Help. DH wants to move to his country and I don't :(

[EnglandvEurope]

I'm a regular poster and I've name changed for this.

I'm British and DH is from a European country. We met in his country, but I had to move back to the UK to finish my studies and he was happy to come with me. We had always talked about the possibility of moving to his country at some point in the distant future, but I was always clear that I wanted to be in my country for having children and the early years.

Fast forward many years and a lot has happened. We are married with 2 children (age 5 and 18 months).

DH always had a bit of a strained relationship with his family (parents and sibling) and unfortunately a few years ago they fell out completely and he/we are no longer in contact with them. It is very sad but DH feels there is no hope of reconciliation.

My family is not perfect but I get on with them all, I have separated parents and a step-parent, as well as 3 siblings in this country (1 lives abroad) and 2 of my siblings here have children of their own.

It is important for me to see my family regularly and for my children to have relationships with their cousins. All the more so since we are estranged from DH's family.

We try and visit DH's country regularly but obviously that's been much more difficult in the last couple of years due to covid and having 2 young children. We didn't visit in 2020 but did visit in 2021 and we are planning at least one trip again this year.

DH says that he is deeply unhappy in this country and wants to move back to his country. He said that Brexit was the final straw. I think his feelings coincide with the big fallout with his family. It is probably a combination of factors.

We are stuck because I don't want to move to his country, at least not now. The main reason is my family, I desperately want to stay near them. If we had a good relationship with his family, it might compensate somewhat for being away from mine, but we won't see them at all.

If we didn't have children I think we would split up, but both of us want to be with the children, and it's not as if DH would move to his country without them.

What to do?

@Catsstillrock

Agree. We need to do this summer as a trial. And DH needs to research accommodation and childcare options!! (We'll see if that happens...)

And yes. He knows plenty of people from his country in our city. (He took DC1 to a baby/toddler group for native speakers of his language and met a lot of people that way; sadly it all stopped because of covid and they've had trouble getting it going again.) However, he seems weirdly uninterested in doing much socialising with them; he enjoys it if it happens but isn't proactive in organising it (he is like this about most things).

He seems to be stubbornly fixed on moving back to his country where he can see his real friends

I've told him I understand how I feels but I also think he seems not in a great place generally and would benefit from some counselling to assess how much of it is about UK v his country and whether there is anything he/we can do to help without moving there in the near future. However, he tends to get annoyed when I suggest counselling too frequently.

how he feels

Would he actually take any positive steps to make a move happen? Look for jobs in his home country? Or is he the kind of bloke that expects you to do everything?

If that’s the case, it’s easy to make nice noises and then nothing will happen for years. A holiday is feasible, I suppose, but it’s not exactly real life, is it?

If you’re not getting g on we’ll you’d have to be stupid to move to another country.
Just say no - I won’t have any support.

Don’t do it. Your husband seems really rigid in his thinking, don’t go along with his idea because you will be walking into the soup.

I think he does need counselling because I think he has fixated on this as a solution to his problems when it isnt.

I wouldnt move - because I think you could move, still find you have all the issues with him you currently have plus all of the issues that you are worried about

@EnglandvEurope We may not be able to help our feelings, but we also need to be able to appreciate that feelings aren't facts.

I'm now in the UK, with no family...my mother and younger brother returned to Australia after my father left...that was 26 years ago. I was married at the time and had no intention of doing so myself. I've had no contact with my father since he left 32 years ago.

My marriage ended and I have now been in a relationship with a new partner for 13 years. He has a large family....do I sometimes feel jealous that he gets to see his parents virtually every other day/week? Of course I do (it doesn't help that his parents are racist gammon brexit voting fuckwits). But I would never dream of trying to estrange him from them...my jealousy is my problem, not his.

I think this is very complicated in the detail but the overview is actually pretty simple.

1. Your family life is here and you don’t want to be so far from your relatives. So don’t. Take that option off the table and commit to staying in UK as your family base forever.

1. He is homesick for his country. He’d probably have been ok without the whole brexit/pandemic thing. Psychologically its probably also to do with his family estrangement: he isn’t getting love from family so wants to see his physical country instead. So, commit to spending huge chunks of time there this year and next year, like at least two months over the next year. See if that helps him.

