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...

@Nunu90 I was offered a job in the US by the company I worked for (or redundancy in the UK,). Told them to shove it. No job (,or money,) is worth uprooting your life for and taking your kids away from their family. I can guarantee you once there your DH would not be coming back.

And Texas.....god awful place. Trump as president no doubt. HELL NO.

OP, please do not go along with this.

You will find yourself stuck in the US when your husband reveals he's there for the long term, and you won't be able to leave with your children, so you'll be stuck too.

If your husband was a lovely man, fully supportive, and eager to think about your feelings, I may say different.

But he's been mean about this, is grey with the actual details, refuses to find out more about the package (unless he already knows and isn't telling you), has zero consideration for you, and is accusing you of holding him back.

This is NOT a man to travel across the world with in the hope things will be okay. Especially with children.

He is free to go. Let him go. But for the love of all things please don't go along with him.

Being in a gated community won't help you if someone tries to shoot up your child's school, or if you were to need urgent life-saving action which might affect your pregnancy in which event you wouldn't be allowed to have it.

It may be a generalisation, but DB hated living in Texas because so many people he dealt with were so bloody bigoted.

I do not want to go but feel as though I am being left with little choice on the matter...

For this reason, don't go. It's not going to be utopia for you. You've already got that by the sounds of it. It's wrong of him to dismiss your concerns and pressurise you. You'll be moving to a new country with new social system, away from your entire support network, with a man who thinks this behaviour is ok.

At the moment he could lose you and knows it, yet he's behaving this way. How much worse is he going to be when you're over there and he knows you're completely trapped? You're getting alarm bells going off for a reason and it's actually nothing to do with America.

Start looking into divorce and gathering information you need. Start making plans so you're ok no matter what. You don't have to actually get divorced at this stage if you don't want to but leave yourself with the option of it by having all paperwork gathered already because you can't do that while he's in another country.

Look into whether you could return alone with DC if you went to America and wanted to leave, I'm betting you can't without his permission, which he wouldn't give. S you'd be stuck with staying in a marriage that wasn't working because you resent your husband for removing you from all you had or leaving for UK without your DC and effectively losing them for good, because even if you maintain a relationship it won't be the same and they could blame you for abandoning them.

Personally I think this relationship is over and you should go your separate ways before you start hating each other, because if he stays he'll resent you and if you go you'll resent him.

"Just try it and then come back if it doesn't work" is bullshit. As if he's going to agree to come back, just like that. So you return to what? A ruined career you'd only just got back on track? The devistation of having had to leave your DC behind? MH issues caused by it all?

Hello Nunu, can you private message me please?

This reminds me of a thread a few years back when the chump of a husband was offered a job managing a football team in Benin. He wouldn't be reasonable either.

It's just not that simple.
Have you RTFT?

I have another view to offer OP.

If you go, with two small children, you will have to wait for a visa. Fine. That means your side of things will be all domestic. That too can be fine when the babies are small but it can be very lonely.

At a time when you want and need a support network the most, you will be away from it and alone. The culture shock - how differently people do things from you will be strong, both in the good and bad. This will be bigger for you than dh as you will be with the children more, and exposed to that kind of thing on an entirely different level. You will be, and you will feel, foreign. You will be the wife in the company's social group. That will be your id. Outside of that group, your opportunity to make friends will be via the schools or churches (which are huge there).

On the other hand, his experience will be entirely different. There will be excitement about him, as someone new from abroad. His Englishness will be exotic. He will be celebrated and elevated. People will be drawn to him. He will have an huge support network that is built in to any professional move.

This difference in experience, and the "value" of the partners from the outside world, can put huge strain on relationships. It should be talked about as much, if not more than the schools and healthcare stuff. (Although, health "care" in the USA is scary).

Finally, if you go and he loves it, but you want to go home, will he fight that? Or will you do what most women do, and stay, because you do not want to take the children away from their dad? My cousin is unhappily stuck in Maine for that reason.

One solution I can think of is that his company give you a job as well...

(PS - his financial thinking is not right. The USA is very expensive now).

Oh good god, I remember that. Absolute insanity.

He is thinking of himself and what he wants...

Just saw he didn't speak to you for 3 days that says a lot too.

@andIsaid he has mentioned about getting a job for me where he works. But again, I'd be switching my career and working within his company and that makes me uncomfortable. I feel like I'd be seen as 'x's wife, he got her that job'...

