DD (21) plans to get married and move abroad

[Thatonesong]

My DD is 21, she's a lovely, sociable, smart girl. She studied sports science and is now doing her MSc in Sports and Exercise Medicine. She entered into a new relationship in January, the man is 28 which to me feels like a notable age gap at 20/21, but I appreciate others may feel differently. He is from the Middle East and has made it clear he plans to move home. He proposed to DD at the start of the month, which felt quite fast since they'd been together for maybe 10/11 months at the time, but we congratulated her, she seems happy and airing our opinion is only likely to cause upset.
Tonight DD came over for dinner, without her partner. She told us she is planning to get married in the summer and then move to his home country with him in the autumn after she graduates. I asked if she has a plan for once she is there career wise and she said maybe some sports coaching but he can afford to support them both. This felt like a red flag to me as I don't want her to be fully reliant on anyone else to just survive. She was also honest and said having children is high on her priority list and she "doesn't want to wait until she's older and too tired to be an active mum". I felt a bit gobsmacked tbh, but just said she should spend some time thinking about if this all what she really wants or if she is doing it because it is what he wants/feels pressured.
Since she left I haven't been able to stop crying, my partner thinks we need to have a harsher word with her, note the risks more plainly, such as difficult getting a divorce, likely not possible to have children there, break up and move back here with them (due to The Hague Convention) etc.
I know she is an adult and entitled to make her own choices, but 21 still feels very young!
AIBU to be so concerned? What do I do?

21 and so naive.

I'm going to hope for both of your sakes that this relationship is over with before any marriage/move can happen.
I'd give her plenty of advice about it, enough to let her think it over properly and hopefully come to her senses.

I'm not saying no British woman should marry a Qatari ever, but I do think it's a situation a woman should only enter into with her eyes very wide open and a familiarity with the region. The OPs daughter is not that woman.

I'll be honest, I would hire a private investigator to see what could be dug up on this man. Is he already married, in financial difficulties,etc.

In desperation I might also try to buy him off.

Yes, either risks a blow-up with your daughter, but it's a risk I'd be willing to take.

Qataris are mostly absolutely loaded, he'll likely be many many times richer than OP.

I would not be happy for my daughter to marry a man from Qatar after only knowing him for such a short period of time. She needs to do her research on how women are treated in Muslim countries. He may become a completely different person when he returns to his own customs. I imagine he is enjoying the freedom he has here but your daughter won’t have any freedom in the ME.

@Thatonesong
Has she got a good bunch of mates?
What do they think?
Could they have a word with her?

Having read your posts it sounds like your daughter wants to be a ‘kept ‘ woman . She wants a rich man to look after her. Perhaps it’s a symptom of divorced parents? I don’t think anything you can say will change her mind as she sounds very determined. He is a practising Muslim?

Get very involved as other have suggested OP. After all, this is what’s expected of families in a marriage into an Arabic Muslim family. Talk to her about dowries and about going to see an Imam for advice on marriage contracts. Plan an extended holiday there with her where you would meet his family, especially the women. Be clear that you will have to give consent for this marriage as will they.

If she finds this suffocating and interfering, point out to her that this is part of her new culture’s family values - as it most certainly is.

Make sure she spends time with the women in his family without you, too. Are they welcoming? Will they speak English all the time to help her feel included - or sit and speak their own language while she is “on the outside”?

Tell her she must immediately start learning Arabic - make sure she does not have the notion that she can get by because most people speak English to some extent. The language of the country is still Arabic and socially she will always struggle a lot without it. She must plan for fluency within a year, because she is marrying a local, not living as an Expat where expectations are different.

Go over with her what rights she can expect to change and the new laws she will have to follow. Not in a warning type way, but in a “well, you’re going to have to learn this, let’s find out about it together” type way.

All of this may give her serious pause to consider what she’s got ahead of her if she makes this plan.

In all honesty she should absolutely try to live with this guy in the UK for a couple of years first but for a 21 year old that’s like asking her to wait a lifetime.

My advice comes from twice living abroad and three times in mixed cultural relationships. And making so many terrible impulsive life decisions in my 20s!

That she's going from 4-5 day trips to something very permanent (and wants to make it more permanent by having children soon) is a massive leap that you're rightly concerned by before that major issue of Qatar is a known country where women have been lured to through promises of marriage and employment, only to end up in horrific situations. The latter may not be something she's aware of is, and I'm not sure how best to broach that topic other than as a concerned parent having seen things on the news and wanting to know what she's doing to mitigate the risks.

I'm someone who married and immigrated to another country at a young age and had kids within the first year of my marriage. The thing I discuss with my adult children is that while today I can say it's the best decision I've ever made, objectively, what I did was inherently very risky, that I was balancing it against other risks in my life, and what I did to mitigate those risks - the most important of which was that our initial living together was a temporary arrangement. It was a two month trip where I had a return a ticket and people I could call where I'm from if it turned south who could make arrangements on short notice as well as other people here who who ensured my wellbeing. For a country like Qatar, that trial period may need to be longer and/or with more protections involved.

