Husband got offered a new job in US

[Nunu90]

My DH has been offered a huge promotion in the US (Texas) and wants to relocate there. He says it would be temporary but I am aware that could change as it is a permanent position and he might not want to return to the UK if he likes it there.

I am currently pregnant (early) with our second child, and DS is almost 3. My job doesn't pay as much as his by any stretch, but I've finally started earning a decent wage and am moving up the ranks at work. I get good holidays, good maternity leave, we have a good network of family and friends around us and live in a beautiful countryside village. I love our life at the moment.

I feel we're at a complete stalemate. He is adamant we'd be making the biggest mistake of our lives if we do not go and 'at least try it out'. On the other hand, the thought of moving to Texas fills me with doom, and doesn't excite me at all. I hate the idea of uprooting my son from everyone and everything he knows, and sending him to school there. DH is adamant I can find a new job, but if all is well with this pregnancy, I'd be expected to move very soon after giving birth and can see I'd end up a SAHM ex-pat for a while.

He is paid well over here, and we are comfortable, but he is panicking about the cost of living here. He's convinced if we move to the US. we can return home with a chunk of our mortgage paid off (not selling the house).

I am just so worried and this decision is weighing heavily on me. Initially his company gave us two weeks to decide (!) and I said no. He was upset, and relayed this message to the person who offered him the job, who then insisted he wanted DH to do the job and that we can take 'more time' to think about it with visits, speaking to colleague's families, etc. I felt that his boss didn't get the answer that he wanted, so basically gave more time for me to be persuaded into something I said no to.

I have relayed my worries to DH about Texas specifically (laws on women's health care, gun laws, etc) and he thinks I am being very negative about it all and that I am 'creating issues'. He insists that 'everyone' has told him the area we'd move to is a very safe, gated neighbourhood. His US colleagues live in this area, and again, this concerns me that my only initial contact with new people will be through his work.

Am I being completely closed to a good opportunity, or am I being unreasonable? I feel a bit trapped and a bit coerced at the moment. I do not want to go but feel as though I am being left with little choice on the matter...

You couldn't pay me to move to the US, especially Texas

I'd love to live in the USA for a while, especially Texas.

I love the USA's out going optimisitic striving culture. I'm really fascinated by the ways in which their culture is diffrent from ours (e.g. the openly churchy thing) and their history. I think we Brits just don't get the USA. It's an amazing country.

I also love to travel arond the US more, as even within the country the cultures between States, differ so much which I also find fascinating ,and the scenery and national parks are breaktaking. I love it. I'd jump at the chnace to live their temporarily.

Having said all that:
You don't want to go. You have small children and crave a feeling of home and familiarity at this time in your life. That is perfectly reasonable and understandable.
And you have a good life. Maybe if you were struggling to make ends meet here and this was an opportunity to save to finally buy a house, you'd feel the sacrifice was worth it. But in reality you are giving up Very Nice Life, for possibly a Slightly Nicer Life. Not worth it if you are unsure.

Maybe if this was 5 years ago you'd have been up for it? Or maybe in 18 yrs? But it's OK to say: Not now. Right now I need home and family.

And you've already said No. He's had your answer this is now just coersion.

Also your DH not getting all the details is just foolish. That should just make it a No, as if he can't see the need for that level of pllnning he's not thinking about this properly, so why should you trust him?

I live in the US and I am saying no no no no to this.
The cost of living here is not much lower (we did a long sabbatical stint in the UK so the comparison is fresh). You’ll get a big house. The cost of groceries and phone bills and other amenities is higher. The cost of healthcare is high. He will pay for all of your insurance out of a single salary. And even for a simple ER visit you will spend hours arguing on the phone with insurers.
If you get a job then the childcare costs are prohibitive. Look up any daycare in the area you are in and multiply by 2.
There is not much chance you will pay your mortgage off.

He will have no leave at all. You get annual leave but you are not expected to take all of it. He can be fired on the spot and will have to leave the country within 10 days.

Work hours are long and showing your face is important. This means that you won’t be travelling as a family and seeing all that the US has to offer. You’ll be stuck in a gated community in Texas.
Your child will go to school a year later and so the move back will be harder.

I mean the stuff I see online. Especially all the crime and homeless in San-Francisco.

I'd (personally) rather in a red state as I have a more conservative view of society. I'm a perfectly pleasant person.

Given the state of reproductive care in Texas, I would not consider moving there were I a woman of child bearing age. I'm sorry, and wish you all the joy of your pregnancy, but were something to go wrong and you find yourself needing an abortion at a late stage, you would not be able to get one even if your life was at risk.

This.

Oh don’t forget paternal leave!! If I were having my second having just moved internationally, I’d want my dh to take MINIMUM 2 weeks, pref 3 weeks off. Yours sounds like he’d say ‘oh no I can’t it would look bad with my amazing new job it’s not the done thing here.’ So you sound that out and explain the done thing in your life is to have a committed partner who cares for his wife and newborn and toddler at one of the most vulnerable of the time of their lives, especially since he’s just moved them thousands of miles from any family or support, and all you’ve got is him, so no thanks because if you go without me at least I have support here, which you’re telling me I wont have if I go with you.

