Advice from people who’ve moved abroad - I’m terrified

[ChefsKisser]

We are moving abroad for a great work opportunity for DH. We’ve talked about it endlessly I am excited, it will be a great move kids are on board etc etc. but I’m terrified! The admin feels overwhelming, I already weirdly feel homesick?? And I’m just so nervous. I don’t want to chicken out and not go as it’s a great opportunity but living 7-8 hours from family feels a lot.

I know we don’t have to go etc but I do want to. For those who’ve made the move please give me some positive stories and advice how to handle it!

It's exciting, and it will provide lots of opportunities to do new things. Presumably, the fact that you are moving, there will be more money in it. It's normal to have up and down feelings, especially if you are having to do all your own admin.

We did four years in the USA with small kids, and a new one born there. We were fortunate that DH's company did everything, and were so generous with the package.

I would say that once you arrive there, hit the ground running. Don't waste any time in getting involved and starting your new life. Join any groups that come your way - there are bound to be expat groups. You don't have to participate forever but will help you get over any period of loneliness and will give you practical advice.

Don't worry too much about family and friends back home. Hopefully they will be happy for you. With social media and Zoom, there is no need to not be part of one another's lives.

You'll only regret the things you don't do.

Once you move abroad with children and they're settled it becomes their habitual residence. Even with two expat parents.

If the relationship breaks down and one parent wants to move back home with the children the other parent can block it. It can end up in years of court battles and being trapped with no family support and post separation abuse. I've just been through it and it was horrific.

If you are going because you want to and your relationship is rock solid then it could be a fantastic thing. But if your relationship is in anyway rocky you really need to go in eyes wide open that you could be forced to say post break up.
Even if your relationship is solid I'd have it in writing that you're going for X years and then you will move back home.

It’s not my bag OP but I do realise everyone is different -we did 20 months in Copenhagen and people said, why would you go there- expensive and shit weather - apart from the fact it was Covid time- loved it - possibly going to do a few years in Amsterdam area ( probably Haarlem) later this year - and I know we will get the same

my biggie is to go open minded but have enough left to be able to return if it doesn’t work out .

I don't know whether Dubai has signed the Hague Convention on child abduction. If it has, OP needs to make sure she has the right to work in Dubai, because she can't fly home with her kids if her marriage goes Pete Tong and she will need a means of subsistence. She will not want to be forced by penury to fly home without her kids, nor should she make herself dependent on the good will and non-abusiveness of her husband.

No, the UAE isn’t a signatory to Hague Convention.

More information here:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/600722a9e90e072f5713bd0d/United_Arab_Emirates_-Child_Abduction_Information-_December_2020.pdf

And, while we’re on the subject, and because it reminded me of something horrible I heard about when I lived in Dubai, FGM is also legal in the UAE.

While I lived there, the government banned it in government clinics and hospitals, where it had previously been performed legally, but it is still widely, and legally, available in other health facilities in one of the UAE’s classic ‘let’s look superficially western-friendly but not really change anything’ moves.

It’s a significant ‘FGM tourism’ destination for British girls, whose parents like the idea it will be done ‘safely’ in a medical environment rather than by a traditional practitioner.

The horrible story I heard from several sources when I lived in Dubai. I can’t find any trace of it online, but that was often the case, as the press is heavily censored, and some things I heard about via word of mouth (like the first escape attempt and imprisonment of Sheikha Latifa ) were corroborated later, in the international press.

An American woman had married and had a child with an Emirati man. The marriage became unhappy, they divorced, and she was allowed to have custody of their daughter (typically UAE law allows mothers to have sole custody of girls till the age of 13). I don’t know how old this little girl was, but much younger than that. Her mother let her father take her for a day or an overnight visit at some point, because things seemed amiable, and discovered when her daughter came home, that her father had taken her to a clinic and had had FGM performed upon her. Perfectly legally.