Giving it all up

[strawhatblonde]

New here.

Long story short - I met someone who lives in the USA. We met online been together over a year, we face time every single night for anything from 2-4 hours (7 is our record). We facetimed for 3 months and then he flew over here for 2 weeks and we fell madly in love. Then another 3 months facetime and he flew over again. Then another 3 months and I flew to the states etc...

We got engaged and I love this man. However I am posting on here because I need some unbiased advice from people who don't know me.

I am 35, I was married for 12 years but he passed away 5 years ago. I have two kids (12 and 6). I don't have any family apart from my brother (my family are toxic/abusive. My brother has severe learning difficulties and lives in supported housing with carers. I try to see him as much as I can). I worked really hard to rebuild my life. I have a career I love, friends I am extremely close to, and a house I own and love.

As much as I love DP, I don't know if moving over there is the right thing to do. Initially he was adamant he wouldn't move to the UK but now is warming to it. He rents his house in the states, has no kids, he works but his job is just a job to him, but he does have a big supportive loving family (who love me and the kids like their own!)

Time is of the essence for 2 reasons. Firstly, eldest child is in year 7 so moving much later makes it harder especially due to the differences in curriculum. Secondly, neither of us can afford the flying anymore simply due to covid tests and rising living costs. DP only gets 2 weeks annual leave (he got more last year because he changed jobs so his leave was refreshed).

I adore his family and would love to be a part of it. My kids would have grandparents doting on them and cousins to play with, extra people to love them. His family treat me so well and are really supportive of me and DP and the kids. The kids adore them. I would earn quadruple my salary over there if I worked. I'd have a lot of help with the kids (I have none atm) and I would have a good life.

However...

I own my house here outright. I love my career. I love my best friend. I worry for my brother. Since my gran died I've been visiting her best friends (because nobody else does) and I worry that they'd die while I was away (not in good health) and would miss my visits. It is a lot to give up moving away.

My kids are happy to move, they adore DP and his family.

But I don't want to make a bad decision because it's not like we can just come home... the time spent in the US would mean they lose their places in their schools (which are massively oversubscribed) and their education would be wasted (learning about US geography for example) so it's not like they could fit right back in. Getting a new job would take time...

I don't know if it's crazy to move or crazy to stay. My best friend's only concern is the cost of healthcare but this is manageable. She wants what's best for me but would obviously prefer me to stay.

Life is fast-paced here and stressful but I do love it. It's also expensive. I pay through the nose for after-school childcare because I have no family. I can't go out anywhere because I can't afford to pay a babysitter and I don't have family. So it's me and the kids 24/7. I work full time (up to 60 hours per week some weeks) and earn 21k, barely breaking even. Every single decision is on me as a solo parent. Being with DP would make life better and easier, and happier.

On the flipside, DP could work here relatively easily. I know it's a lot but the only thing he's giving up is his family, whom we could still fly over to see, but he sees them twice a month atm and speaks to them daily so they are close...

Should I expect him to move here? AIBU? or is he BU wanting me to move there?

It would be reckless to uproot your DCs & move continents to be with a man that you have spent so little time with in real life.

It’s great that you’ve found someone after what must have been a terrible time 5 years ago but this is madness. You cannot possibly know a person from a few meetings. What if he turns out to be a jerk?

I know it’s hard when you fall in love but please OP put your DC first, if he loves you he will leave the US.

It's difficult to understand how you've spent all this time together.

I'm in the US now with family - I was unable to get here for the last 2 years. Travel ban was in place until Nov 8 2021.

Why the rush ?

You have only known each other a short time

You have responsibilities- your children

Take your time

@TheGoldenWolfFleece

There's not a chance in hell that i would uproot my children for the sake of some bloke and give up all my, and their security. No. You can't possibly really know this man.

Seconded.

And what the hell do you do for a job that involves 60 hours a week for £21k pa?

The older I get the more important I realise money is. Don't even think of selling up and moving away from your close friends to be with someone in another country, particularly in his financial situation. You will never ever get back to owning your own place if you give up your house now. Play the movie to the end, as they say. It all goes tits up and you've lost your house as well. What would you do then?

I think it is head over heart here, and staying in the UK for a bit longer probably makes more sense. For now, he is freer than you are, because he doesn’t have children or a disabled brother. I think if possible he should come to you for now.