Oh crikey you poor thing.

For me there are two separate issues here.

1. Moving to Texas for an undetermined amount of time with two small children. You don't want to, your husband does. Neither of you are unreasonable but to be honest if say the person who wants to stay should usually get the say unless there are very obvious reasons against that and I don't think there are in your case

1. How you discuss it. Your husband's reaction worry me a lot. Not giving you all the info you need. Not talking to you. Accusing you of trapping. He doesn't seem to be trying to consider or negotiate in anyway.

The second issue would worry me a lot more than the first.

I wouldn’t go. You’re happy with your life here, good job, nice place to live, friends and family to support your growing family. I don’t think there’s anything he can say or do to change your mind - do you?

Have you RTFT?
Her husband gave her the silent treatment for 3 days because she didn't immediately agree to the moved. She fells he is coercing her. He hasn't even given her the full information for the visa/package because he wants her to say yes in principle, before he asked his employer for the full details. He is an inconsiderate bully.
I wouldn't move to the US with him and 2 small children, way to risky in we broke up.

Imagine being in a different country and the husband not speaking to you for several days. Actually I can as my ex used to do that and we moved abroad. I wouldn’t be going across the Atlantic with a person who gives me the silent treatment, not having been through it.

Again with this, you need to see the package offered. If this isn’t an embassy (where employing diplomat’s spouses is a time honoured tradition and there are exemptions in the laws) this may not be legally possible. If you are on a dependant’s visa (and he is on a H1B which is what most short term workers in the US seem to have), you can’t work. At all. You do not want to breach US immigration laws. ICE are not people you want to cross.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/texas-abortion-ban-deaths-pregnant-women-sb8-analysis-rcna171631

You can pretend that everything is just wonderful after the Dobbs decision but it isn't. Not in Texas - not anywhere that has triggered draconian anti-abortion laws.

I wonder if he has been offered a permanent job, the temporary status being attached to his VISA.

I think you need to see the offer in writing.

A different option for you, one that I did with my dh was that I took over all finances. I was the money manager. Recognizing the vulnerable position I would in with a move not unlike yours, and the potential downside for me, it gave me a little security. More importantly, it showed good will and transparency from dh. For us it worked out but was not easy on me.

For my cousin on the other hand...within 18 months he met "the love of his life" moved in with her, gave very little financial support to his UK family and got hot and heavy with lawyers. It was, and is, horrible. As I said, she is unhappily in Maine.

You couldn’t pay me any amount of money to move to the USA. Horrendous place for children to grow up. Awful for women, brainwashed by religion, school shootings and you can buy guns in supermarkets! Your 11 year old dog will not cope well with any aspect of the travel and then is moving to somewhere very hot. For what? For you to sacrifice your career (again- having already had a child and expecting another), be a SAHM in a new country with no friends, in a desert, just for a bit of extra money and for your DH to get a promotion. He’s not thinking about you and the kids here at all. You know that they will have him over a barrel somehow and he won’t want to return home.
I would be prepared for my marriage to end over this. The safety and future of my children is more important.

You need to read the United States of Hysteria. And have return flights built in to his package. And maybe hold off til after the election. I lived in the NE corridor during the Clinton years. The landscape is v v different now and so much hate (democrat v republican). Good forbid you want a rational debate with someone. And don’t get me started on Palestine. When the f did the US ever think about anything other than Israel. Good luck with your decision

This. To those who say oh go its an adventure and so on, speaking from my own experience of doing the same theing except no kids, the question is not actually "should I do this?" but "Should I put my whole trust in this man enough that I leave all my background and support behind and probably will have to rely entirely on him for financial support, family support, family childcare pretty much everything. Can I trust him to respect my concerns and wishes? Can I trust him to tell me the truth and to answer my questions truthfully? Can I trust him to do his due dligence regarding the details of the job offer package and to consider it in the light of the needs of his family as well as himself? Can i trust him to stay true to us in the future?"

E2 and E3 defined as employment based workers for people with advanced degrees and skilled workers https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/immigrate/employment-based-immigrant-visas.html

By the way OP - this is a very good point.

In a gated community you will pay an additional monthly service charge for lawns and other maintenance. This is on top of the real estate tax.

I'd research the costs of this too but to be conservative plan on $500-1000 per month in an affluent neighbourhood. If they are really providing a salary of $400K it will be for a reason.