Is my DH being unreasonable, or am I?

[happybythesea]

This is my first time posting...

I'm currently feeling at a total loss and really don't have people I am comfortable discussing this with.

My DH will be leaving the UK shortly for a Job internationally.

My issue is he expects me to fly out a month or so after him, which i guess i initially agreed to as i've always been the supportive wife who has automatically moved with him on a whim, but now the time is coming for him to leave it's dawning on me how i truly feel about everything and that my feelings haven't really been taken into consideration. (i wasn't made aware that he went for this position until he was in the interview stage, then when he was offered the position, i reluctantly did say that he had to do what made him happy. Had i been made aware of him going for this position earlier i would have said my wishes are to not move).

The reality is we are in a good financial position and the only reason he is taking this position is so we can buy a house that fits our needs a little more than the one we have.

For the first time in many years, I feel settled and happy (I have lived internationally and moved a number of times with him and his work).

I have said to him that moving house really doesn't matter and can we not stay as we are. He's adamant that he's leaving irregardless and that I should just fly out to be with him.

I just don't have it in me to do a long-distance relationship after 20+ years of marriage, we have always been a very close-knit family and have never gone a week or so without each other.
With covid, there will be little opportunity to visit etc...

I feel if i just leave to be with him i'm not pursuing my happiness (i have a little part-time job that i like, we live close to our adult son, which is a blessing as we've been away from him for a few years).
I'm really quite happy and settled as i am.

I'm really feeling quite hurt by his decision to leave regardless of my feelings on this.

Sorry if it's a bit long...
All advice is welcome...

I think you are having doubts because you are happy where you are and you should listen to yourself. Just say that to him again, that you are happy and don’t want to move now.

Can you stay?

Don't make arrangements to follow him, just yet.
See how you feel about it after you've been living on your own for a while and taken time to think it all through.

Of course he was unreasonable to push this onto you without discussion.

Is the plan to sell or rent out your current home?

How long does your husband think this overseas posting will last?

When you say you ‘don’t have it in you’ for a long-distance relationship what do you mean? That being with your husband is the most important thing, or staying where you are settled is the most important?

He has obviously not considered your needs in applying for this job and that is very shit. But if your established pattern is that you’ve always been the trailing spouse then unless you’ve been crystal clear that you would never move again I suppose it’s not unusual your husband would assume this is acceptable.

Where is the slightly better house to be, btw?
Close to where you are now, after a spell abroad, or actually abroad and you'll be expected to stay there - until his next notion?

What strikes me most of all is that you don’t seem to have had any shared vision of your future.

When you last moved, what was the 5-10 year plan?

Have you discussed the bigger/better house previously?

Etc

Are you renting a house now? If so will he still help fund rent and bills if you stay? I wouldn't go and if that means the end of your marriage then so be it. You've supported him plenty over the years by moving so you are absolutely entitled to say enough is enough. Despite the fact you told him you'd move when he got the job, you are entitled to change your mind. Hopefully you have the finances to stay.

It sounds as if you've both got used to him making decisions and you meekly following him about, only now you've belatedly realised you are tired of it all -- and who could blame you? Leading a life which is arranged around someone else's job and preferences is miserable. I would not even consider moving out to join him. You've had enough. You have a job, you feel settled and happy where you are, you want to be close to your adult son, and you clearly don't have any particular yen for the destination, or for a bigger house.

Tell him that he will have to be the one who travels back to see you, and that you don't rearrange your life for an overseas job whose existence was only disclosed to you when he was well into the recruitment process -- how extraordinarily arrogant.)

If you don’t want to go then stand your ground and don’t. He can go on his own and you can see how you feel further down the line.

Your feelings are important too and your DH sounds like an ignoramus.

I don’t have an answer for you. I would feel quite hurt and ignored if I was in this situation and a little angry and frightened. My Dh would say that he is only doing for me and our future - not so much to ask for me to join him. Yet I know I would feel resentful and would probably not enter whole heartedly into the move. Thus sabotaging my own attempts at settling abroad. Having found contentment and a life I like, I would be very reluctant to give it up for the unknown. In my 20s yes, but as you get older it seems harder to give up happiness now for the unknown future.
You do need to decide what you want. Be selfish if you have to - but you need a starting point of what you want in an ideal world now and in the future. I think then you both need to sit down and work out a compromise going forward. He already has his ideal future - this job and going abroad. See if you can find a middle ground between what you both ideally want. 💐

Like you I have always moved around for my DHs job. But now I've gone back to work after a rather long career break for children, I've a job im settled in and I'm happy where we live. I wouldn't move again for the moment and would be VERY unhappy if my DH did what yours just has. You don't need to constantly move for him. Your feelings matter too!

I can't imagine have a spouse that decides to take a job that means relocating and just assumes the other will follow, zero discussion or future planning.

I wouldn't be following until those discussions had been had and it was what I wanted.

I think you are entitled to have second thoughts, everybody is, but I don’t agree that you have not had the opportunity to give your opinion. You did agree to it, it doesn’t sound like you had to from what you have said.

The interview stage seems like a perfectly reasonable point for him to raise the matter to me, yes it could have been mentioned sooner, but it doesn’t make a lot of difference and you still had the opportunity to speak up from then onwards.

As i say though, you are entitled to change your mind, so tell him you are not going.

