To not want to throw in my job to live in France for a year?

[Puppalicious]

My DH is always complaining about where we live (the weather, the day to day slog) and he is desperate to move (either to the country, or to another country). He has now become absolutely adamant that he wants to move to France for a year “for an adventure”. This would involve me giving up my job, which he says I haven’t been happy in recently. I have been struggling at times recently, because of various factors, and he says I’m obsessed with it do the detriment of my family, it is stressful but ultimately it’s well-paid, senior, my boss is fine and it works ok with my kids given it’s full-time and senior (flexible, short commute, hybrid). It’s far from guaranteed I could find job similar when I come back (could be less well paid, less senior (I like working at this level) or longer and less flexible hours with demanding clients or indeed I could struggle to get a job. He says we could live off our savings but we have 3 kids to put through college, the youngest of whom has just started school and we are not young. At the same time, we only live once and it does feel a bit samey. He is putting me under pressure, but would AIBU to say no?

Why would your eldest have such a strong noooo response to you cutting down your hours? Because of money? An 11 year old shouldn’t have that level of awareness of household finances should they?

We went to Switzerland last year. Its beautiful, but very expensive. And Jesus, if I never smell melted gruyere again it will be too soon!

In fairness, it came after me saying that maybe we should change my life, cut down my hours so I would have more energy to be on top of their homework…
Also, he’s also sort of my mini-me, a bit of a “geek” always interested in learning about stuff, he loves being a grown-up talking to me about my work (he’s more interested than my DH) and he might even be a little bit proud.

I agree with an above poster that taking the full six week summer holiday (maybe tacking on a week before to extend it) and taking a long holiday let is probably the only compromise worth exploring. You could take as much leave as you can and work remotely the rest of the time, and he can take the kids on French adventures. You all get some sun and a change of scenery, no one loses their school place.

It would need to be clear a holiday is nothing like the reality of relocating (school places lost, high school fees necessitated, endless admin and red tape as a foreigner as you try to daily things you currently take for granted). But it might scratch his itch.

“Absolutely batshit” is very extreme 😂 it’s France, not Everest

The EU has freedom of movement, sure, but even so EU citizens cannot move to another EU country for more than three months without proving how they will provide for themselves. That has remained national legislation.

Do you have any evidence for that? I'm curious as have an EU passport myself and have not come across such rules.

Can you take a one year unpaid sabbatical from your job l? That's what I would do, don't give up both of your jobs but just take a year off unpaid so you can return after a year. You could teach English for a year wh8le out there to earn money. I'd do it but I love an adventure.

Because she doesn’t want to?

So let me understand, you are the main wage earner and are struggling because you're not very good at housework? And as a result your DH thinks uprooting 3 DCs and losing a well paid job is a good answer because it rains too much here ?

Get a cleaner and go on more holidays. Tell your DH to focus his attention on his DCs futures or holiday projects.

There was a great line in another thread that suits your DH "Wherever you go, there you are."
He's not going to be any happier in France not speaking the language with very little money. Although I do take his point on the rain.

1. Your DH is highly jealous of your career and subconsciously trying to sabotage it.
2. France is not an adventure.
3. Your eleven year old is already too old for a ‘year out’ a move at that age to a foreign language country would be extremely hard and harmful and he’d be unlikely to recover his social confidence.

I mean if you wanted to take a glam job in New Zealand I might say go for it but… France?! Pah. It’s like England but with ruder people and a confusing language. If you really want to move to Europe at least do Italy or somewhere fun.

Sounds like your DH is a selfish fantasist having a mid-life crisis, he needs to grow up and prioritise his children.

And what about schooling for the kids? Teaching English as a foreign language isn’t going to pay three sets of International School fees. The other choice is to deregister and homeschool them, which with the ages OP has would be extremely difficult to service without simply sticking the older ones in front of youtube lessons all day.

In England you absolutely can’t miss a year and then catch up by joining the year below a year later, as a PP claimed (assume it’s the same in Ireland). The kids would have to rejoin their chronological year and deal with having missed a year of teaching.

The ‘adventure’ glaring omits the needs and practicalities of three maturing children, plus the OP losing a good, senior flexible job to be a TEFL teacher 🤷‍♀️

Another thing I would add is that the job market is pretty brutal these days and a lot of companies are moving to a 5 days a week in the office, no flexible working model.

