To temporarily leave my husband and go “home”

[Threelittlekittens08]

I was born in New Zealand and moved to the uk I was 9.
5 years ago my parents decided to relocate and have moved back to NZ with my sister.

I made the decision to stay as I’m happily married and was settled in a great job.

Last year just after we found out I was pregnant, my husband was offered a promotion at work which involved him relocating.
It seemed like a great opportunity, which included a house with no rent so he decided to accept!!
I quit my job and the plan was to look for work once our son was a year old (he’s now 9 months)

Obviously we didn’t foresee a pandemic!

Since my son has been born I’m suffering with depression. I’m so incredibly lonely.
My husband has always been office / field based and has continued to be even during lockdown.

I haven’t met anyone new in our area; I don’t have any local friends.
All of my old friends live too far away to just be able to catch up with.

I’m anxious about Covid, I’m in a high risk area, so this is preventing me wanting to go out and socialise.

I did sign up to a local baby class but we had to wear masks to it wasn’t the ideal setting to meet new people.

My mental health is struggling massively.

My husband doesn’t have any family near by to help out either and they’re all too far away to just pop in.

I FaceTimed with mum yesterday and she suggested I go back to Nz for a while. She wouldn’t ever just suggest I leave my husband, but she knows how much I am struggling.

I haven’t mentioned mums suggestion to my husband. He’s doing very well with his job and I know he’s really happy.
I couldn’t ask him to move to another continent.

The thing is I think I really want to go.
There’s zero Covid there right now and life is pretty much normal.

I will have the support of my family and I will be able to socialise with my baby without the fear of either of us catching Covid.

I really don’t know what to do.

I feel awful that I want to go, my husband would be crushed at the thought of not seeing me and his son.
But if I stay I honestly fear for my mental health.

I feel like my life right now is just existing and not actually living.

I know I need to have this conversation with my husband, but am I being incredibly selfish even considering it?

If your husband is ok with it, I totally think going for 2-3 months is a fantastic idea. I say this as someone who lives in Aus with my entire family in England. Also, we are so luckily in Aus/NZ that life is almost pre-Covid-normal. Why on earth wouldn't you escape from that, if you can, and your husband is happy, for a couple of months of family time and support?

Surely it makes more sense for your mum to come to you ? 🙄

@WhatWouldYouDoWhatWouldJesusDo

Surely it makes more sense for your mum to come to you ? 🙄

@WhatWouldYouDoWhatWouldJesusDo

Why? Where is the sense in asking her mother to come and spend time here in the bleak UK winter, with Covid cases soaring.

Op has the opportunity to spend time with her parents under much more normal and safer conditions.

I know which I’d choose!

She also maybe has pnd and would be pretty much locked in one room for 2 weeks with only her child for company and have to pay around 3,000 for it.

That’s without the whole not seeing her husband for 4-6 months and the baby not getting to actually be near it’s father for just as long.

I’d highly doubt it’s advisable for a lonely likely suffering pnd person to be locked in one room with a baby and no support at all for two weeks.

You’ve always then got the aspect after those months op decided she’s made this lovely little life out there and her legal home is just this place she views as knowing nobody, with nothing to do and doesn’t come back with the baby at all.

Is there a choice with the pandemic? Is international travel easy and trouble free? That's the fly in the ointment.
I'm wondering if some support, counselling and other mums might help in the first instance.

[quote Threelittlekittens08]@iamruth

I had severe PND and I still think that your child should come first

My son does come first! Always.

I am bloody miserable. I’m lonely and I’m absolutely no use to him whilst I’m like this.

I can guarantee if I’d posted and said I’m going to NZ to stay with family for a few months and leaving my son with my husband, I would’ve have lots of hateful comments about how much of a terrible mother I am.

So either way, whether I take my son or not, I’m still a terrible mother.

My husband isn’t home from work yet, but when he is, we will sit down and talk about things.

