To be selfish and not support my husband’s career?

[coco123456789]

My husband has a great job but it is very niche. Opportunities are few and far between and very sought after. He has been headhunted for a job which is a great career move for him, and is the next (final) rung on the ladder to his ultimate job. He is over the moon to have been sought out in this way. However...it is overseas and I really don’t want to move abroad. We have such a lovely life. 2 young kids very happy in their (state) primary school, a toddler, family nearby, friends and a very nice way of life. I don’t have to work, but have always done a bit of part time work. The only issue is that my DH works really crazy hours and is really frustrated in his job as he knows he needs to move forward - but has gone as far as he can where he is. He is very very stressed by his job and has no time for hobbies. So I guess maybe my life to me seems brilliant, but to him his life isn’t and he really wants to fulfil his career goals and not work so many hours. I find it really hard to understand as I am not a career person and get no sense of identity from work. Am I selfish to not want to go? I am so scared of the upheaval. It would be for 3-5 years but even that is too long for me. It’s not lost on me that we only have this comfortable life because of his job though. If he doesn’t take it, I think he could become even more down (he has been very down the last couple of years and it has caused a lot of tension between us). In a marriage should I do these things to support him? I am trying to imagine what it would be like if it was the other way around. If I had a really strong dream and opportunity I wanted to fulfil and he held me back. I would resent him I guess. Anyway, any guidance would be great!

If you don't want to go OP then you shouldn't.

Equally, if your husband is so unhappy in his job then he shouldn't have to stay in it.

I see you are arriving at a no. One thing for your discussion with your DH. He followed me for my job. We did not have kids yet. Then I had some health problems. Even without kids, it was a very trying time with no support network whatsoever. It made both of us realize we didn’t want to be in a position where we had a child and had no one to call for help. Sure, a coworker might have helped for a few hours in a life or death emergency, but that is different than the regular support that can be so critical during prolonged illness. We made radical changes to our lifestyle so we could move to live close to family. And you know what, when dd was rushed to the hospital last year, the in-laws helped us move cars that would have ended up parked illegally because we would have left them for days, brought us critical supplies from home like our own prescriptions, and sat with us while she was in a lengthy surgery. It would have been infinitely harder without their help.

I totally agree with all that. I want to remain near family in case parents get ill, siblings have kids, all that sort of stuff. DH seems to have calculated that as parents are early 70s we have a few years before they are properly old (this based on the assumption that all our grandparents lived till at least mid 80s) but you just never know. Couldn’t bear to be away if someone was ill.

“However he chooses, there are no winners here.

As far as selfishness is concerned, I think both of you are. He wants the job of his dreams, you want your lovely life. The two are incompatible. It may well be that neither of you get what you want.”

Well there’s nothing like the voice of doom, is there?

Really helpful when someone is making a very difficult decision.

People talk as if they actually know the DH personally and have inside knowledge on how he will react

You might be able to work this through OP. Maybe one day you’ll look back on this and think, “Thank god we didn’t go to Oz!”

I think they’ll be fine and get over it but then who am I to say

I would like to know what he says though when it is a final no

Just to add - I have had depression when I was younger and a couple of people in my family have. Which is why I am so wary of it - I know the unable to get out of bed fear and anxiety and know what it takes to get through it which is why I fear being away from a network so much.

Well tell him that OP, calmly and clearly. Tell him that his children need a mother with stable mental health.

It does sound as if he loves you and his kids very much and I’m sure, if it comes to crunch time, he wouldn’t risk losing you all.

Everything is a learning curve..,,

But I’d try and get him into couples therapy, if you possibly can. He’s far more likely to play the “blame game” then. He needs to see the positives in his life basically, of which there are many. Glass half full, rather than half empty. Just tell him you are booking 6 sessions. My DH was the last man on earth to entertain this kind of thing, but it’s been so helpful for him to get perspective.

Also, if you need a personal therapist for yourself, I can recommend a great one in Fulham. PM me if so.

Far less likely to play the blame game (I should read before I post)!

I’ve just read through the thread and in your position I wouldn’t go as you don’t have to practical and emotional support of your DH now and that’s unlikely to change when he’s busy working in a new job. If your relationship breaks down it would be much harder abroad than here.
Men have in my experience a tendency to place work above everything else in life and in a way that’s the easiest option as sharing the housework and child work is harder. Unfortunately women tend to enable this ( I have done in the past) and then you end up with the split of him earning the good salary and her running all the domestic side which works fine until something like this comes along and makes each party stop and think.
As others have said couples therapy would be a good idea.

I don't think the OP is selfish at all. OP; I don't know if it's just your spin on things, but you said you had a third child, 'because DH wanted to,' another thing you've done FOR HIM.

And there are other jobs for him if he turned down a job that was one week away a month. I'm starting to think he's a singer and has been offered a 3-year residency in Las Vegas..

I still think you're doing the right thing not going, considering the state of your marriage. Maybe it's time to start a new thread in relationships?