If he just thinks Britain has gone a bit shit and he’d rather be on Greek beaches after work every day, well tough, he needs to just accept that this is where his family is and that the benefit you and your children are getting from their extended family is greater than he would get from the beach or whatever.

Thank you all for your support and advice. I really appreciate it.

Definitely read about people on here who have moved to European countries whose marriages have broken up whilst they are living there. They are stuck there with hostile in-laws unable to take their kids home. They can’t take the kids out of schools, and it doesn’t matter at all what the citizenship status of the kids is. The Hague Convention treats the kids primary “residency” as more important than their citizenship. Think very, very carefully. I would stay no more than three months and don’t give up your home in UK. Don’t even let it out. Make sure you have a very clear paper trail proving that you intend to have the kids coming back to be educated in UK with DH agreeing to this. (Also very high unemployment in Greece and looming Euro war. I wouldn’t!!!)

sorry to say, but i don't see this marriage lasting 10 years.

Stay where you are. It’s where your kids have family, and you told him you wanted to raise your kids here. A firm no would be best - then he stop with the grass is greener and sort himself out.

YABU as you have gone and on your agreement. What makes you think your DH doesn't feel what you feel about bringing up your kids and why do your feelings count more?

It’s interesting that your DH talks about his realFriends in his home country. Thing is, people change over the years and those relationships won’t be quite the same now as they were when he several years ago, IYSWIM.
It sounds as if he’s idealizing life in his home country, but I wonder whether it would match the reality?

I agree with PP’s, spend lots of holiday time over there and see how it goes. I haven’t lived in the UK for several years and I know that’s what I’d need to do before considering moving back- see the reality of everyday life first.

I had my DC in the UK. I'm Australian and DH is Irish.

We talked about moving to Ireland, moving to Australia, moving out of London...we just couldn't figure it out.

After 10 years in the UK we moved back to Australia (this is where we met and lived for a few years before moving OS).

I've told dh at some point we'll move to Ireland but it's likely to be when our DC are grown and my parents have passed.

For the time being dh is fine. He works with a few Irish people, keeps in regular contact with his mates and we'll start going back now every 2.5 years.

In your situation though @EnglandvEurope I most definitely wouldn't move permanently. While I think spending the summer there sounds good and might just be what your dh needs, remember that it's not the same visiting as living there.

Friends will make an effort to catch up if they think you're going back, summer holidays are always a bit more carefree, and you'll feel ok because you're going home and your dh will feel ok because he will think he's convincing you to move permanently.

@Fudgeball

I won't be able to move back with the children without his agreement

I would never put myself in a situation where I needed another persons permission to move with my children. Nothing more to think about.

Absolutely this. Do not do it. Do not cede power over your life and your children's lives to anyone.

It has to be no. Your kids well-being comes first. They have no family over there. What if something happens to you? What if you take ill? Who comes at 3am to help and looks after the kids for days with no problem? It’s your family right? What if you and your husband get killed in a car crash out there? What happens to the kids? Where do they go? Who gets called? Over here, you have answers to all of those questions right? Your kids currently have family. Over there they do not. I’d also be wary of why he wants to move. What’s the actual reason? It’s not clear. This happened to a friend of mine. What she didn’t know was he really was unhappy in the marriage and was thinking of getting out and then that’s when the rumblings started of general I don’t like the uk and want to go home. He was trying to get a move made before splitting up with her.

Have you asked him outright if he wants to split up and is that what’s driving this unhappiness?

As you have told us the country is France, depending where you are in UK, DH can get there so easily and quickly - he can spend a few week ends going by himself to see the wonderful friends anyway.

The way I always look at things - and it's a bit morbid - is that on my death bed what decisions will/would I regret? What things will I wish that I'd done differently?

And for me, it always comes back down to spending time with loved ones. Sure, I could move to a much nicer country with a better standard of living where it's sunnier and I can go to the beach every day. Or I could stay in the UK and be surrounded by my family, and spend my life seeing people that I love and care about. I know which one is the more important to me.

