to move to country no. 3 (the UK, I love it here btw)

Feeling trapped abroad in a difficult country, with small kids, no job and an ever deterioration of our relationship was awful.

The lowest point in my life. I would have divorced and left with the kids if that would have been possible (this is NOT possible, you need an official letter from the other parent for leaving the country with the kids= international law,)

Try and improve your life here, maybe move somewhere nicer, maybe both get new jobs.

But don't get yourself trapped

Given the attitudes of the 52% and things such as our poor transport system I can understand anyone wanting to emigrate. However, the OP points out the love for her DM and the caring given to her, and for me this should be enough not to go. In any case, there are several places I love to visit on holiday, but that is very different from being there miles from friends in the middle of winter when there are bad times at work, for example.

If you move/emigrate it doesn't solve any problems, you take them with you and they are often magnified.

Your DP doesn't sound committed to you at all! Maybe he is committed to the children, but that is no reason to stay together.
He sounds resentful and childish.

I really really wouldn't go.

I’d move to NZ in a heart beat. You have to go with your heart though. Can you get PR and delay the move ... I think it’s 12 months after it’s granted to get the visa stamped then you have 5 years to get over there. Including the visa wait time that could give you 7 years to make your mind up

I’d probably let him go ... tell him
You can’t stand in his way of his dream and to fuck off. He’ll earn more in NZ dollars and their child support system
Is far more robust than ours, you will get paid

swing the op is offered compromises. Inc relocating and him going part time. He's turned this down. He wont do couples counselling. What more should she do?

The op is not responsible for him.

His behaviour to your Mum sounds disgusting.

I'd like to also add a couple of small things that when you live abroad you end up spending all your annual leave visiting "home" rather than holidaying or exploring.

When you're desperate to chat to your friends they're all in bed.

I wouldn't entertain going with him. The assumption that you would all be better off there is a massive one.

Wet busy traffic commute can all be fixed by moving just a couple to a few hours away.

He wants NZ but you want to stay in the same house. There’s a lot of space for compromise in between!

Within england lifestyles in Devon, London, Manchester, Northumberland, Penrith are so so different. Not to mention Scotland and Wales.

Imo you need to be more open to moving somewhere and he needs to be more open to moving within the U.K.

Watch Wanted Down Under on iplayer. You could even apply to be on it maybe.

When I watch that programme I always think they could look for the same vibe nearer home.

We have just moved to Cornwall. Ok, winter is winter, but people here genuinely do go surfing or to the beach after work in summer. Or The Channel Islands?

If he has the sort of job to get a visa to work in New Zealand he could probably find work in the South West. There isn't much work here apart from the trades, medicine and teaching.