Your year 7 child could move easily to the US system in two years if it is all still working well between you and your American partner. (That would put him at the start of US high school - an obvious time to move.)

But neither move will be easy!

There are significant visa/ immigration hurdles in both countries; in the US if you can demonstrate the marriage is real you will have a right, eventually, to a Green Card, but not immediately, though you will likely to be able to stay until the formalities are sorted. Of course If you have a job lined up you can go under your own right, and not as a spouse. The Brits are, surprisingly, stricter about partners in some ways: you will need to earn a minimum amount for your partner to be allowed to come, unless he qualifies for a working Visa without you.

It might come down to which country it is easier for you both to work in legally.

The fact that it has only been a year woul panic me regarding making such a big decision.

Your kids surely can't know his family too well.

How's about just hang fire for another year?

I wouldn’t move in these circumstances. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, just I wouldn’t personally.

@oviraptor21

I don't think you know each other well enough to make such a life altering commitment either way.

true.

Another one saying no way on earth.

You have the bigger commitment - children - so he moves, not you, at least at first. You can't uproot your children to a different continent based on a relationship where you've only seen each other a handful of times.

I'm not snotty about long distance relationships or those started online, at all - DH and I started that way - but seeing each other for brief visits in person with all the excitement of that is in no way whatsoever comparable to sharing a life with someone, living with them, seeing how they interact with your kids in the daily grind of life or when they're being annoying.

There's also the fact that your kids lost their dad and a new man in your life - really in it, day to day, not over Facetime and occasional visits - could lead to resentment and a lot of big feelings. If they hated the move or found it hard to adjust, they're potentially going to resent DP even more on top as the reason you moved.

You've known each other a year. If he's serious, he'll understand that it would be absolute madness to ask them to uproot their lives for a virtual stranger when you have no idea if you work day-to-day living together.

I'd say he should move here for at least 2 years - 1 living nearby, and then 1 living all together. If that goes well and you're all happy and your kids are comfortable, then you can talk about moving there.

But your children have had enough upheaval already and you cannot do that to them without being reasonably sure it's a good idea - and so far you've got a handful of holidays and some butterflies and a frankly naive or romanticised notion of his family 'loving the kids like their own grandchildren' when they don't know them.

Imagine your dad dies, your mum moves you halfway round the world away from your friends and home and stability, to be the new foreign kid at a school completely different to the type of school you've ever know, and expects you to play grandchild to some people you don't know? You'd be setting yourself up for disaster.

Oh and you also have the bigger financial incentive to stay, at least for now: if you sold your house and tied it up in a joint asset in America it's MUCH more risky for you as a non-citizen if things don't work out.

@HollowTalk

The older I get the more important I realise money is. Don't even think of selling up and moving away from your close friends to be with someone in another country, particularly in his financial situation. You will never ever get back to owning your own place if you give up your house now. Play the movie to the end, as they say. It all goes tits up and you've lost your house as well. What would you do then?

agree. his financial situation doesnt look very bright at his age.

OP, moving your children to the US for the sake of someone you barely know would be completely mad. Read your post with rational eyes — you’ve spent about six weeks in one another’s company, so there is no way his family ‘love’ your children, far less can act as ‘doting’ grandparents and cousins, when they’ve seen far less of you and your children. You’re considering a deeply unwise decision ludicrously fast because you say you can’t afford to keep flying transatlantically and taking Covid tests, but that is absolutely no reason to move your children to another continent. Slow way down.

Nope! He’s a free agent, you are not- your first responsibility is to your DCs. If it’s love it will find a way ie get your children educated here. If he wants you, he will come here to the 3 if you

Play safe
Don't sell your home
Rent it out through an agency. Move and give it 100 percent effort to settle kids and make it work. Give yourself 2 years and if after that time you love it, sell up then. Will you get married?

Your children are your priority. If you are important to him, he would move here, temporarily at least, to see if the relationship truly has any distance in it. He's renting anyway, he has no kids, he has less to lose. Then if it all went great and living with each other was as wonderful as you hoped, you can think about moving to the US. If it went tits up here, he can toddle back over to the US alone without uprooting kids again.

It's a no brainer. Your children mean you have to decide with your head not your heart.