Dh was offered a job in Houston. He actually went on a temporary basis to check it out and hated it for many of these reasons. He turned the permanent job down. He said if it had been elsewhere in the USA he’d have been more interested.

“You can always come home” - well, no, you can’t. If you want to come home, and he refuses to give permission for the kids to leave, you’ll be stuck. If you bring them back to the UK he can go to court and a UK court will order that they be returned. Obviously that’s not something that will affect everyone, but he’s demonstrated that his priorities are all he is willing to consider.

This x1000000

This happened to a friend of mine, also Texas, but her DH was a US citizen. Baby was born in the UK, they relocated when he was about 1 and split up before he was 4. My friend returned to the UK with her ds but he was ordered to return to the US, where he stayed until he was about 19. Not meaning to be rude but your relationship doesn’t sound like it might stand the strain of this move. You can’t blithely rule out a split and the possibility that you won’t have a visa to stay but your dc won’t be allowed to leave.

£40k is a decent salary but he can’t even be arsed to find out what sort of visa you will have and whether you are going to be put right back to square one career wise. He isn’t interested in your work or schooling and healthcare for your kids. Mat leave in a gated community of strangers sounds like a nightmare, not a fun cultural experience. Mat leave in a gated community of strangers with a toddler and an H travelling around the country instead of coming home to help with bathtime is not something I’d sign up for.

OP, one of your concerns is how much leave DH would get. USA leave entitlements are notoriously poor. Here is some information.
https://www.actiplans.com/blog/paid-holidays-by-law-united-states#vacation

I'm feeling really quite worried for you, OP - odd since I've never met you! It's the combination of these two facts:

• If you move the children over there and you find that you want to come home and your husband doesn't, the children will not be allowed to leave the country under US law.
• Your husband is not open with you about arrangements even when hes trying to persuade you to move. He sulked and wouldn't speak to you for days when you asked for more details. He's inclined to be a selfish bully by the sound of it. So he may not give either your interests or the children's proper consideration, if the two of you find that are not getting on and need to separate, or if you or the kids are not happy in Texas.

Moving in these circumstances seems too drastic and too dangerous. Better to risk your marriage than your place at your children's side.

I have friends who went back to work a week after giving birth. And so it is profoundly unlikely your husband as a new employee will get any leave.
You can work as a H1B spouse but the authorisation takes a while.

US visas require insane amounts of paperwork (been there and done that).

And wild horses couldn’t persuade me to live in Houston.

We visited friends in New Jersey this summer - they were saying how much more expensive things have become in the US post Covid.

We (and ex pat friends) found Houston expensive back in the noughties, so there’s no way it’s going to be ‘cheap compared to the UK’ now.

If it was just for a year or so then I would do it OP. It would fly by and be an experience to remember. But it sounds like it's an open ended move which is risky.

However, I'm not keen on the fact that your DH is reluctant to get the full info or even discuss it properly with you. It's a massive decision that can't be made overnight.

I live in the US (from the UK originally). Had you said Boston, I would have said GO. (As long as the package was exceptional). But for Texas? HELL NO. (Plus, wait until after the election, definitely. A Trump presidency would make this an absolute no for me).
I have a life here that I could never have had in the US (I make probably 6x what I would doing the same thing in the UK - both my husband and I work in fields that are lucrative here, but very poorly paid in the UK, and own a large and beautiful home in the historic district of a lovely eastern city. My son attends one of the top private schools in the nation). But, if I could afford your life in the UK (living in a lovely village, own home, my dear dog, work I enjoyed) then I wouldn't have moved.

Also as someone else pointed out, not only do you not want to go but I if you did he would likely swan off to the new job leaving all the moving arrangements to you for you to follow on with a new born and young child!

I hate San Francisco passionately (I've been there) but I wouldn't advise OP to move there either However, that is one blue city

I wouldn't go off what you see online, there is A LOT of crime and homelessness in all the red states, especially Texas, too

I never said you weren't a pleasant person, I'm sure you are! Many Texans are lovely. But the OP doesn't sound as if she'd love it there.

Hello another Brit in the US although not in Texas. I heard there is a really vibrant expat community around Houston. From my understanding no one lives in the city centre but in some nice suburbs which won’t be a ‘shithole’.

A lot of us living here don’t think about Guns day to day.

If it’s an international company you will get offered to chose the level of Healthcare that you want to pay for/contribute towards. It’s confusing but so far we’ve been ok. Infact about to have an operation on Monday that I’d probably have to wait so long for on NHS.

it is tough uprooting yourself for your husbands job for sure. You have to have a certain strength of character to be able to pull the rug and keep your family afloat as you’ll be shouldering a lot of the emotional burden.

I would hope you’ll be on an L2 dependent visa and you will have the right to work.

