Arguing over international move

[Mogowa]

We are about to move country. It's been over a year in the making. We now have all the paperwork through and trying to set a date to move. Just had a big blowup with DP over when to go.

MIL and SIL will be in the country visiting around the timeframe we want to move. My preferred date to move is just after they leave the country. This is due to the timeline of trying to get everything sorted before we go and work commitments. I will also admit that the prospect of spending our first week in the country with MIL and SIL (i.e. my annual leave) is not a priority for me and I'm confident that we will see them a lot once we move (either in the country we are moving to or our home country).

But DH wants to time it so we coincide with their trip and thinks I'm selfish and unreasonable to not want the same. Apparently, "anyone else in the world would be fine with co-ordinating. It's just you that's the problem".

The question about how we spend holidays and with who has been a longstanding issue in our relationship. We've been together over a decade. And we have continually fought over an annual trip with his family. I am always painted as being unreasonable, so I often waiver and go and end up resentful. I am aware that I should have been stronger at holding firm but I guess I just absorbed this idea that it was selfish and that each time would be different.

Given this is an international move (and supposed to be a big adventure for our family) I am determined to stick to my boundary. But it's just caused a massive row and DH has shouted at me, telling me how unreasonable I am and that I'm selfish and make his life a misery.

AIBU for not wanting to plan my international move around when his MIL and SIL will be in the country?

Ask dh how HE intends to contribute 50/50 to the move while HE is hosting his family
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No move, particularly an international one, is a holiday or a picnic or a cup of tea.

You will be incredibly busy trying to settle in and having visiting family and socializing with them will make the settling for more difficult, particularly in the weeks after they have left.

Start as you mean to go on and invite them to visit you in the new country after you have been there a few months and found your feet.

How often does DH get to see DM and SIL normally?

MIL lives nearby. We see around every two weeks (on average). Although both DP and MIL would probably like it to be more often (another arguement ... and I recently had to tell MIL that every week wasn't possible as life is just too busy). SIL lives in a different country (different to the one we are moving to) but we still see several times a year. Just spent Christmas together.

It seems its a microcosm of the bigger issue of seeing his family. Do you always have to do it together? Why can't he go on these family trips and you take a separate holiday, with a friend or your own family, some years.

As for the current issue, its impossible to say who's being unreasonable without knowing every detail of the logistics.

i think you are a bit unreasonable
its clear you don’t really like your IL - what’s the background to this?
it seems fair that your DH wants to coincide and see his family

could you compromise and overlap by a few days rather than the whole week?

I think we need more information. How often do you normally see in laws compared to your family?
When you move to new country how often will you see them? Will it go from once each year to twice each year or every week?
Are they the sort of people who will help with settling in, cleaning unpacking, entertaining children etc?

I think DH should see his family as much as he wants, as long as he is pulling his weight in childcare responsibilites if you have kids. But you don't need to go together.

It all sounds very stressful.
YANBU not to plan an international move around his family BUT it sounds like it's not really about that anyway, it's about how accommodating you are towards his family and the time he wants to spend with them. It's not clear from what you've written whether YABU about that or not. It's not unreasonable for your DH to want to spend some annual leave with his family and one trip a year sounds fairly standard, unless it's a really long trip? What's the backstory there?

Thank you for your replies already. The point about that first week being busy is so true. And I want to spend any free time we do have with my DD (making sure she is settled) and spending time together as a family in our new home. I don't want to have to get back to work after two weeks and feel like all my time was spent trying to organize our life or having dinner with his family.

As something of a veteran of international moves, I definitely agree with you that it is far better that you and your family (including your DH) focus on you guys getting there in the best possible shape, all pulling together, and focussed on getting there, getting settled and on each other. It is no time to have (however caring and wellmeaning) extraneous people who will have their own ideas on what you should do, how you should do it, oh, and wouldn't it be nice to go and see such and such, when you're desperately wanting to get where you sleep set up, put your feet up, laugh and cry over the days events and have a gin without worrying about what anyone else wants or thinks.