I'm the type of person who naturally jumps in both feet, at times at the cost to myself to make it work and I can see the appeal of what she's being promised has for your DD. If she's like me, the best way others who've cared for me give support is an atmosphere of openness, discussing risky things like this has having a plan, and a backup plan for that plan, and a back up for that backup, with the focus on wellbeing and what to prioritise, not on the risks.

I’m sorry but she doesn’t sound very mature with regard to relationships and you are right to be concerned
the big red flags you are seeing are there OP

Dear OP, I’m really sorry you’re facing this; as a parent myself, I can imagine how heavy this must feel. You absolutely have valid reasons to be concerned. If I were in your position, I’d try to sit down with her and have an open, honest conversation. She may not take everything in right away, especially if she’s deeply invested in the relationship, but offering your perspective with care is still important. Stay strong, you’re doing your best in a really tough situation.

OP can only get involved to the extent that her daughter permits. Going in heavy handed won’t make her listen, if anything it will make her double down in her choices.

The daughter will do what she wants, for better or worse. It may be a mistake, but if so it’s hers to make. If OP wants to be there to help her if the relationship goes wrong the she needs her daughter to want to turn to her. Coming in hard with negativity is likely to only damage the relationship.

@kurotora has very good advice.

Is he already married? He can also decide to divorce your dd. The children will stay with him, as they will be his legally, and your dd may have to leave if she has no right to stay.

Has this young man bothered to come and talk to you at all? Where will your dd live in Qatar? Will she be allowed to see other Western wives, people her own age? Will they live with his family?

What about having babies? She won't have any agency. It will be unlikely she will socialise outside the family, with expat women her age with babies- there won't be any! She won't be running a house, there are maids for work and mother in laws to make every decision. I doubt she will even have a bank account of her own, as she isn't working and independent- she will need permission, which can be rescinded.

It’s not about negativity, you misunderstand. I never advised OP should tell her all kinds of horrible things and put her off - instead she should seek to get involved. The families are expected to be heavily involved, to WANT to find out lots about each other and want to actively offer consent. The daughter has to understand that’s the culture - it’s what her proposed in-laws will respect.

But if she feels chafed and put off by lots of family involvement and “control” it may make her think twice about her current plans because she can expect an awful lot of it by joining into a family for whom this is their cultural norm.

It is purely to give her a more realistic view than a long weekend tourist trip. When you join a family who are part of another culture, my experience is that you either bend or break - and I have done both! Thankfully no children involved in the broken times!

That would be my worse nightmare.

Book smart but a very stupid young woman. Unfortunately she is making very poor choices and will have to live with them. Literally throwing her life away at the grand age of 21. There’s not much you can do just watch her make this mistake. Smh at people who have all the opportunities and a good life and upbringing and still make such bad choices.

I must disagree with you here. From your descriptions of this relationship, there are several red flags. One is the age gap, two is how quickly he proposed and three is that he is willing to marry her in a country that essentially removes her rights. If he really loved her, he would not want that for her.

It's also concerning that you hardly know him. If they are to get married, you'd figure that you'd you will have met him a fair amount of times, unless the relationship with your daughter is not that close.

Are they going to be staying with you over Christmas/New Year, OP? You might hear more about their plans if they are with you for a while.

I wonder how they met.

DD is spending Christmas with her dad, but we will see her on Boxing Day, that's it.
I believe they met on Raya the dating app.

how is she with her friends?

I have a lot of ocd in our family. Therapist said people with perfectionist traits are prone to develop it.

We also have a lot of au/adhd - my daughters skin care routines where she is compelled to follow certain steps (enjoys it) and would be upset if she could not finish these as seen as an autistic ritual.

And again, OP can only be involved to the extent that her daughter allows. I doubt feeling suffocated by her mother will do anything but push her away from OP and more towards her fiancé. She’s not going to think ‘oh, my mother is trying to show me what I’ll have to deal with’, she’s going to think her mother is a lunatic.

Incidentally, we also have no idea what this particular family’s norm is, or what they would expect from a western wife.

Is it not odd that he hasn’t approached you and your husband? Isn’t that considered courteous at the very least?

It almost seems like he's trying to take the part of Western culture and his own culture that are most beneficial to him. This is definitely a red flag.

I would calmly talk to her and ask if she's aware of all the implications and if she has thought them though, and if she has an out in case things get dicey.

Being a kept woman is not all it's cracked up to be. My teacher used to say that anyone who marries for money earns every penny, I never forgot that.

So, do you know what DD's father thinks about it? If he hasn't already clocked this for himself then could you seed the idea in your ex's mind that he should meet the fiance's family (not only the fiance) and make sure it's all good for DD before they marry?