husband relocation to qatar .. help

[MoJo5]

I'm frightend. My husband is being made redundnant in July. He has tried several times at jobs in UK and Europe but no luck (he works for health service). He announced 2 weeks ago that he had applied for a job in Qatar. He had already had 4 interviews and in provision said yes.. without consulting me even to let me know he was applying for this role. I have three children aged 10, 6 and 2. I don't own anything as everything is in husband's name and we rent the house we live in. The two flats he owns with his brother are not in my name. He has one remaining interview in Qatar this Sunday coming. We both fly out for four days on Thursday. The problem is I just can't stand the thought of moving there and uprooting from UK. I am 43 and this is a nightmare situation for me as he is older than me and wants to retire to Spain after a 5 year stint earning meggabucks in Qatar. The situation is I feel scared I will have nothing to come back to in the UK as my mother is a hoarder and I haven't been allowed in her house for 15 years. What do I do? I will go with him to see Qatar but if he gets the job there is no way I want to uproot all to live there. Our kids are very happy here in UK and all my family and friends are here. I know I would be unhappy in Qatar with my personality and I would always be looking for an escape. So scared.

OP, everything you have written on here makes me very very uneasy. Stand up for yourself.

If you do not want to move there, don't travel out there. As for 'his' assets, they are not his they are marital assets. If you divorced he would have to declare everything is his name, and you everything in yours. It all goes into the pot and is split in the financial settlement. In fact, if you have responsibility for the children you may quite possibly get a larger share.

Speak to a lawyer.

You went behind his back three times to get a house and now you are upset he has gone behind your back to get a job to support you and kids? Really?

He was probably freaking out about not being able to support his family and applied for every job going if this is the only one he is offered then surely he has to take it? How else will you feed the children?

It took me until about your 4th post to realise that the kids were his.
You are utterly disengaged from him. You call them "my kids". You don't share your husband's retirement goals. You feel financially insecure, you're scared of him, you go behind his back to rent your current house.

Qatar is irrelevant, you don't want to be with him in the UK, let alone the ME!

Don't go to Qatar! I'm all for trying new things but the ME is nowhere to end up with kids and a bad marriage to what sounds like a difficult man.

Tbh, I would go on the trip. It's really soon, and you need to start gathering your info to leave him. So I wouldn't rock the boat. Go. Say it's nicer than you thought. Get him safely out there on a mumbled half promise to follow. It'll be easier to leave him when he's there, I expect. But DON'T follow my advice without speaking to a solicitor.

I'm with NewNamePlease. He's gone behind your back once while you freely admit you went behind his back 3 times. He's the sole source of income for your family and, by the sound of it, he's turned what could have been a financial disaster caused by his redundancy into one that could be very lucrative for your family. I take my hat off to him.

*sole source of regular income

Yes Toby but why didn't he tell her about it? What's that about? Would you take your hat off to that?

don't move there with your children

If you hate it you will not be allowed to leave with your children. Just don't do it.

I guess he probably didn't tell her because he expected this reaction and hoped to present her with a fait accompli and OP would agree. I don't say that was a sensible game plan but it does not detract from the fact that he seems to have landed a well paying job that will provide for the family when the alternative seems to have been staying in the UK and living on benefits and occasional freelance fees. My hat is still off to him.

And BTW how exactly did OP go behind his back? Why is he expected to be all clean and above board when OP admits herself that she hasn't been.

I'm going to leave it there. I don't want anyone to think that I am attacking the OP personally. I'm not. MoJo I hope you manage to resolve it all happily. The trouble is that I tend to view the problem in abstract and forget there's a real person involved.

