Which would you choose? Love or the life?

[gregoriahowse]

I have a choice to make.

This isn't a sob story but context: I've had a really tough life. Foster care, never had any money or a decent home, never really felt a sense of belonging because I was always scraping by so I've always felt this desperate need to have a happy and full life that felt out of reach.

I am working overseas right now and found a life I love. As an expat, I was given a house of my own for the first time in my life. I have decent pay and can save money for the first time. My job is satisfying and prestigious so I'm respected in the community. I have lots of friends and a fun social life. The weather has cured my asthma. I finish work at 3pm and can then go sailing or fishing. Its perfect, and not something I ever felt I'd have.

The problem is, before I left, I met someone and we dated for a while and things have progressed even more and we've been visiting each other regularly, and, well. I'm in love. Very in love, and can't see that I'll ever find anyone else like him if I let him pass me by.

The problem is; he can't move here. He owns a business there. He is a single Dad to two older kids. He'd love to join me but it's completely out of the question, so the decision was made really that we need to be together and I'll come home.

I am just struggling with letting my great life go, feeling like home is so comparatively awful and ill be back to an awful job and being poor and tired and the general drudgery that made me want to leave in the first place.

So I have two questions: do I swap the life I love for the man I love

And is it wrong that I'm even thinking this?

I think that if you were living not in an expat enclave, where people only stay for a few years visa etc, and living in a "real" place then my answer might be different.
This cocoon has helped you heal from your difficult past but it still is a means to move forward with a next stage.

I would move back and be with the person I loved. Personally though I think you should move back and live close by but independently for a year so you can find your feet before jumping headfirst into a family with 2 teens.

Are these his words or yours OP?

You choose the life OP, you life, not his unless he can meet you in the middle.

You are also sacrificing right now.

Caveat: not read the full thread

You're only 41 and you've created an amazing life for yourself despite all of the hardships you have been through. You really don't need to make any more sacrifices for anyone other than yourself

Most importantly it sounds like you really like the life you have right now - even if it is a temporary set-up.

If you feel like you'd rather enjoy it for some more time then stay - if he cannot wait this long then perhaps someone else will come along in time. Do what feels right to YOU, not what you think would be fair / preferable to him

No you shouldn't leave the life you love.

If an 18 year old came to you and said "I've found the love of my life, I want us to get married and have babies!"

You would say, wait 3 years to finish your degree, then get married. If you're still in love then, go for it. Then live together married for a couple of years before thinking about kids.

In some ways the same applies here.

A long distance relationship in many ways is not real.

It is not hard to put your best foot forward a few hours a week over the phone/zoom.

You get to know what a person is actually like after 18 months of living together. Never make a life-changing decision before having had those 18 months.

In 3 years his youngest will be 18. He will be free to come to you. If you're so in love it will keep.

And if 'he doesn't want to be away from his kids', honestly, with zoom, he can talk to them daily. He can fly over for each of their birthdays and Christmas.

Or maybe it just means circumstances mean that you can not be together
It happens all the time.

If most people stay where you are for only a few years, I’d suggest you go along with that and in the meantime his situation vis a vis the children will evolve.

You are managing to sustain a long distance relationship - if that works, why change it? Is there pressure from him for you to return? Or is there insecurity on your part that if you don’t return he will move on without you? Both of those situations would be red flags to me.

Wait as you are until his kids are adults and then decide together what to do.

If he's not prepared to wait a little while then he doesn't love you as much as you love him - because you are considering giving up everything for him.

The U.K. is a beautiful place to live, and I say that as a someone that lives overseas extensively. It is certainly not a ‘shit tip’ perhaps travel a little wider and see the rest of the world.

This has all been really helpful, and this is where I'm at.

Firstly, so many people say I have a great life and am happy and secure, but a huge part of that is him. He was right there with me while I made the scary choice to do this, so proud, so supportive. And knowing he's there (even if not here) is a huge part of my happiness.

With him gone, the glimmer would leave very quickly, and I'd be sad, it would all seem pointless and suddenly if realise this albeit lovely villa isn't actually mine, and these albeit lovely people are my friends today but won't be ten years from now.

A lot of the opinions and stories people have posted, are really not reflective of things. For example with the children, who are kind and funny and welcoming just like their Dad. They've worked to make me feel comfortable and I've grown to love them too.

Yes we are far away, but I've been included on a video screen at the dinner table. I've been cared about and supported. One of the boys sent me his old xbox as he thought it might help keep me busy. They're good people, and I feel really lucky that they want me to be part of their family.

We can all one day go together and have the perks of an overseas life. I think there's many places I will be free to work and live and I'd like to reach the end of life feeling like I grabbed it and lived it, rather than hiding away. Which I think is partly what I'm doing.

Someone said:

Different childhood, but grew up with a hole inside me. Knowing that only being ‘seen’, ‘belonging’ could fill. Have had therapy around this. Yearning feels physical at times - it’s a bit like bereavement in that life goes on, can be so much fun at times, but suddenly you fall down a vortex, knowing how much you need to belong

This is how I feel. I'm glad someone wrote this as I'm unable to articulate it. This need to belong has come to dominate almost everything else, and it doesn't come from a place of a happy and secure adult. Leaving here will feel like a bereavement for this reason. It is, like you say, a physical yearning.

