Biggest dilemma of my whole life - Please help

[Purplecastle]

Please help me with my biggest dilemma of my life.

We live in the UK the last 12 years but we are not from the UK. Both myself and my husband come from an Eastern European country and are both well educated and gain very good salaries, together we hit above 6 digit salary. We have British passports and 2 DCs, 3 and 1 years old.

Our parents live back in our home country and we have no other siblings.

We like our lives here, we are well established, we bought our house, we have our car, we are balanced. We live in a nice area and our kids will go to good schools.

Our parents are between 60-75 years old (all 4 of them).

We are at a stage that we have to decide whether to return back for them or not. They are not willing to come and live in the UK and I don't blame them as they are in retirement and have their friends and life back in our home country.

If we stay here we will be financially better and our kids will have a better education.
If we go back we will just about make it financially as a good school there in only a private school.
If we go back would be to be close to our parents at their final years and our kids to grow with their grandparents.
If we stay here our parents will either end up in an elderly house with noone close to them and if they accept to come and live in the UK we won't be able to afford a good elderly care and support for them as it's so expensive.
If we go back our kids will be more citizens of our home country (which is where we feel we belong - at home we speak our home country language) and if we stay here we will raise up British people, which is absolutely fine, but it's not us in a way.

What would you do? Please help as my mind is split between parents and kids and I am totally exhausted....

YABU - Stay in the UK
YANBU - Go back to your home country

I don't know how anyone else can really answer this for you.
But I agree with those saying you should not feel obliged to return to look after your parents.
But if you are going to go back it would be much easier now while your kids are young. Putting it off means they will be more established with their friends and lifestyle, more British, and more disrupted by moving.

As much as we love our parents, mine (and most parents I think) have always said to do what is best in your own life. For example-plenty of people leave the UK to live in Australia for a better quality of life (apparently) and no one would ever go if we only made decisions based on being near family. Do you travel out to see them fairly regularily? A few times a year?

As much as I would love my own kids living fairly nearby in the future, the reality is they may want to live and work and raise and family anywhere in the world and I will always support their own dreams.

Returned to Ireland 20 yrs ago with DC all under 10. Had been in UK for 20yrs. DH British and by then both his parents had died. There is not one day we regret our decision. Many formerly poor EU countries are considerably wealthier than the UK now. I have great affection for the UK and still in touch with many friends I made there and visit often. However life for the 99% is getting harder and the UK is going a bit " managed decline" according to my UK friends. Your economic situation in your home country may be better than when you left but you may find fewer opportunities we certainly found that but adjusted. Was so worth it as I was able to spend time with one parent in their final illness and repair a previously very poor relationship with the other which has brought me massive peace of mind and I am so proud to have done that. Being in a different country to sick or elderly relatives is a kind of torment.
My children are always saying they are so glad we returned and feel proud to be Irish/English. They benefit from having an EU and an Irish passport and move between both countries easily.
Ultimately its a very personal choice and wherever you live either as an immigrant or a returned immigrant you will always feel in the wrong place at times. We found that once we started thinking of moving to Ireland the idea never went away and I'm convinced we would still be talking about it now if we had stayed in UK. Irish friends who have returned from Australia say that Irish people living there are always saying " We will move home in about 5years" but the 5 years keep stretching and suddenly they have Aussie teens and the window to return home has closed. You have about 8 years max to finally decide I'd say.
I wish you luck and hope the posts here help you

what stands out a bit is you saying the children growing up as “British” is not really you. If you don’t want this and will struggle with it then maybe that’s your indicator that going home would be the right thing for you. But what is right for them?

either keep it on the back burner and maybe review yearly whilst your parents are still relatively young. Or move now before the children do become absorbed in the culture here if this isn’t what you want for them.

dilemmas like these are always hard and there is no “right” thing to do. But what does your heart say over your head?

good luck

I agree completely! A colleague’s daughter has just moved to the other side of the world and she said she never once tried to persuade her against it. I dont ever want my kids changing their own lives for me.

I have been in the UK 18 years and I am settled but the UK will never feel like home as someone said familiarity, contentment and sense of belonging is very important.

I left my home country for many reasons that still apply and I couldn’t start all over again there and uproot the children as this is their home; my husband is from a different country too; however your children are young and your husband is from the same country as you.

The question is: do you want to start over again back home and can you get good jobs there? good standard of leaving.The longer you leave it, the harder it will be.

I think 15 years in another country is when people decide to stay or go back.

Their children are also family.

Live your lives for yourselves and your children, not your parents. They have had their time. You do what’s best for you now.

Speaking from bitter experience here. I fucked up my life for my father (who expected me to).

I'm a parent
To see my children happy and fulfilled is the best thing
To feel I had hampered thier choices would be aweful

Another parent here who would not want my kids changing their life for me (mine are both adults), but I think for me the telling thing is your comments about your kids and wanting them to be in touch with your culture and grow up identifying as (home country) kids, not British.

I'd say: move for your kids, not for your parents.

If you have British passports, presumably you could return to the UK if you changed your mind.

However, think about what you would be going back for - is it to give help to elderly parents? If both set of parents died, would you still want to stay , or would you rather come back to Britain? If moving to Britain was a decision for financial reasons, have you established yourself with financial security i.e. achieved what you wanted?

