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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

DH is trying to make me move abroad...

123 replies

Flisser · 30/09/2010 22:17

I'll try to keep it short but I desperately need advice. DH and I ave 2 DC's aged 6 and 2.6

DH is Australian and when we first met I made a point of telling him that I would never be happy living abroad as I hate the heat and love my large extended family...as well as my country.

He accepted this and said he lived the UK and wanted to persue his career here. Fast forward and we get married and have DC 1....he loses his job and when DC is 2 months old DH persuedes me to "Give Oz a try"....so I do...we take DC 1 to Oz...I ma in a bad way with depression and the after effects of an emergency c section. I spend 1 year of hell in Oz while DH goes out with his mates and generally regresses...he hardly worked and we had hardly any cash.

We return to the UK and he gets a crappy job and makes no effort to try for a better one...meanwhile I work on my own career and now am self employed and earning a respectable (not massive) amount of cash by working in the evenings at home.

I get pregnant with DC 2 and DH gets addicted to online gambling...we row terribly, he loses his job as he is up all night gambling and borrows masses of cash from his family in Oz....then last year he wins a few grand and uses it to visit Oz alone...for 2 months....he returns and informs me he has a good job offer from a family friend and wants to go back there and work. I say I am not happy about it and he tries to persuede me to go to..I am reluctant and DC 1 is now happy in her school and I have trouble trusting my DH due to the awful rows we had... He goes anyway.

Its 7 months before we see him again...he calls and skypes every day whilst he is away and puts lots of cash in my account...covers rent and bills etc.

He is now trying to make me pack up my life here and join him...he says it would be for 18 months whilst he saves and works....and then he will buy a house in UK and come back here to live...even though he doesn't want to.

I dont want to go. I have tried and tried to see it positively but I can't. I can only see the disruption to DCs education...the mess of packing out rental house up...the heat..the missing my family and I have the fear he wont want to return after all that.

Tonight I told him I had changed my mind and didn't want to go and he swore at me and told me to tell the kids he's dead...as he is so devestated I won't go. He said if I dont go then it is over anyway and he'll kill himself.

We have had this a lot of times since he went the first time..I should add he came back for 6 weeks in summer and all was rosy between us....had a great time...the kids miss him and I am angry he went in the first place when I was against it...I feel he is blackmailing me...and he also throws the money thing in my face...about how he has given me loads of money. I am so upset right now

Other than missing having a Dad about our kids are happy, well adjusted and DC 1 is doing very well at school...I feel sad...not sure where to go from here.

OP posts:
RitaLynn · 30/09/2010 23:01

I think this is fundamentally simple. You told him you don't want to move abroad when you met, you tried it, didn't like it, and as others have said, he sounds an arse. You'd be better off with your extended family without your DH in the UK

Original poster
Flisser · 30/09/2010 23:01

Werewolf....I am kind of providing the DC's with a happy life...they ARE happy...I just didn't have being single in the picture fmy life... so it's hard to sort of make it happen to myself when it's not what I want.

If I stay then I think he will either just come back after a few months of rowing with me...or he will turn against me totally...and eventually have hassled me so much that I will hate him.

I said I would go when he visited in the SUmmer but I only said it so that I could try to save the relationship...he cannot see that this was wrong...and that if I dont want to go and am made to then our relationship wont work anyway.

He iis trying to downplay the fact that its only 18 months....is there a possiblity that I am being unreasonable?

He has stuck at the new job...earned loads and called and skyped about 5 times a day since he went...am I being unfair?

OP posts:
PotPourri · 30/09/2010 23:03

What a horrible situation. You really need to tell him you won't talk about it any more tonight, then pull the phone out the wall and go and have a bath, look at old photos (including those when you were in Oz).

Love is really important, but so is stability, respect, happiness.

He is being unreasonable. It's irrelevant that your business could be done from anywhere. Your family can't, your kids' stabillity can't, your home can't.

He thinks it's ok to piss off to Oz as he pleases. He really should not be trying to wear you down, or throwing in the money thing (as someone else said, remember he is the one that got the money in a state in the first place)

Original poster
Flisser · 30/09/2010 23:03

Colditz...do people really think and plan like that though?

OP posts:
Katisha · 30/09/2010 23:03

WHy will it only be for 18 months?

Original poster
Flisser · 30/09/2010 23:04

this is what I ask Katisha...he originally wanted it to be for three years....and I was so against that he said 2..so I said no...one year to 18 months...

OP posts:
Katisha · 30/09/2010 23:04

And even if he isnt planning what colditz says, it could be the upshot regardless and is worth considering.