As others have said, financial security isn't about money for someone like me. It's about safety. It's about knowing I won't be homeless again or hungry or at the mercy of someone really terrible.

I'm going to accept his proposal and find a way to deal with the feelings of fear and losing my sense of belonging.

‘financial security isn't about money’: it really is, though!

Unless he is offering marriage imminently you will have no housing or financial security if you move in with him without first having secured a good job.

You sound rose tinted about his DC, am sure they are great kids, but step parenting is no picnic with DC of any age!

But equally, you giving everything up is an enormous concession. I don’t think you’re thinking about yourself enough here. It’s a massive deal to give up everything you’ve worked for and a life you love, and if he feels the same about you he’d understand that. What’s three more years if you’re really that serious about each other?

So basically thinking is that he shouldn't make a temporary sacrifice, but you should sacrifice all of the life you love and have status and respect and good health in?

From RL I can tell you that it is bloody always the women who feel the emotional pressure to move to accommodate their husband's wishes.

Just don't. Seen so many women fucked over by this. Its only a few more years. He can wait.

I think you also need to put his sacrifice in context. You moved when you’d been seeing each other for 8 months. And presumably you didn’t pack up overnight so you’d been thinking about from the very early stages of your relationship, if not predating it. Neither of you had any way of knowing whether your 8 months together was going to turn into something more - you really didn’t. So at the time he made his “sacrifice” it wasn’t a life changing event. That’s not to acknowledge compromises have been made, but it needs to be contextualised, and you don’t need to “pay him back”. Compromise is not a transactional game.

Choose life.

His children are 15 and 18. They'll be old enough that he can move away if he chooses to in just a few years.

You've had a rough start and finally have a life that you love. You've never lived with this man, have a mostly long-distance relationship, and very little contact with his children. You're sacrificing the life you've worked extremely hard for for a possibility of happiness in a blended family back in a country you don't love.

Is he willing to marry you immediately on return so you have that stability? It's no sign it will last or all be fine but you have a little more security.

It sounds like you're terrified of never meeting someone else but that's because you've been in a relationship and haven't put yourself out there for someone who shares the same ideals and values as you.

I thought I was going to say love, but having read what you wrote

Choose the LIFE. Sounds amazing.

You'll find love again there

The life. The life. The life.

Love is a two way thing, if he loves you just as much, he can come and find you.

You do both, as you are doing now. Love will find a way.

Why does it have to be decided??

I have and do travel widely thanks. I've been to three different countries on two different continents this year. My opinion is built on the things I have seen and experienced over the last 50 years of being a UK resident. Bristol and Cardiff are my two favourite UK cities and they are grubby, grimy and full of homeless. If that's your idea of a beautiful place to live I feel sorry for you.

OMG. You LOVE your life, which sounds wonderful. You have landed on your feet. This man will drag you back, and down. You can and will find love with someone else in your wonderful new life.

Op a lot of MN is full of women who have had a really hard time with men and some are so jaded they deem all men to be shits.

Only you know if you have a good man and only you know if he is the right person to make a big decision for. Don't let MN, anonymous folk on an internet forum sway you from following what you feel is in your best interests.

Good luck, I wish you happiness.

Look at it another way. He has already said he won't give up anything in his life for you and expects you to make all the sacrifices.

Life is for taking risks.

Go for love and if it doesn't work out do something else.

My instinctive response would have been to choose your brilliant, idyllic life over even a good relationship in a place that makes you unhappy. Because he's not the only man you can make you happy, even though it might feel like it.

However after reading your updates I'd change my answer. The relationship sounds good, and I mean less that he sounds like a good man and more that you have a sensible, rational approach to it and you're not likely to make a rash, lovestruck decision.

More importantly your idyllic life is great because it's temporary. You don't see a future where you are now, you don't have a real community and you don't see it as a potential home. It's an enjoyable chapter in your life but not the final one. I also think learning how to be content for the first time is a lesson you can take to other places and recreate. Your location has helped you be happy, but it's not the source of your happiness.

And then you say his kids are off to university in a few years and he's open to living abroad with you once that happens. That right there is your obvious answer. You want to be with him, but you do't want to be in the UK - in a few years this exact scenario can happen for you.

Married a second time and we tried to move to New Zealand but our children from different marriages were at the end of school and uni and it felt like we would betray Thier needs over our own plans so....we left it....

Years gone by and his child doesn't speak to her father and my son works in the city and only see him twice a year.

After our own health issues we find ourselves like 2 peas rattling around an empty shell, hubby still works and I am retired and I wonder really what made me feel 15 years ago the need to marry to be successful. I had a great job, my own home and small group of friends and family.

I am sure that would have depleted over time there is no doubt. But...I think I would have rather done it my way and kept the life before...it's not a total regret but having lost my mum at Xmas I don't feel the need to be 20 mins down the road from her graveside as she is now with dad.

I am no therapist, nor counselor, and everything I have done I enjoyed, even eating alone at a table and having a remote I could turn on whenever I liked....wear my jimjams all day and listen to music when I liked...may be I am seeing a romance in doing it on my own terms ...plus I loved the people I married ...at the time....but happiness is not just about people ..it's a feeling and you may think back to a time when it's less complicated without the off the shelf family you acquire and someone working all hours ...without someone to talk to in a strange place ...so think carefully 💐