There's plenty of time for MIL and SIL to visit when you're set up, comfortable, can show them around, and don't resemble a stick of dynamite with a flame at the end of a very short fuse.

(And that analogy is from when things go relatively well, lol).

I do like my ILs, but DP and I have very different views of how much time we spend with our families. I see my DM once a month, perhaps every six weeks. Over the course of our relationship, DP and I have been on 1 holiday with my family. (That is because it's not normal in my family to spend holidays together). It is normal for his family. That is where the friction is. We both have different views, norms, and expectations about time spent with family. I was young when I met DP, so I didn't really hold firm and ended up going along with things i didn't want to do with his family. As I've got older, I've stood my ground more.

Thank you @mbosnz . I think that's where my head is at. I don't want any added pressure on an already stressful situation. There will be tensions, tears, and the rest of it. And perhaps I don't want to have to go through that with SIL and MIL there. Who are wonderful people, but not good at the emotional stuff.

I think it would be really weird to deliberately time things to avoid seeing family who are visiting a country. I understand you're not bothered about seeing them but would you behave like this over your family or anyone you liked ?

Different if there's a sensible practical reason not to move then, but just to avoid spending leave with family. I'd say that's one of the biggest things a out moving "away", leave will often be used up visiting family. At least this time you're not booking it specially for that purpose.

I think perhaps if you put it to your DH like that, with the rider, 'of course I'm looking forward to seeing them when we're settled, but not while we're in the thick of it', maybe that could help?

I love my mother, but God, even having her for 3 months less than three months after we first shifted to the other side of the world was a bit of a stretch. She couldn't understand why we couldn't take huge chunks of leave to show her around (we didn't have any, and anything we did have was precious), and nor did she understand why we didn't know all the best places to go and how to get there. . .

Can you compromise and overlap by a couple of days? That way DH gets to see them and they him and also DD. And it might be good for DD to have some familiar people there too.

What's the compromise?

I think YABU. I had a similar situation when I met my DP, he is very close to his family, sees them at least once a week, speaks to them most days. I'm not so close to mine. But I wouldn't have tried to restrict or change that, I don't think that's fair, because it's something that matters a lot to him on a deep level and brings him happiness. To me they are part of the package. So it's not that you're being unreasonable about the move specifically but I can understand why it has become an explosive issue if there is a long history of you trying to persuade him to see less of them.

Surely it's fine to see mil every 2 weeks but dh to see her whenever he /she wants to? Surely mid move nobody has the head space for anything else? Or have a pile of empty boxes ready and shove them at mil? My fil helped us move. Mil was told not to turn up. Long story there!

Thank you everyone. Lots of food for thought here. The comment about would i do this with my own family. Yes, I would and they would be fine with it. It has already been so stressful trying to line up DP, me and DD for this move. Adding people into the equation makes my head burst. And given that we will be spending every bit of annual leave coming back home to see our respective families, I don't understand the big deal of missing SIL and MIL on this occassion. SIL is there on a work trip and MIL is going along to meet her. So their trip was booked without us in mind anyway?

It's a week in grand scheme of things. I would coincide with their trip as they could take dd out while your unpacking and sorting things

Setting the family circumstances aside, If you only have a week off work to move countries, that is already very ambitious in terms of the amount of time you will have to get settled.

While you don’t mention the circumstances of where you are moving to (hotel, rented furnished accommodation, rented unfurnished accommodation, bought “forever” home) where you are moving to will definitely factor in to the kind of time you will have at your disposal. If it’s a hotel set up, with no pressured timeline to move away from that, then maybe (MAYBE) you could consider entertaining guests and treat that week like a holiday. But if you’ve got to view property, shop for household basic essentials, get kids into school, buy(or lease) a car, sort our paperwork like insurance and driver’s licenses. No. I couldn’t do that with my in-laws in tow.