Most people must assume I’m stood as my door with our bags packed waiting to go.
I’m not. This was simply a thought.
A consideration.[/quote]
It is not in your sons best interests to be separated from either of his parents. You cannot be putting him first if you do that. I think you need to make effort where you live now, your solution to your unhappiness is disproportionate and other people will suffer for it.

If my husband announced he was going to stay with his dad for 4-6 months because he was miserable, I would assume that means my marriage is over.

I’d want my DH to be happy, and if that meant going home to family I’d support his decision. Same as he’d support me.

My children are heading to university soon, our relationship won’t be over because they are away. Same with friends - distance doesn’t change the friendship.

I absolutely think you should go, and I think that your baby will be happier there because you will be happier there, and he’ll be happier because he’ll be surrounded by lots of people.

It’s not normal or unhealthy the way we have to behave because of the pandemic (not saying we shouldn’t!) but it’s leading to lots of people becoming depressed and isolated. Definitely go, OP. 3-5 months is such a short time in the grand scheme of a life, really.

I have had little children with a DH at work more than 12 hours a day, and I had friends around, but I still felt lonely and depressed. I can’t imagine how it feels having no one around and nothing to go to.

Go! Have a wonderful trip!

It sounds really really hard and horrible and I feel really bad for you. But I don’t think this is an option, developmentally your son is at the age where they go through growth spurts etc and it’s too long (even 2 months) to be separated from his dad.

I think it’s worth seeing another counsellor and having a medication review. Are you in the UK? You can still have contact with grandparents for exclusive childcare so your in laws can stay. Or more extreme, your husband could take shared parental leave and you could go back to work.

I get why it’s attractive, I do. But your dh isn’t an absent father and when you come back it’ll be the same. But with a baby who doesn’t recognise his dad.

The idea of facetime with a 9 month old is madness! We all know that, right? It’s barely doable with a 4 year old.

If the OP has now spoken to her DH I bet he feels like his world has just imploded.

His wife has told him that she wants to take their baby to the other side of the world, possibly for 6 months during a pandemic. So he cannot go too.

And he has no guarantee that she'll come back.

Would you agree to it under those circumstances?

Wow, plenty of utterly batshit and downright nasty responses to the OP.

If a baby can be raised in relative normality during this times and his mum will be well with a community of supportive extended family to boot, this is a no brainer in terms of what's best for baby.

@Harehedge

If a baby can be raised in relative normality during this times and his mum will be well with a community of supportive extended family to boot, this is a no brainer in terms of what's best for baby.

Two weeks isolating in a strange sanitised environment with everyone wearing masks (after a 24 hour flight with his mum wearing a mask) staying at an approved facility with a depressed mother is not going to be best for a baby. 2 weeks for a baby is a very long time.

If the OP has now spoken to her DH I bet he feels like his world has just imploded.

Christ!

I spoke to my husband last night. His world did not implode and he didn’t feel the need to seek legal advice to stop me from “running away” with his son.

Yes my husband was upset at the thought of not seeing us for a prolonged period of time, but wholeheartedly agrees that seeing my family right now is exactly what I need.

My husband over the next few days, is going to speak with his company about the possibility of taking some unpaid leave, enough to allow him to come with us.
We’d leave as soon as we could and return after Christmas.

We know that given the current circumstances, this may not be possible, but he’s going to approach it anyway.

For anyone wondering, this was my suggestion and not my husbands.
He’s not comfortable with taking this much time off of work, but I’d like him to try and come!

If this isn’t approved for him, he’s going to discuss with his parents for them to come and stay with us for the next couple of months, spend Christmas with us.
I’m fully aware this would be breaking the rules since we’re in a tier 2 area, but we’re hoping we can get around this on childcare grounds.
This will at least give me some support in the short term and also allow me and my husband a little time to ourselves.

I will then look to go to NZ in Jan, just me and our son (after our sons first birthday) and we’ve agreed that 10 weeks would be a good break.
Neither of us feel this would be detrimental to our sons relationship with his father.