The things you need are for the company to pay all visa related costs and pay for your pathway to a green card as soon as you land. Amongst all other costs and guarantees in rentals etc. We just got moving costs, initial rental support house and cars, healthcare’s (goes without saying) and visa related costs not school fees. But it’s worked fine.

But for main thing for us was /is the job market was diminishing in his area of expertise in the UK. The market and money just isn’t in the UK on the scale of the US. So for us it was job security and progression for the foreseeable. Not he glitz of moving aboard. It was a practical decision. Also day to day the work is more interesting here and fulfilling for my husband rather than treading water in the UK. His work life balance is far better here as well now. But also if / when we return to UK he’s in a much much stronger position.

Yes you do double your salary on paper but not in real terms against the Cost of Living. So that needs to be understood. Although I have no idea of the cost in Houston area.

Our whole family has sacrificed (but also gained some incredible experiences) and it is tough. But we are starting to see the benefits in a broader sense.

We won’t be here forever and we've already moved to a different State as we weren’t all happy the one we started in. Open dialogue is so important and your opinion being valued as well. Based on some friends experiences I made sure to have a 5 year exit plan in place in case it wasn’t working for me or the children. I think going when kids are young is better by the way. Mine were older.

I am 3 years in and now comfortable enough to stay another 5. But I know people who weren’t and had to have counselling in order to work through differences to ensure the whole family moved back to UK as family as well. It can cause divorce too obviously.

I was also nervous and unsure about moving by the way. And also went with eyes open - for the most part as there will always be things that surprise you - and was still very worried and it was so stressful initially,

I would suggest you join local Katy of Houston mum expat pages and get all the advice you need from those on the ground now too.

best of luck.

I hope you don't mind me saying but I think you're getting lots of slightly overwhelming 'I hate the USA and would never move there' opinions, which isn't really what your dilemma is about. Perhaps it's because you're talking about Texas, not Seattle or Boston for example which are completely different kettles of fish. But as an East Coast USA immigrant, I don't worry at all about guns, ALICE drills, access to abortion, or education. (My academically-minded children moved from well-known boarding schools in the UK to the local public high school here and I thought they would be well ahead - they were not. The public schools here are highly academic, at least for those who are able, and because of the way they structure the curriculum students do less subjects across the board but at a much higher level.) I digress...Texas schooling might be different and I do know the guns laws are vastly different there.

What I am saying is I don't think it's helpful to get sidetracked by whether you'd like living there or not according to other people's views. You need to visit and decide for yourself. It could be a wonderful adventure. It could be devastating.

What is concerning is that you don't know the whole picture, so how can you even consider it? And that your husband seems reluctant to share any details. There has been some great advice upthread - once you know ALL of the details, and have the time and space to visit Texas, see where you'd be living, the nurseries, the neighbourhood, the opportunities, understand exactly how much travelling your husband will be doing, whether you can work etc...only then can you even consider this huge move.

You can work remotely anywhere in the world now. Why do all of you have to move lock, stock, and barrel to the US? Can't he travel there once a month or something?

In one way, I think it's a very exciting opportunity. Go for 2-4 years, enjoy the career boost that will help the entire family, and see something of the world.

On the other hand, I understand entirely about not wanting to leave your nice set-up and your dog.

Texas is a beautiful place in many ways, with a lot of history. For example, San Antonio is old and the Riverwalk is beautiful.

Don' worry about guns. Incredibly, most children go to school and are not shot. And you'll have great health insurance through your husband's job, so don't worry about that, either.

I'd embrace the adventure, I really would! I know two families who lived in the US for a number of years and are now back home in the UK. Their experiences abroad enriched all their lives.

There was a brief time before meeting DH that I considered it too. My friend screamed at me not to be absurd. I don't blame your DH, it sounds like he's got his head screwed on. I hope OP has the strength to continue to hold out on this, for her sake.

If you rent out your home it would need to be declared on UK tax return and any profit would be taxed at your rate of tax, so either 40% or 50%x

Personally I'd go to Texas, though the Houston climate would make me think twice (if it were Austin or San Antonio, those would be a lot better) but not with someone like your husband who sounds slippery and unwilling to be honest and hear your (very reasonable) concerns.

We lived abroad for my job. DH was the SAHP. He was very depressed for the whole period we were there, which was prolonged because of COVID and then because we found our DC, then two, had medical issues that we had to pay for privately. Staying out there too long also meant we didn't get him into the school system at 4/5, and now that we're back, it's all a mess.

It was an incredible place to live and I'm glad we had to experience. But overall given the impact on career and my child's health I don't think it was worth it. I wish we had forgone the experience and stayed in the UK. I'm sure it's wonderful when it goes well but it's awful when it doesn't. As a non-citizen you don't get to benefit from any help. If you had reasons to go too then on balance it could be a good idea to go. But you have given no reasons, not even money, so absolutely don't go.

The lack of a detailed package is also a red flag. You have to sit down and calculate if you'll actual be better off.

I agree. In fact based on his behaviour as detailed by OP I would be telling him to take the job and go because the marriage was over. He's abusive, and he won't take no for an answer. Not good husband marriage.