I'd test drive him as a live in partner for a couple of years before uprooting your kids. Good luck

@Notimeforaname

I'm surprised all the people saying "yes uproot your children from all they know to move to another continent with a man they've met..3 times ? And his family they have met one?! Utter madness.

This. Let him come here.

Don't be ridiculous, you sound like a teenager and I'd tell them to grow up. You've known this man for a year online. You don't know him at all. His parents do not love your kids, they have just been nice to them, they don't even know them well enough to love them. You lost your husband 5 years ago, how absolutely horrific and yes it makes you realise life is too short and the desire to get the book happy ending must be huge however, this is a very bad choice. Your kids lost their dad 5 years ago it's far too soon to be moving across the world to live with another man. You have no idea what he's like to live with day to day, how he will be about the household responsibilities on a daily basis, how he will treat your kids once they are around all the time. I think you know that this isn't really anything you should be considering. If he really wants to be with you let him come her for 3 years, if it works you can all move back together. Don't give up your children's secure home on a one year online fairytale.

@Cocomarine

I think there’s a difference too in:

• we talk a lot of the phone, and from what I’ve seen of him his family are lovely and welcoming
• we’ve got a record 7 hours and his family love like their own!

The first sounds like a woman who’d make rational decisions. The second… doesn’t.

This. The OP sounds quite vulnerable (understandably, given her difficulties in life) if she thinks strangers love her kids “like their own” after such a short time.

Other people have been flamed on Mumsnet for introducing their kids to a new man too soon. And yet people are encouraging the OP to take her kids overseas to live with a man she’s only met in person a few times.

Insanity.

My kids are happy to move, they adore DP and his family.
Of course they do. The kids on MN always 'adore' mum's new boyfriend that they hardly know. Never just like them. Always adore.

It's a massive risk for you to move over there op. If you didn't have DC things might be different. But you do, and you have all been through tough times. And I think you need to be very cautious.

Although you are engaged, you haven't spent enough time with this man in person to make this decision yet imho. How much time have you actually spent with him in the year that you have known him? And you don't know his family properly yet; it's great that they are welcoming to your dc but it's far too soon to be calling them 'grandparents'.

As you are the one with DC, and a house, and he can work easily here, then why can't he come and join you here for a year or so? And even then, sorry, but I would hesitate before moving him in with your dc straightaway. How much do you really know about him?

If it's meant to be, then it's meant to be, and it will all work out in the end, but fwiw, I think he should come to the UK first and you should take things more slowly than you are currently. I get that life is hard when you are working long hours and you are only just breaking even, and an alternative life seems very attractive, but you need to keep those sorts of factors out of the decision. Imagine how much worse things could be if you sold your house and moved over there and it didn't work out?

Please proceed with caution and don't be pressured by him to rush things

Ask him to move to the UK, if it doesn't work out, then it's just him who needs to repatriate. Selling your house and moving over there would be madness.

With regards to your house and assets, speak to a lawyer and make sure they are protected.

Thank you all so so much for the advice.

To be clear, I probably phrased it wrong by saying his family love my kids like their own. What I meant is, they treated them like their own while we were there and genuinely showed a lot of attention.

He visited twice in 2020, I visited in December just gone. So I appreciate not a lot of time. I guess with talking on FaceTime for so many hours every single night I feel like we know each other well, but it is very different to living together!

My worry is that my eldest will be too old to move if we don’t do it soon, in terms of being 12 already and then fitting in at a new school. That’s my main reason for the time limit. The little one is only 6 so I think would adapt quicker.

I’m also of the opinion that it is much much easier for him to move here and I think he should consider that! He is of the opinion it’s a much better life over there.

I wouldn’t ever sell my house because it’s my kids inheritance. At most id rent it out.

I work 60 hours because I only earn 21k, so 20 hours is overtime (and obv paid more) but this is only because one team has lost 2 staff due to not having jabs. When they rehire, the bank work goes and I’ll struggle even more. And it’s not always 20 hours per week, but I try to do as much as I can because I struggle with money.

My suggestion was that he moved here for a year or so, tries it out. If it fails he can go back and stay with his mum (her basement is bigger than my house!) and his type of job is easy to come by but even if it took a while he has his mum to help. He admits it’s a good idea so I don’t see what his problem is tbh!

I feel I have too much to give up here in comparison.