If I had young DCs and a flexible high paid position, I'd not be giving it up for anything, or jeopardising my position by suggesting a year long sabbatical.

Maybe the way to go is heavily push how lovely it will be for him to be the main wage earner worrying about paying the bills. Suggest you get somewhere with a vineyard and you could make wine, or something equally outlandish and unprofitable. Say that absolutely you can live off the savings - you had hoped that you could both retire early 60s, but it's so important he lives his dream that it's worth sacrificing that and both working until 70s. He can get a minimum wage job if he can't do his old one anymore. Guaranteed he will give up on the idea.

I had parents who moved around a lot in southern Europe and a third world country, lots of different schools and languages with a constant refrain of ‘how lucky us five children were and children are resilient’. More extreme than your husband is suggesting but coming from the same selfish place.
This is how it affected us: as a child you are resilient because what else are you going to do? You get on with your own reality of going to school, answer questions about your weird parents, learn the language, wish your life was just normal and didn’t have have to keep saying goodbye to friends. We didn’t have time to learn much academic stuff because the language and social and moving took up so much space, none of us graduated with any kind of meaningful qualifications or progressed much in work.
Children need stability and parents that have their back and encourage them. Dragging them around because they are resilient does them no favours at all.
Spend some money on your husband getting a kick arse therapist so he can explore his own feelings of inadequacy and find his own way to feeling more satisfied with his life.

oh what a shame he didn't do anything like that when he was younger - now he needs to grow up and realise he is married with children and the time for a year out has passed.

esp as you have a good job.

how long will it be before the savings are all spent up ? then nothing to fall back on.

why disrupt the children for a year, for a whim !

it would be different if it was your company offering you a year in France in a different office kind of thing.

he needs to grow up, and put aside his fomo

yes we only live once and life can be samey, but to disrupt everything in his family's life for a whim !!!

I’ve lived and worked in several different countries, OP, and I remember how challenging and lonely that can be, as well as exciting, interesting etc. I was single and childless, as I expect you were when you did your year in France. I can’t imagine how much more difficult it would be with children.

Less lonely in one way, as you’d be with your family. But perhaps more isolated in another way as you couldn’t throw yourself into the singles life. Also I’ve found it harder to make new friends after moving to another town, even in England, as I get older.

Enormously more difficult and complicated sorting out DC’s schooling etc. DC having to cope with the huge changes. (Friends who have done this found the kids coped well and of course picked up the language much faster than adults do— but they stayed abroad for several years.)

Probably hard for you and DH to find suitable work, and for you to slot back into a good job when you return — unless you’d agreed a year off with your present employer.

Your DH has his head in the clouds I’m afraid. And these days, how can he even consider spending all your savings on this?

Terrific idea, though, when kids are grown up. People can do voluntary work abroad in their 50s and 60s, even older if in good health.

Best of luck whatever you do, OP.

Terrific idea, though, when kids are grown up. People can do voluntary work abroad in their 50s and 60s, even older if in good health.

This! Once the kids are off at Uni you and your dh are free to travel as much as you like and spend time living abroad.

In the meantime please prioritise your children, especially the 11 year old starting at Secondary School.

Do not move an 11 year old who doesn't speak French to France unless you absolutely have to.

I told him I did some research and it would be incredibly difficult for the 11 year old…he fell back on “kids are resilient” again but I just need to keep working on it I think.

I don't understand why you aren't even the tiniest bit angry here OP.

Both of you should be putting your DCs first and instead of that he has some hare brained scheme to drain the family resources and seriously mess up the DCs life, oh and scupper your career whilst he's at it. All for the sake of a year !

Why are you even entertaining him? It's preposterous and you know it.

If he said the Kids are resilient thing I'd reply is it because the adults are not ?

I just don't see how this is reasonable risk taking, it's a massive risk to take on so many levels. Hard no from me.

I've lived abroad as an expat for 4 years, it takes a year to settle in then it's just still incredibly tough.

If you didn’t have school age children I’d would say explore if your work would let you take a sabbatical or work remotely or hybrid coming once a month or so but…you do have school age kids so the idea is a pipe dream and you DH needs a reality check

Working on what ?

I say it again. He is being incredibly selfish.

His want doesn't trump the rest of the families needs and well being.

Agree with all of this.

Agree with this. It’s like he’s made the decision and you’re desperately trying to make a business case to disprove it. He should be doing all the work here to prove to YOU that it’s feasible.