In a nutshell.

Id stay. From experience I know how torn you are but the facts are that your kids lives are here and they come first. Your parents are fine to decide to stay local but there are natural results from that.

You have kids so that they can have happy lives and noone wants to be a burden to their family. I would hope your parents would feel the same x

I agree.
Your parents are fairly young and in good health by the sound of it, but I understand the desire to bring up your children in your own country.
Also, leaving it until an emergency forces a decision would be much more stressful. It is sensible to think of it now.
I have found, as I get older, that family connections have become more important, and not just the living ones, but the whole history and background of my family, where we come from, our language . I moved to be closer to my parents when my children were similar ages to yours, and I am very glad I did. My dc speak our language and have a sense of their community and cultural background.
It is good to weigh up all the pros and cons, but also to make a decision with your heart. Where will you all be happiest? All of you, as a family, including the older members ?
Good luck whatever you decide OP.

I am East European and my impression is that Brits will tell you to focus on your kids whilst EEuropeans will also think of their parents as immediate family. We did something similar but in reverse, our parents were in the UK, we had moved to another European country. We came back once the kids were school age. I think that culturally there is more of an assumption that adult kids support elderly parents. And yes in Eastern Europe- 60 can be seen as old especially for women. Something else to think about is that your kids will be British, i.e. if you decide to leave when they are older, they won't follow you. So you might end up in the same position as your parents - separated from your kids

My experience is that parents may say in their 60's that they are happy for you to move to another country but fast forward 15 - 20 years and it can be a different story. I live close to parents in their 80's and feel a bit trapped. If we wanted to, we couldn't even move an hour away without it causing family upset. If you move to be closer to family you may also feel restricted, whereas staying in the UK would give you more freedom to stay here, or move to another third country.

This might not be the reason OP is thinking but you would want to do it now whilst the children are still very young. It wouldn’t be fair on them moving them from the UK, permanently, to a very different country when they are older but not old enough to make a decision if they want to stay in the UK or go to the parent’s home country.

OP what are the prospects for your children as adults if you go back vs if you stay here? I think that should be priority over your parents who have a shorter life in front of them than your children.

Unless you were always thinking that your children will go and grow up in your home country.

I have something of this dilemma except in my case it's my parents who moved away from the UK. They're now elderly and very isolated and I would love them to come back to the UK but for various reasons they refuse. Or at least, they refused when they were well enough to make the move. Now they don't have the energy to make an international move but want to be nearer their children. I'm not going to move though because, as hard as it may seem, I think what is happening is a result of their decisions. Of course, this doesn't apply to you.

I think in part, ask yourself how your parents will cope without you. Are they somewhere rural, with poor services, where they rely on being able to drive? In which case they will struggle. Or are they more city centre, with good public transport and services, in which case they're well placed and you will be able to get to them reasonably quickly if you need to.

I would also take into account the fact that the UK is in decline and is not a good place to be. I think even with a change of government this will continue, because the majority of politicians are too spineless to tackle the problems and too in thrall to the nastiest right wing elements. So leaving the UK, when you have a good alternative, may well be the right thing to do.

One thing to try is to make the decision. Decide you are definitely moving back. See how this sits with you. Relief? Terror? Dread? Elation? Now go the other way and see how you feel. Then do whichever one sits better.

Would you not have a better standard of living if you returned to your home country now?

Enough to have an easier life? If you sold your house in the UK would that not enable you to get a good hold on a property in your home country?

I am from another EU country and lived in London for 15 years and anybody who moved from London to my home country (where property is expensive) would still have power in the property market.

I was sad to leave London as it felt like the centre of the universe at the time and I bought in to that, but now I'm back home, I'm really glad.

My parents would never expect this and I definately would never expect it of my children. Your Dad should never have put that pressure and guilt on you.

Go with what will give your children the potential for the best and happiest life. I’m afraid my kids always take priority.

Stay here for now, and if and when an elderly parent actually needs you, consider your options then.

As the U.K. has the worst level of happiness in Europe, that would indicate moving back would be better.

I think I have some understanding of the issues. My mother was also from an Eastern European country and so I understand the cultural view of looking after elders. However, my own father here in the UK is very ill and even though I am only half an hour away from him I still can’t really look after him 24/7 because I have a child and a job. So, even if you move it is unlikely that you will have the time to care for them. Could they buy in some live in care? Then, when you visit them on ‘holiday’ you can really enjoy your time together.

I'd agree with those who said to think foremost of your kids, for whom staying here is probably best.

My situation is similar except we're 12 years into your future. We stayed, our children are 12 and 17 and our parents 75 to 85 and luckily all in good health. Only difference is that we both have one sibling living close to them which gives us peace of mind.

It's not easy to think that in maybe 5 years their needs will be different and it will be really difficult not to be there, but with the ease of working from home we know we can go often and spend 1 or 2 weeks there with them not only spending quality time but also offering support.

One of the things we always struggled the most with our decision to stay is to deprive both our parents and our children of a close relationship but with frequent holidays and leaving them there in the summer I feel they have a closer relationship than many British people I know who visit the grandparents a lot less.

No easy solution but staying can work out OK.