AnyFucker · 30/09/2010 23:04

"earned loads"

are you sure he is not just having a lucky streak on the gee-gees (or whatever kind of gambling he has an addiction to), in which case it won't last or has borrowed dosh again from his family ?

in fact, you have very little idea of what he has been doing for the last few months, despite the calls and Skype

mamas12 · 30/09/2010 23:04

Stop answering the phone .
You are thinking about it. You need the head space tell him.
you have come on here to sound out your feelings.
Now as popourri says you have tried it. It didn't work, he agreed to that and came back here. So now he is changing the goalposts.
That's okay he can stay there and save up and then come back.
That is a reasonable plan that hasn't already been done, it could work.

He sounds as if he wants control tbh. Threatening someone is no way to get them to move half way round the world for them is it.

I wouldn't go anywhere under threat.

Sorry you feel love for this man he is letting you down again.

TheButterflyEffect · 30/09/2010 23:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Katisha · 30/09/2010 23:05

What is the point of doing this job for 18 months though? What job would he then do in UK. I am at a loss to know why he HAS to do a job in Oz for some set period before returning to UK. What is the actual point?

skidoodly · 30/09/2010 23:06

good point about gambling in Australia fizzle

MissDolittle · 30/09/2010 23:08

Don't go. Its not going to be for 18 months, you can't do anything productive in 18 months. It will be 'just for a couple more months' 'just until this project is finished', 'We'll get Christmas out of the way first' then it will be ' I can't find anything in the UK atm, just a little while longer' by which time you 6yo is 13 and you will have to drag him/her away from friends and dump her in a secondary school where she knows nobody and will spend the whole time dreaming about when she is old enough to go back.

He knows if you split up you won't leave without them, you can't leave with them, and they probably won't leave independently as young adults as UK won't be 'home' for them.

Original poster
Flisser · 30/09/2010 23:09

He has been working Anyfucker...I know that. I have a good relationship with his Mum...who is well aware of his weakness's and his crappness.

The job is one for which he is not qualified...he only got it because it's a family friend who owns the business...inthe UK he would never get the same job or cash....he never developed his original career enough to make a living out of it.

In 18 months we could save JUST enough for a deposit and then come back to the UK and get him a job...he says he will sit the necassary eams to get a job in the same field in the UK....

OP posts:
Original poster
Flisser · 30/09/2010 23:10

MissDolittle that is what I fear!

OP posts:
Original poster
Flisser · 30/09/2010 23:11

Mamas12...I suggested he stay there too...I said DC's and I could come at hristmas for 4 weeks and I could even pay the flights...he dismissed it as crap...

OP posts:
Katisha · 30/09/2010 23:12

Sounds like his plan is to threaten, strop and generally not listen to you until you cave in then.

Original poster
Flisser · 30/09/2010 23:15

I know Katisha...so what do I DO? Just sit and refuse some more? Do I go at hristmas for 4 weeks? I would only have a visitors visa..they couldn't stop me leaving could they?

OP posts:
colditz · 30/09/2010 23:17

Of course people think and plan like that, it had occured to me within 30 minutes of reading your OP, so it's certainly occured to him!

Alibabaandthe40nappies · 30/09/2010 23:18

No you aren't being unfair.

He has gone off and left you twice, and even when you were there with him he was unsupportive, went out on the piss with his mates and developed a gambling addiction.

Focus less on where you are all arranged around the globe, and more on how spectacularly he has let you down - even when you caved in and moved to Oz like he wanted.

He is a manchild, and seems incapable of dealing with any responsibility.

PotPourri · 30/09/2010 23:19

Picture your life there. Living off of him, beholden to him, waiting all the time for him to fall into gambling again, the arguements to start, lose his job, kill himself (his suggestion!). Your children being uprooted and lonely.

Being far far away from your beloved family, no friends to speak of, even your work will be on your own (as homebased, internet, very few calls).

STUCK in a country you never wanted to live in, declared so from the very start, with no money or legal right to take your girls back to the UK. And no husband to boot.

It could work, I'm not saying it couldn't, it's just at what price and at what risk???

Katisha · 30/09/2010 23:19

He doesn't want to live here. You don't want to live there. I really don't know what the answer is, except to listen to your gut feeling and don't allow yourself to be harrassed into such a huge decision.
But I really doubt he'll be wanting to come back after 18 months. And even if he does, sounds like he'd be hugely resentful and go to pot again.

werewolf · 30/09/2010 23:19

Flisser - that occurred to me straightaway - that's why I said about him going for custody.

MissDolittle · 30/09/2010 23:20

Your children will be Australian citizens with an Australian father and in Australia so yes, he will be able to stop them leaving.

skidoodly · 30/09/2010 23:20

Just refuse.

You can't seriously be thinking of allowing yourself to be bullied into moving yourself and your children to the other side of the world?

For the moment I would cut contact for a few days until he's ready to stop harrassing you and threatening you.

Whatever future you two might have can not be discussed while he is trying to browbeat you like this.