This life is so short. You never know when the people that you love are suddenly going to be taken away. For me, absolutely nothing trumps family. A nice house and being able to visit a beach is nothing if I can't be around my family.

To be fully transparent, my dad died very suddenly 9 years ago. I wish more than anything that my DC had got to know him properly, and that we'd had more time. Nothing can bring him back and that is such a hard thing to deal with.

Different people have different priorities and I know not everyone will see things the same way as I do. If your DH was missing his family I think the decision would be much harder. But essentially he's asking you to rip your DC away from an extended family, and wants to deprive you of your support network, on a whim.

I would need very compelling reasons to leave my family to live overseas and he's not given you any.

Extended stays in the holidays sounds like a great compromise, as there's absolutely no way I'd consider moving overseas if I was in your position. His whole argument is "leave your family, friends and support network to go to a country where I've got childhood friends and can have more fun, even though we're not sure whether you'd be able to get a decent job and my career prospects would be worse". Hardly the stuff persuasive arguments are made out of.

My inlaws moved to France 7 years ago (MIL, FIL, x2 SIL, BIL and niece/nephews - we're the only ones left here). I don't like their schooling system in the slightest.

Oh, one final thing OP - have a read up on how autistic people are treated in France. It's horrific and not something I would ever subject my two autistic DC to. Or myself, as an adult autistic. So you reference your eldest potentially being autistic - this would be highly relevant in your decision about where to live. Have a read of this article as a starting point - but google for yourself, there are lots of examples of how France is deeply problematic for autistic people. autism-advantage.com/autism-in-france.html

I do feel for him. He sounds a bit lost.
But in your shoes I would 100% not go.
The Hague Convention is not to be taken lightly. It's a realistic possibility that you could be stuck however much you hate it because you can't bring the children home.
I have a family member whose partner fled overseas with their child.
She was Court ordered via Hague Convention to return. And then became so mentally unwell that my family member has now moved to her country with her as he couldn't bear seeing her like that but equally didn't want to be without his child.
Whichever way they did it, one parent had to completely sacrifice their own happiness if they wanted to live with the child.
So that's a cautionary tale.

[quote Pinotpleasure]@EnglandvEurope - before you make any decisions, read the information on the ‘Reunite International’ website.

It is a UK charity (which has an advice/helpline) and deals with the issues relating to relationship breakdowns with parents moving across international borders and the legal issues regarding the children.

www.reunite.org

Basically, it does seem that once you have relocated overseas, it is very difficult to move your children back again. When I lived in the USA there were cases of parents splitting up and the courts there refusing the children to even relocate to a neighbouring State, let alone back to the UK.[/quote]
This.

If your husband wants to take a job there for a year and fly back and forth could that be a compromise?

It might be an idea for him to get some counselling to look at why, then couples counselling afterwards so that he can understand your predicament. Not wanting to be isolated, missing family, depressed while carrying more with less support.

A holiday home sounds good. Or him working over there. However that does seem like the first steps to separation if the relationship isn’t strong.

@chopc

YABU as you have gone and on your agreement. What makes you think your DH doesn't feel what you feel about bringing up your kids and why do your feelings count more?

Maybe she thought they’d be a proactive team and she’d be supported by her husband carrying half the mental load and parenting /emotional burden? But instead finds it’s all on her with support from her family so she’d be an idiot to go really. The extended stay is a good idea and following that considering buying a house to airbnb there for regular long stays. Also if he’d need British citizenship anyway he may as well kick that off, it’s not like you can get citizenship in a week; it’s probably another year at the moment. Do not organise it for him op, practice smiling and saying we can look at properties for an airbnb if you’ve found any, how’s your citizenship application going?

The bottom line is there's no where like home and neither are you are wrong for wanting to remain in your home Country.
It is not a crime for you to have changed your mind about moving to a Eurpean Country since the kids have come along but you must be honest and open with your DH.

It's a tricky situation and it's either one or the other. The health care system here in UK is quite good I would worry about the European economy and the future jobs my kids could do!