Please help me - DP and work - feel like my world has crashed around me

[redandwhiteview]

Hello Mumsnetters. I am a long time lurker, and have found the advice on MN to be really valuable to other posters. I'm here because I have reached a horrible 'decision moment' in my relationship, and I can't think straight or work out what I should do. I'm a mess.

My DP and I have been together for 3 years. The last 8 months he has worked in New Zealand intermittantly - I have seen him every 2 weeks on average and hehas been home for blocks of time like a month here and there. This led to me living along much of the time - a big change from living together full time previously. Even when he is back he often works away in the week throughout the UK. I found this hard. In April we had planned to 'settle' down, and he was going to massivley decrease trips aborad (ie go once every few months for a fortnight). I had been looking forward to this after the last 8 months which, quite frankly have been a huge struggle. It's not just having no real life together, but the time difference makes it so much harder, as does the inability to 'pop over' and visit, as you may well be able to do in Europe.

So last weekend we went to look at sofas etc for our new place. I have been so excited about this, and he knows that. I absolutely loved living with him in the past when we were settled without all this travelling, and I couldn't wait to go back to that. We discussed it last November and for me it has been a kind of count down to April.

Then last night, he calls me after work to tell me he has been offered a job for 9 months based in New Zealand full time. It's clear he wants to go. He sounded upset, conflcited but basically I knew he wanted to go. He got angry at one point and then apologised (it was as if my pain and hurt over this was an inconvennience to him that he couldnt be bothered to deal with). I said he should go if he wants to but I couldn;t understand why he would. I then cried and cried and begged him not to go. I then took back saying that and told him I would deal with it, but that it would have a huge impact on us, but ultimately I didn't want to stop him going.

I don't believe that relationships work when you force someone not to do something they want to do. Hence why I have said go if you want to. But I feel like my life is on hold - I waited months for his life to settle down and we both agreed on April as it would fit with his job. Now April is nearly here and he's essentially telling me he might be disappearing from my life until December.

We are in our late twenties. I have a job that I cannot leave (training in an extremely competitive industry and if I don't see out the next 18 months I would most likely never qualify into this career path - I have to stay). My DP would like the experience working full time in New Zealand. He doesn't need to do that job in New Zealand, however. He can do it in the UK, though it may take a little longer to get to that point.

How would you feel and what would you do? Has anyone ever succesfully got through something like this? Am I entitled to expect/want more from him? I feel so broken and don't know what to do.

I think he has made his choice. He will take the risk of losing you over the job. You have to move on.

I think he is just throwing money after his guilty conscience.

RedandWhite

I can tell you all about our circumstances but it really won't help because every relationship is different isn't it. Your own relationships have been different from each other, let alone other people's. All it will tell you is that my relationship was worth it.

We had 18 months apart before we were married, not living in our own space and seeing each other for about 4 hours a week. After marriage and children 4 separate occasions of DH working away long distance in various circumstances.

Are you saying that it's not the working away and being apart that you can't cope with but the potential prospect that your relationship will fail after that time? If so it's a relationship problem not a distance one.

Just work through what are the absolute deal breakers for you.
You've already said that you're prioritizing your work over moving to be with him if he wanted to stay. Which is fine, that's your choice.

Are you so in love with him that you'll give it a go because you don't know what will happen at the end of his contract, or is the time involved too much and you'd rather split now if he does decide to take the job?

I don't have any opinion on what you should do, I'm trying to get to questions you can answer about your own future, just to help you think it through.

But he is committing to you in that he wants to pay the rent, he's worked out a plan for visits and says it's just for nine months. How can you know he will stick to that? Well,you can't, you have to trust him.

In your place, bearing in mind how much you love him, I would agree to wait but stipulate that 100% he comes back at the agreed time and you move your relationship on.

You have heaps to keep you busy, the trips proposed are very frequent (possibly too much, even?) and Skype etc mean that keeping in contact meaningfully is easy.

So you have to decide if he is the one.you need to discuss the whole thing very honestly and openly. If your relationship is strong this should be possible and the trust will be there. You are sad because he's not considering your feelings enough, but to be fair what more can he do other than not go?

Good luck.x

Clean break.

He has made a choice. He did not choose you. Simple. Painful. But simple.

Expecting you to put your life on hold just in case he might finally decide to want you enough is disrespectful.

In 9 months time, if he comes back, see if you still want him.

mellon this is what I have said to him, and he is adamant that he wants me and him and wants to make it work.

I said it felt like he was choosing his job over me and him and he said that he wasn't, but he wanted to take the opportunity and would still pay his share of rent and bills and would let me use his car etc. He said he wants to show me he is committed despite doing this.

I feel confused and dont know what to think or do.