Thank you all so much for all your replies...

We own the house we live in now and I can stay here, I also have the means to support myself if this doesn't work out.

The position can be from 2 to 4 years.

In the 26 years we have been together we have spent 10 days away from each other at the very most. Having a long-distance relationship has never been on the table in all our years of marriage (i guess until now) I guess what I mean is it's not something I signed up for.

DH finished work a few years ago after a number of years of consecutive high hours/high stress burnout jobs.
At that time he said he'd never work again.

Being the trailing spouse isn't the best as you constantly put the needs of everyone else before your own.

We had a flexible plan when he finished work a few years ago, which consisted of travelling and renovating a property.
Which worked great until Covid. We have renovated the property, but now i have a Job i can tell he is resentful that we won't be able to take month long holidays (to the extent that he said he would actually go away on his own for a month or so).

The plan is to stay where we live now, he just wants to buy a house that has a larger garden and more parking.

DH has refused to work locally as he knows he can earn more money abroad.

Reading everyone's replies the logical step to stay and just see how I feel after a number of weeks/months of living on my own.

I think as the day draws closer I'm getting overtly emotional about every little thing.

My issue is he expects me to fly out a month or so after him, which i guess i initially agreed to as i've always been the supportive wife

Have you told him you've had a change of mind?

In the 26 years we have been together we have spent 10 days away from each other at the very most.

But that's because you meekly trotted after him as he prioritised his work. Now you're deciding that other things beside your marriage are also important to you, and you're absolutely right to do so. And of course he will also be living alone in his new country, and is going to have to decide whether his salary is really worth living apart from his wife and son.

I imagine your dh will be pretty pissed off to discover you have only just realised you don't want to go, so you need to tell him pretty quickly I think, so he knows you are telling him ad soon as you as you found out yourself.

But don't let him bully you. He obviously doesn't need this job, so if he takes it it is because he wants to. Without you trotting along behind, he may find he doesn't want to take it after all. And it sounds as though that eould be a much better solution all round.

If he has itchy feet and wants to travel, and you want to stay at home and carry on your job, maybe he could look for some short-term contracts overseas instead?

I think I've created the issue myself as i've always been such a people pleaser, especially with DH.

He told me he just wanted to see if they would offer him the position, at the time i did say that i was more than happy in my current situation, but when he was offered the position i said he had to do what makes him happy. I've never been the person that says no don't do something. When he said he was taking it he dressed it up as it was the opportunity to step back into my old life, but i've come to realize i've outgrown it and i'm happier how i live now.

He will be working for the same company that he had left a few years back (the one that made him never want to work again).
We have a property there that we rent out, he will be moving into that house and pretty much picking up where he left off a few years ago.

I'm so thankful for each and every reply.

I wonder if he'll stick it for long anyway if they are a shit company? Finding he started hating it again after he'd dragged you there might even make him carry on being miserable out of pride.

No fun for anyone!

... though obviously I have no way of knowing that..

I’d stay, given your updates.

If he’s already retired, and you felt you were on to the next phase of life, then it was utterly unreasonable of him not to discuss it more.

Most people don’t sign up to long-distance relationships but you could try it.

Only you know if it might cause any issues (do you trust him implicitly? etc) so start talking about how it could work without you upping sticks permanently again.

OP, I recognise myself a bit in your situation; my DH (now ex-“D”H) suddenly moved country without really consulting me on the issue whatsoever. It was more of a “I’m sure she’s alright with this as she’s moved with me before” situation. I didn’t put up a fight because I felt the relationship was dead-end anyway. It did cause a huge resentment and of course eventually we split up. But, huge but, we didn’t have children, and by the sounds of it, a much much worse and distant relationship than you and your husband.

I guess the only advice, if you want your marriage to work, is to stand up for yourself and your marriage, demand a proper talk about this and have some honest conversations about your shared future.

From your updates.
I would still have the talk, but with the idea of you ‘seeing how it goes’. Use covid as an excuse to delay you going out there. You both have a safe, known home to live in and could visit frequently and then there is Skype etc. If he’s only doing it for a couple of years, you could easily make that work long distance and both parties can opt to give up work and join the other, either here or abroad. Saves having to rent out either property, and if the endgame is to sell here and buy a bigger property, you could argue it gives you time to do whatever you need to do to be able to market the property etc.

I think you're being quite unfair.

As the person who moves with work, I would be a bit hurt and a bit annoyed if my husband said he was ok with moving and then waited till after I accepted the job and was about to leave to raise an objection.

Why is there no compromise? You have left it too late to reasonably expect the whole plan to change, so why not agree to go abroad for x number of years, but then to stay at home after that?

@itssoooofluffy

I think you're being quite unfair.

As the person who moves with work, I would be a bit hurt and a bit annoyed if my husband said he was ok with moving and then waited till after I accepted the job and was about to leave to raise an objection.

Why is there no compromise? You have left it too late to reasonably expect the whole plan to change, so why not agree to go abroad for x number of years, but then to stay at home after that?

Wow just wow

QueenBee52 I'm not sure why you think that's so awful?

Surely relationships require clear discussion about what both people want, and some degree of compromise.

I understand why the OP feels like she does, but I also understand how difficult it must be for her husband for her to only raise this to him at the last minute. It's hard for both of them.