I don't think you should go. I do think as I said many pages ago that you and DH need to look at your values and priorities and see if you can identify some common ground as you both seem very far away from each other in your expectations of marriage.
My s-i-l is a trailing spouse. She has had 10 moves in 12 years on 3 continents. She has lost her own career. Her 2 DC are resilient but are starting to complain about the regular changes of school. She has only been able to make flying visits home

for the illnesses and deaths of her parents. Both her DC were born in the US with only short support visits from us. She is a strong amazing woman and as a family they are very wealthy but it is a massively one sided life where everything they do us dictated by her dh's career trajectory.

I don't know why you are still posting, it is so obvious you are not going to go. It is in every line you write and every excuse you use to not go. Just tell him and let the cards fall where they may. You know the likely outcome, start planning for that to happen.

If any marriage comes down to “move to the other side of the world or we’ll split up” it was pretty much doomed anyway.

The thing is, your father is mistaken in suggesting your DH wants to uproot "for the sake of ambition", isn't he? Yes, ambition is in there, but there is also the fact that staying where he is is going to make your husband utterly miserable and ultimately impose intolerable strains on the marriage and the entire family. You may be happy with your "little life" but the fact is that that is being enabled at the expense of your husband's wellbeing - and you are assuming you wouldn't be happy elsewhere with no evidence.

Some people are never happy.
Don’t know if the OP’s dh is one of those, but he’s switched careers to this one, is in the right role for his future hopes, and is miserable. There is no guarantee that a job change, in the same line of work, will improve this. And I would say that a career choice so limited that promotion can only come with a global move is a pretty unfamily friendly and selfish one to make.

Just to add - I have had depression when I was younger and a couple of people in my family have. Which is why I am so wary of it - I know the unable to get out of bed fear and anxiety and know what it takes to get through it which is why I fear being away from a network so much.

Are you not concerned that your DH might become depressed if he has to stay in his current job? Certainly your OP made it sound that this was a likely outcome.

you are assuming you wouldn't be happy elsewhere with no evidence.

There's no evidence the OP will be happy. Considering the set up, the OP, her dad and a few of us consider it more likely that the OP will be unhappy.
Because there's also no evidence that the husband will be happier.
It's very likely that he'll still feel stressed by work and push himself for more and more at the expense of the family.
He's not moving for better quality of life.

Only comment I will make is I know numerous families who have gone to Oz ... 2 out of 6 love it ...,
The other 4 ... not really .. after the initial excitement of being in a new place they quickly realised that they missed their roots ..
going to granny for tea regularly .. catching up with cousins ...
your kids will essentially grow up in a confined family unit with no extended family support / contact ..

You will miss all or most weddings , funerals , 21st parties , first communions etc ...
all usual family events .. ( though within some families that could be a bonus ! )

You will be cutting you family off on a normal basis ...
Canada is better as the flight duration and prices make it much easier to get back to the UK fairly regularly and maintain family and friend relationships ...
Appreciate you cannot pick the lovely cation though ...

All that said .., I’d go in a minute ... and I am very close to my family ... but I’ve always been happy to move around ..
we are all different ...

Good luck whatever you decide to do ...

Pick the location ... sorry

Or to flip it round, OP has had depression and recognises that the life she now loves brings her ( and her DC and the GPs) happiness. Why would she throw that away for the possibility that moving half way round the world might cheer up her DH?

I've been unhappy at work before - never insisted that the only solution was moving to Australia. If you'd read the full thread you'd see that the DH rejected a job presumably in this country, because it would have required him to be away from home for a whole week a month. I'd say that would have been a more reasonable career option than the one currently on the tabke.

Are you not concerned that your DH might become depressed if he has to stay in his current job?

Are you saying the OP, with a history of depression, should risk a relapse on the other side of the world, with no support, just in case her husband, with no history, develops depression because of a job that he can't leave because he won't contemplate not pushing himself up the career ladder?

I'd be asking him why does he want to risk the OP developing depression of she moves.
Is he prepared to care for her? Doubt it.

Something has to change clearly but moving to the other side of the world isn’t it for you. I’d sit him down and be completely open. Does he need to consider another career, re-training or other opps? Do YOU need to consider a career or a FT job to take some of the financial pressure off him?
I refused to be the trailing spouse for an exciting job offer because I would have lost all the great support and network ( friends not families) and my job to live in what sounded like a fabulous new country/lifestyle. But I would have been totally ALONE while DP worked all the hours god sends as she did here, thousands of miles from family too. Truth was - our relationship wasn’t strong enough for me to take that risk. And thank god I didn’t as she realised actually, as we had frank talks that brought up that she was miserable and ended up finding a new company instead, for less money but more work/life balance.
Now she’s happier, we’re happier.

Counselling could really help you. My DP dragged me along reluctantly and it saved us and made us stronger. I changed my job/life around DPs job so she, as main earner, had freedom to pursue the big career. She travelled a LOT leaving me to manage work and kids, I resented that. She resented me not being MORE supportive. And it all came out in therapy.
DP finally sawwhat everyone else knew - she was high flying but stressed as f@ck, tired, jet lagged, short tempered. But more importantly MISSING out of her kids childhoods for money that we could do without. Your job will NEVER love you back. You shouldn’t mention that to your DP, be’ll Wake up one day and realised he doesn’t know his kids and he’s given his time and energy to work.