I would worry that he wouldn't come back. DD1 friend left her DP for a 1 year contact in NZ-good on CV and great experience for her which she could not get here.
3 years later she is still there, she wanted to stay after her year, she had made a whole new life for herself with good friends and good promotion prospects in her employment Her DP did not want to live there so they split. She is now engaged to a guy from NZ and sees her future there.
If you were my DD l would say split, you are not an the same page yet with your relationship. If and when he comes back if you want you can meet up and see if you have a future but l wouldn't want you to sit round waiting for him to return.

he is adamant that he wants me and him and wants to make it work

But his actions don't back that up, do they? He can say he's going to pay a share of bills and rent but what's to stop him from bailing on you after 3 months when he realises NZ is a lot more expensive than he thought?

He can say what he likes. I think if he's adamant he wants it to work then that's the risk he chooses to take by going away. Maybe you will still be around when he gets back. But you can't put your life on hold for him whilst he goes away - again. If that means getting your own place, without him, on the understanding that after a year you can revisit this arrangement, so be it.

Sorry but I don't think he's that committed to the relationship, he knows you can't go with him yet he still wants to work away for nearly a year and yes he clearly likes NZ so may well wish to stay - what then?

He is willing to risk losing you for this opportunity, he can say all the things you want to hear to keep you on the backburner but this isn't a man that sees himself in a committed relationship.

If you love him and really trust him, then I'd suggest you ley him go.

You have a lot on at work and this could be an asset in that you can also put as much time and effort in as you need to without worrying about someone else.

I think you need perhaps need to make it clear, either in your own head or to him, that you won't postpone your plans again though.

if he has been offered a job in New Zealand then presumably he applied for it, without your knowledge, and only told you once he'd been offered it. I would tell him that you're not going to hold him back, but that you're letting him go to pursue his dream, a dream which doesn't include you.

At a time when you were making plans for your future he was making plans for his future without you.

Walk away now.

I'd say if you're both in your 20s, it's the right time to be prioritizing career over settling, particularly if he is telling you he wants to show his committment to you. NZ isn't that far away (I live there, and both DH and I travel to Europe several times a year for work) - and you'd get to go there twice in 9 months!

Have a discussion with him where you talk through committment and where you would each draw a line under the relationship and move on, the issue of him wanting to change plans to be away longer than you'd expected (how you feel about that, how he feels about that, how you'd each feel if at the end of 9 months he does it again).

Depending on what you each do, you may discover that you're in the right jobs to have wonderful, opportunity-filled careers in NZ at a level that would never be possible in the UK. That's why we moved here for my DH's career, and it is working amazingly well for him. NZ is such a small country that you have access to the highest levels of your particular area, even when you're quite junior - where in the UK you might not get into that kind of position of power until you're in your 60s and have worked yourself into the ground to win the rat race, you can have all the power and influence you want when you're in your 30s, here.

Unfortunately my career isn't one that works in NZ at all, and I'm discovering that I will need to re-train in something I'd never hitherto considered interesting if Im going to be able to get a job. Swings and roundabouts...

The thing is, you can't go because you're staying here doing what you want to do - and he's in NZ doing what he wants to do. Neither of you can 'win' in this situation.

It's hard, but it's also really important that you both get a chance to build your careers. After all, you've said you can't go because of yours, haven't you?

So you either put up with it and see if the love that you have with each other will survive, or you make a clean break.

Personally I'd try it - why not? What have you got to lose?

Just make your plans for when you will both have time to be together.

And in the meantime, who knows? You might meet someone else anyway!

These years in your twenties are really important as you establish your career. It would be a terrible shame if either of you forced the other to do something that jeopardised this.

Put yourself in his shoes. If I was offered this opportunity I would definitely want to take it.

I adore my Dfiance and would hate to leave him,but I'd still want to go, it would not reflect on how I feel about him.

Actions speak louder than words.
He is keeping his options open, it is obvious. Prob has his eye on somebody else in nz.

It's just silly to speculate when there's no evidence to support that speculation. Silly and hurtful.

If you're talking the actions speak louder than words route then it applies equally to both. He wants to talk a short term job in order to seize opportunity and to progress faster than he would here. She is non-negotiable about staying here rather than going with him, because of her career/training and progression.

It seems to be the work logistics and life opportunities which are the fly in the ointment and the only solution is to sit together and talk it through calmly and then make a decision based on what you've heard and what your gut tells you. If, however, it isn't really the work logistics but more an expression of love and commitment then that's so much harder to process.

RedandWhite have you established if your DP applied and was offered this post or if he was approached and given the opportunity to do it? He said that he'd settle here in April before he knew about this possibility, so if everything is as it seems then to me 9 months is not long at all to wait and you will see each other quite a lot during that time. If you were past mid 30s and had already been living together in the settled home then I'd probably view it differently.

It's horrible to hear of your confusion and upset. I'm sure you're thinking of nothing else right now, but you need to clear your head and work through what's best for you and for your future.