We both feel this break for me will be good, and discussed that when I arrive back, things do need to change.
We’ve discussed what changes need to happen and we have a plan in place for how we can implement those.

I’m confident, after my break, I will feel in a much better frame of mind to tackle the changes head on.

The amount of people who have suggested medication or more counselling has highlighted that it’s such a generic “solution”. Everyone’s mental health and recovery is very different.

I’ve already committed to weeks of counselling, and currently take medication.

I know myself and thankfully, after 12 years together, my husband knows me too.
We both agree more medication isn’t the answer, not for me.

For those who have suggested I get a job and put my son into childcare.
I think what I need right now is to honestly see my parents. To be around mum and dad and even my sister (who probably wouldn’t believe I’ve said that)

It’s been a hell of a year and I know a lot of people also haven’t seen their families, but for me, I’ve barely seen anyone!!

In the last 6 months I’ve only seen my health visitor, midwife, a few mums at the baby class I went to and people in the supermarket when I do the weekly shop.

I’ve had the odd Zoom catch up with friends, but that’s hardly the same as face to face contact.

Unless you’ve experienced leaving your job, leaving your home, leaving your friends, moving to an area where you don’t know a single person, giving birth, living during a pandemic and strict lockdown, not seeing a single friend or family member for 6 straight months and being diagnosed with depression, all within the space of a year, then you simply cannot understand how I feel and why I feel so strongly about seeing my parents.

I’m sure under normal circumstances I wouldn’t be feeling so isolated right now.

It’s not the ideal situation to go to NZ without my husband, and my idea of 4-6 months was somewhat irrational.
But thankfully my husband is fully on board with a 10 week break (if his request for leave prohibits him from joining us from the onset)

It’s such a shame that the vast majority of you think that a woman who wants to visit family abroad, is planning on fleeing the county with her husband’s child, will never return and that the husband should seek legal advice to apply for some kind of injunction to prevent his wife from leaving.

Maybe that’s what you’d do? Maybe that’s the experience you’re familiar with, or maybe it’s even what you’ve read on MN?

I fully understand the title of my thread may have been misleading, but even after explaining my intention wasn’t to stay and move to NZ permanently, I was still treat harshly by a lot of posters.

Yesterday I really needed some advice from other mums. Opinions on my situation.
I’m grateful people have taken the time to reply and give me your insight.
But it really has highlighted to opinion that so many people have of women, mothers and mental health.

We are not in normal times, its shit. I have every sympathy for you OP. in many industries people work away from home for months at a time on projects and jobs: military, film, engineering, performing arts, etc etc. People survive a few months apart all the time without it being seen as some kind of signal for the end of a relationship (I'm not saying its easy or that relationships don't break down - that happens in any situation).

A global pandemic at the birth of your baby means you are totally alone, and you can afford/are allowed to visit your family for a few months and enjoy your new motherhood. Id' take it.
Imagine if you/your DH were offered a work opportunity away for three months in other times? you may well take it!
Talk to Dh before any more planning, he needs to be in at the start here though

Good luck @Threelittlekittens08 I do hope you get your wish to see your family. If you're in the London area would be happy to socially meet-up, although I'm elderly and child free. (No I'm not weird! 😀).

I do think you have a very sensible plan bar the isolating quarantine when you get there which i think you'll find harder than being home alone all day.
I don't think people disagreeing with you means that they don't understand mental health problems.
I do wonder going forwards how you plan to sustain this model of all your family holidays being spent going to NZ each year, it's expensive and draining for children.
I also think there is a quirky attachments thing going on where you'd even consider going with your parents to NZ when you were married here in the UK.
I don't think wrapping things up in cotton wool always helps and whilst I understand that you don't want to take more medication or talk to more therapists you do sound like you need more help than a holiday is going to give

Hi there OP I was about to post that I think you should go, husband willing, and have just seen your last post. Delighted that your husband is so on board with it all.
I cannot understand some of the responses here. In the current circumstances, it's a no-brainer to take your baby somewhere that he can roam around more freely, see more people, and have a happier, healthier mum. Yes of course it's a sacrifice for your husband; but that's what parents do for their kids (and for their partners!)