Ok let me fill you guys in. The reason I went behind his back 3 times to get into our rented house is because we were living in two flats that don't interconnect with a child. Yes we were putting our dd in the upstairs flat to sleep alone while we were downstairs watching tv (with an intercom I hasten to add). These were flats he owned with his brother before I met him.. one above the other but to get through a public corridor to get to the other one. I hated the idea of living like that and he promised me it would be for 3 months. In fact it was for 3 years!!! And when I was heavily pregnant with my second child and working he wasn't making any effort to change the situation and refused to sell the flats to buy a property. I never wanted to go behind his back but I had found the perfect house (he never looked) and he had agreed to the rental price. However he wouldn't agree to the estate agent's fees for the holding deposit and said it was unfair. Infact it was fair and the way it works in UK. (btw he is Spanish).He also refused to us paying the admin fees. I was so upset at work when the estate agent said she would put the house back on the market because she didn't agree to dh terms that I asked her(desperate not to lose the house I was 8 months preggers) how could I stop it going back on the market. She was on my side and faxed me through a new form and I redid it .. she herself said I didn't need my husband's signature on the form. It was awful. I paid everything cos I was working then and didn't tell him because I was honestly scared he would refuse to sign the end contract. Yes I know. Most people would have given up at that point but I hate confrontation and I was pregnant with our second child.
Secondly may I say he is a consultant at a hospital and on a consultant's salary. He has been there for 17 years and will get a heafty pay off. He can pick up locum work at four months at a time paying at a rate of £90.000pa. He has still got the possiblity of having some sessions saved at the hospital where he is now and getting more sessions at other hospitals .. he won't be able to get benefits because he will have too many savings.
Yes he is worried and I believe he does want to provide for his family. I don't have a problem with him taking the job in Qatar. I just don't see why he is expecting and obligating (he says we will be on the streets if he doesn't take it) me to uproot everything I love to go and live there. Especially as I know in myself I would be unhappy there.
I will go for the 4 days. I have my return flight. The kids are staying with a friend and his brother is coming over from Spain to look after them also. My friends are popping in.

OP: Setting aside everything else, could you get the above deleted? Your DH, and thereby yourself, could be outed in under 5 minutes.

what do you mean by that

Perhaps it does out the OP, but not to me.

Qatar?

Fuck. That.

Tell him "no".

You can't ask a woman to go an live in a conservative Muslim state if she does not want to do so. You certainly cannot present it as a fait accompli and expect her to comply.

What an extraordinary way for a man at medical consultant level to be behaving.

As for the two flats - the mind boggles.

He does not seem to be able to apply to his domestic life the same intelligence required to get through medical training.

OP, pps are right, you do not have to go to Qatar to have the right to say you will not live there. The whole trip is a waste of time. You're simply postponing the inevitable discussion.

what do you mean by that

There's enough information in your 20:39:00 post MoJo5 for someone to recognise who your husband is and then who you are, or might be able to do the identifying by some clever Googling. I'd agree with Disgrace - contact MNHQ and get that post deleted and then maybe post an abbreviated and more anonymised version of it.

Was it your idea to go for 4 days? The fact that your return ticket is booked means nothing in a country where you need a man's permission to leave.

I am in Chile and know of a foreign woman who was turned back at the airport because she didn't have her ex-husband's permission to leave.

If you feel that you would not be happy in Qatar then don't go. Fwiw, is it the idea of having a maid that puts you off or the lack of rights you will have as a woman in their society?

Is he being recruited by Sidra? If so, there are massive delays in the hospital opening and even if he gets an offer this weekend, it's likely to be almost a year before they actually need him.

Also can we please stop with the scaremongering about Qatar? I live there and it is bullshit that you or the kids can't leave without your husband's permission. That rule would only apply if married to a Qatari. It's a myth commonly touted in mumsnet for some reason.

Women play an equal role in society here. It's not Saudi.

That aside, it sounds like there are way bigger issues in this marriage than the relocation.

just tell him to go and if he wants to take the job he does it on a single ex pat basis, returning home when he can. that gives you time to look at the bigger issues. you don't have to relocate even if he decides to take the job there.

if he owns a flat its yours too. there are worse things than living you and three kids in a two bed flat. if it comes to that.