Is husband being selfish about relocating

[Sugarandspice85]

Hi,
long story short my husband and I looked into relocating from the uk to nz-Hamilton, with our 3 kids (under 10) after the job offer which was very good, and once things started becoming very real I decided after all that perhaps moving from family and support wasn’t the best idea for us as a family- I find some days hard with three kids, dog, house and job and think I would’ve struggled being on the other side of the world. Also my husband was thinking ‘forever’ whilst I knew it would only be temporary- I don’t want to live on the other side of the world and never come back. I know that in my heart.
all along my husband was saying ‘it needs to be right for all of us or we don’t go, it has to be 100%’ but now he’s trying to guilt me into the move, saying that he can’t stand anything about the uk, and our life here, and that this would have been our ticket to a better new life.
for info we have a lovely (mortgaged) house in the south east, kids in good schools, nice area.
Aibu to think that he needs to see it as an opportunity that wasn’t right for us all, or am I being selfish for not sucking it up and going?

I’m not on board that it’s a better life op. My friends have found it worked well in younger years but as soon as the children became teenagers they moved back to London. NZ is a beautiful country but the suicide rate is high amongst young people and career opportunities limited.

It's very difficult and is something you both need to be on board with. I lived abroad for a year with an ex and loved being abroad but was really homesick. Ex would definitely have stayed. He now lives abroad after we split.

My SIL and family live in Canada. They absolutely love it but have only been home once since moving, which is over a decade. The problem is New Zealand isn't somewhere you can just pop back from. It is such a big thing to do with selling a house and everything too.

It definitely needs a lot of conversations

You're not being unreasonable. Neither is he. You both want different things and are trying to persuade the other to change their minds.

With a move of that distance without friends or family already over there you have to be 100% committed to the move. Don't do it if you have any doubts

Yanbu to want to stay in the UK

But it sounds like you were probably a bit unreasonable in how you handled it, going along and then dashing his dreams

Maybe it would help if you apologised for that aspect at least

Would you be able to do your work from
NZ op or would you be dependent on a man in a foreign country? Because that's an AWFUL idea.

I would advise never moving to another country if you aren't sure and there are children involved. Once you have residency, you can't necessarily return with them if you don't like it there. I have been to New Zealand before and would totally move there if it was much closer, say just below Ireland. But it's not. It's as far away as anywhere can possibly be on Earth, so a huge commitment.

Did you at any point say you were 100% about going?

Relocating from one side of the world is hard - emotionally and financially. It somehow ends up even more eyewateringly expensive than you imagined! And with kids, you are taking full responsibility for uprooting them from all and who they've ever known, including culturally. And make no mistake, our cultures are very different. As are our education systems.

As a result, you all have to be very invested in making it work, especially with kids, one of whom is on the cusp of secondary over here. I really wouldn't recommend going if you're only prepared to stick it out a few year, or not foreseeing it as a long term move, it's simply too hard on the kids, and would take a lot to recover from financially.

Personally, I think you've got to give it at least three years, to get over the homesickness and to get fully settled.

And Hamilton? Um, have you ever been there? Poor old Hamilton, it gets a very hard time! (Pretty much every foreign act that goes to Hamilton makes it the butt of jokes, thereafter, lol).

I relocated from NZ to the UK with two kids who were at the time 12 and 14.

I think if you changed your mind after saying you would then that is really hard on him. But you can't make that move if you don't want to

I wouldn't go. If you want to leave and the marriage ends you are stuck. You can't take them home.

Oh, also, I sympathise with getting to a point where shit gets far too real. I have a friend who the night before they were due to go with all their family, said, 'nope'.

Relocation is like deciding to make a baby, it needs two big yeses to make it a good idea.

I’m sure your DH is lovely but could you both somehow legally agree to a fixed term stay if you do go for a fixed time as a compromise? Just in case he really wants to make it permanent and the kids or you don’t and you want to come back to the UK. He has to agree not to contest the kids or to dispose of UK house without your permission if you wanted to return to the UK, that sort of thing?

As someone who has moved half way across the world from the UK...no kids, just me and DH, both with good career prospects in the new location....it's HARD. So so very hard. YANBU.

1.You miss out on so much, you'll only get to see family once a year with a huge financial effort on your part.

1. Travel is limited. No hopping to Spain for a week, any holiday will be vastly expensive.
2. You won't have your longstanding friends network, it will be just you and DH and that really tests your relationship.
3. I have no kids yet so schools is a whole new stressful kettle of fish.

Your DH is massively underestimating how hard it is. Everyone needs to be enthusiastically on board otherwise the resentment will kill your marriage forever.

Do NOT think you can just move back. We thought if we didn't like it, we'll go back to the UK. We can't. The financial implications are huge. It has to be something managed carefully. And you can't put kids in and out of schools!

You can’t just bring the kids back if you do go (and have been there a while). Someone I know told their dw they’d trial similar but actually had no intention of ever returning to the UK. If it isn’t what you want to do, don’t go. He can’t forcibly put you on the plane. If he’s trying to guilt you, that’s a red flag, imo, you don’t want to go, he needs to understand that regardless of his reasoning, he probably isn’t going to change your mind. Leaving your home/family/friends is HUGE.

I have been to NZ on holiday, it is a long way & expensive

You both need to be 100%
Or
He goes alone ?

Is there a chance that you can try NZ for a few years & see how it goes, with the option to return ?

(I clicked unreasonable by accident sorry!)

Your concerns are valid. My husband and I had similar differing views over locating permanently to NZ. It's hard as there is no compromise on it. It's such a difficult position to be in.

Ultimately unless you are all keen you can't relocate. It's hard moving countries especially if one person isn't up for it!

This is what I was going to say.

Dont go to NZ with kids unless you’re sure you won’t change your mind: you will be stuck there if your husband wants to stay.

I want to repeat what others have said. There is no way (or pretty much no way) that your DH can take the children to live in NZ if you stay here. It’s a whole other story if you go. Whatever “agreement” you might have with him about it being a trial, if you get there and the children become habitually resident (that’s not the same as nationality; all it means it the place they usually live) which they would in 2 years, possibly less, then you will have a really really difficult time of it getting them home. Not saying impossible, but if your DH decided to stay and didn’t want the children to leave and they were thriving, it would be a real struggle for you to get them back to the UK. So I absolutely disagree with the advice to give it a trial.

But I do think you were unreasonable to get his hopes up. You let talk of it go on too long.

Did you post this last week? I'm sure I replied to you then

I have a few school friends who've moved to NZ, they're all really happy there. The standard of living seems much higher than here. I 9ften see photos they've taken hiking or on the beach

Before we had children we worked in Australia. We were offered sponsorship snd partnership.
We chose to come back to the UK. Supposedly to be near our windowed mothers. We end up in the south East 4 hours away from one mum and 6 hours from the other.
Really wished we hadn't come back.

It strikes me that you're both wrong in the way you've gone about things.

He's wrong for trying to guilt you into it.

You're wrong for not understanding what this looks like from his perspective - he's done all the work to get the job, set everything in his head for moving, and is ready to look forward to a new chapter in your lives, and then you've yanked it out from under him (whether for good reasons or not, doesn't really matter).

It honestly sounds like you both need a bit more empathy with each other.

I'm sure New Zealand is wonderful, but as someone who lives on the other side of the world from where I grew up, it is awful always having people you love on the other side of the world. Besides the fact that family support is priceless