I had to raise my kids for 6 months away from my husband at one point (work commitments). It was not easy (I wasn't around my parents) but it was doable and I don't believe it has had much in the way of negative effects on my kids.

Go see your folks, have fun, and start enjoying your little bundle of joy. Life will return to normal at some point - no need to tough it out here while that happens.

... I should add, and it has had many positive effects on the kids, seeing long-term commitment in relationships, allowing partners freedom, flexibility in living arrangements, etc. Sometimes time apart is better than keeping the family together in unusual circumstances.

:-)

@Didkdt

I do think you have a very sensible plan bar the isolating quarantine when you get there which i think you'll find harder than being home alone all day. I don't think people disagreeing with you means that they don't understand mental health problems. I do wonder going forwards how you plan to sustain this model of all your family holidays being spent going to NZ each year, it's expensive and draining for children. I also think there is a quirky attachments thing going on where you'd even consider going with your parents to NZ when you were married here in the UK. I don't think wrapping things up in cotton wool always helps and whilst I understand that you don't want to take more medication or talk to more therapists you do sound like you need more help than a holiday is going to give

@Didkdt

I’ve managed most of the year alone.
I managed 4 weeks alone with an 11 week old whilst my husband was on a training course for work. I’m sure we can manage two weeks. Especially when at the end of it we will have a lovely 8 weeks to look forward to.

There is no quirky attachment thing going on.
My parents and sister moved back to
NZ 5 years ago.

My husband and I discussed moving with them buy we decided to stay.
WE
The UK has been my home for many years!

Yes you’re right, I do need more support.
But more medication or therapy isn’t the solution for that, not for me and my circumstances.

But don’t you worry, my husband and I have discussed all of this. 😌

I too am delighted by your update, OP, and I think you are sensible not going down the route of more medication.

It is peculiar that people think you can give someone enough medication for them to be able to live in totally unnatural isolation.

Fantastic news OP.

I don't know if it's possible for you guys, but when we were going back for four weeks, DH was going to WFH for two of them. Depending on the nature of his work, is it possible your DH could have laptop and phone and will travel, but still work? That can make his employer a lot more receptive to the plan!

(After reading the News today, all I want to do is pack up the DH, the kids, the cat, and my dining room table and bugger off back home to NZ too!).

Incidentally, those questioning why someone who had been away from a country so long, would still call it home. I have a family member who left the UK when she was 12, in that time, she's been back once for a holiday, and it wasn't until she was in her late thirties, early forties, that she started referring to the country she now lives in as 'home'. She primarily identified as British, and I think she still does, really.

I found that hard to fathom until I was sitting in the expat/immigrant hotseat myself!

@mbosnz

Depending on the nature of his work, is it possible your DH could have laptop and phone and will travel, but still work? That can make his employer a lot more receptive to the plan!

We are really hoping this is a possibility.
He doesn’t currently wfh, but we do hope that they can allow some flexibility, just short term.

I'm not worried about you or your husband. You're both adults.
Two weeks in a strange place without the familiarity of home is a lot. Doing it when you're depressed is a lot.
As a few people have tried to say stepping off that plane or through your parents front door isn't an instant cure. It may become a tonic but it'll be temporary.
I do think though in all of this you've talked about you
What you want your husband to do-tske unpaid leave in a new job when nearly everyone in the country is fighting to prove their role is vital to dodge the threat of redundancy
That's a hell of an ask.
You say you care about your son, and I've no doubt you do but everything is you you you what you want what you need. You don't need me to tell you that the building blocks of his emotional and mental health are laid in his first year and so you need to consider the impact of everything you ate and aren't doing on his development you need to consider what happens if this trip isn't the cure all.

If this isn’t approved for him, he’s going to discuss with his parents for them to come and stay with us for the next couple of months, spend Christmas with us.

This is a MUCH better solution than going to NZ.