Enrique he was offered it. It came out of the blue (so I am told, and I believe him).

We have spoken more...update: He wants to give me his car to use while he is away, and wants to pay half of rent and a bit of bills each month, so I am able to still move where we intended to in april - and essentially set up life there ready for him coming back. We have looked at time scales and can see one another every 6 weeks, then the last 8 weeks will be apart the final stint).

I keep feeling fleetingly excited about it. I am excited to go visit and excited to have the chance to focus on my own career for a bit without the contstant weekly discussion with DP as to whether he will be in the UK the following week...I found that up and down thing quite hard and was so unpredictable. It will be nice to know where I stand.

I guess I am left with a feeling of sadness, and also fear. What if I go ahead with what he suggests and then we break up...so much time I will have wasted...

That was the impression I got, that he'd been offered it.
My DH has twice been approached and offered exciting work in impractical circumstances, once when we had just made a totally life changing commitment and to accept would mean turning our backs on that and starting again.

I must admit that after making the decision I cried and had some, not regrets about the decision, but regrets at not going ahead with the plan we had. DH had put absolutely no pressure on me, we had talked it over and worked out what to do that would be best for the family. That was a bit different from your situation because we were already an established family unit and if I'd said no then no it would've been.

Both times we upped sticks and started all over, but it was exciting and we faced the challenges together. Of course I missed him and he me while we were apart. If I could go back and change either of those decisions though, I wouldn't and in the longer term, we all benefited.

I think I'm different from you though because I don't see 9 months as being very long and I wouldn't look on the time as time wasted should the relationship ultimately end. I'd be pleased at the time I could invest in my own career and pleased that I tried to make the relationship work. There is no guarantee, but if I love someone then I feel I need to at least give things a chance.
For me it's easier to deal with ultimate failure than live with the fact that I will never know what may have happened if I didn't try.

That's meant to stimulate your own thoughts by the way, not be a Do It Because Some Random off the Internet Says So post

I have been in that situation before. Due to professional development we were unable to live in the same time zone. Twice.

Now we are living together and have dc. It was not easy but we were sure we wanted to have a life together and careers in the long run.

redandwhite, my (now husband) and I spent the first two years of our relationship long distance, and like you saw each other about every 3-4 months (not as much as 6 weeks - that would have been a luxury!).
It was tough as we missed each other, but we got to really "know" each other as we wrote and had daily long conversations. We probably "spoke" to each other more when apart than now! Rather than slumping exhausted on the sofa as we do now! We also had interesting and diverse conversations, I really enjoyed this part of our relationship.

We loved meeting up and did some wonderful things, always planning something a little special to do - it felt very romantic and I appreciated the time spent together, and made me realize how wonderful the little things in a relationship were (like having breakfast together, just sleeping together).
It was not a negative experience for us, we realized after doing this for 2 years that we needed to switch it, and we now live together, and subsequently got married, had child etc!

For me this is doable

Thanks for all your messages - really appreciated.

I find it extra hard because we used to live together full time..then he has had to work away in the week more recently...and now this. In my mind it feels like loads of steps back. But that's just my mindset that I need to change. He has demonstrated commitment.

Any tips on how to make the time go faster? Do you think we will 'lose touch' and be unable to function conventially as a couple when he is back? I'm v worried about that part. Also worried he wont want to come back and settle down.........

It sounds to be a little like you want everything your own way without really looking at it from his point of view. Your career choice and your preferences seem to be holding far greater importance than his and that is where I think the issue is.

From what you have said here, what he is saying and doing and the considerations he is giving are that he wants to build a life with you, you say that you trust he is telling the truth? If so, then consider that this is a fantastic opportunity for him and one that could be ruined if you don't get behind him and support him to make the most of it. It is only 9 months, in what will hopefully be a lifetime together. Even if things don't work out in the long run, what have you really got to lose by giving this your best shot together, making the most of a less than perfect situation and enjoying the positives that it brings to you both as individuals and as a couple?

Sorry crossposted!

i think a lot of the responses on here are quite harsh to be fair.

i'm 4 years into a relationship with a dp who is looking to go and work in saudi/abu dhabi for a year. i'm failing to see why id make a clean break from him because he is choosing to do this?

9 months is not a long time and i know for a fact of i was given an opportunity like that then id jump at the chance. wouldn't you op?

no you do not know for definite that he may not be offered a permanent job out there, and if he is offered this then maybe after the initial time you could go too - make a whole new life in NZ?! if not he will come home without resentment and you can start that family you're dreaming of!

only my opinion of course - but surely opportunities like that don't come around every day, and you don't want to be 70 looking back wondering what if we had done this?!

i don't think hes choosing the job over you, i do think he is looking to take up the experiences and opportunities offered to him before settling down. I'd say a compromise both sides should work fine!