Moved to a foreign country for DH and hate it

[BunnyEarsCactus]

A year ago DH and I moved to Norway with our two little kids. Both of us happened to get some good jobs here, so at the time it seemed to make sense. However, I hated it ever since. It is just so dark and grey, and I feel like don't really integrate in the local culture. We don't really have any connections here (DH is from Romania, not from here). My mental health has been suffering so much under this that I got depression and had to take sick leave for some time.

I really want go back to the UK, but DH is totally against that. He is very happy here with his job and his life and wants to stay.
He says if I really want to leave, I should leave alone, and he would stay with the kids, without me.

I do unterstand his point of view, but I feel so desperate and hopeless. I also feel that he doesn't really care about my feelings.

Every time I tell him about my feelings, he gets upset and says that we made the decision to move here together, so I should stick to it and not complain. I try to avoid conflict, so I typically don't raise the issue. However, he can see how miserable I am, so times he asks me what's wrong with me and pushes me to tell, but when I do tell him, it just ends up in arguments with him telling me that I shouldn't make him feel bad for moving here.

Once he even said he would rather get divorced than move away from here. And if he really did so, then I would be even more lonely but still had stay here because he could keep the kids here (since they are legal residents here now). That would break my heart. Sometimes he let's me go back home by myself for a week or so but then sometimes he also complains that I'm leaving him alone with the childcare. I would actually love to take the kids with me more often (they are still pre-school) but sometimes he agrees and sometimes he refuses to give his consent because he thinks the kids should stay "here at home" and I feel I don't really have any say.

I really don't know what to do. Do I just have to accept that I am now stuck here? Somehow make the best of it? I don't want to keep arguing with my husband because I know that he won't change his mind.

He says if I really want to leave, I should leave alone, and he would stay with the kids, without me.I do unterstand his point of view, but I feel so desperate and hopeless. I also feel that he doesn't really care about my feelings.

What a horrible man. No wonder you feel so unhappy. His suggestion is absolutely unacceptable. His threats are abusive and cruel.

Do you have the money to get legal advice? You may need to speak to a lawyer in both Norway and the UK to get the full picture. Don't take his word for it that he can keep the kids there.

You have every right to want to return home to the UK with your children. Norway is a difficult place to emigrate to and settle into not least due to language.

Your relationship sounds like it could be over. Hard to come back from what your DH is saying.

The question is how you can do it - get your children back to the UK. Are you British? Will your DH let your children leave Norway to go on holiday to the UK? If so that’s your best bet. Then refuse to return with them, and lawyer up. As he’s not a Norwegian citizen you should be in a strong position. Good luck.

And you can certainly complain, makes things worse if you can have a moan. What's he doing to help you adjust?

Did you have any agreements in place before you decided to move? Are you helping yourself, or have you given up? If you’ve given up your unwittingly making your life harder, I know its hard to get out there when you’re not in the best place, but small steps could really help.

We’ve moved abroad and we agreed we would give it at least three years before making any big decisions. If your mental health is still poor I would also be really careful about making big decisions until you’re in a better place mentally.

When you move your well aware that will become the childrens home, we’ve been here over a year now, so legally this is our childrens home, so if one us kidnapped them and took them to the UK they would rightly be returned here. So its in the best interest of everyone to try and be as civil as possible with each other, so if you do split the likelihood of the children living between two countries is greater, rather than you just visiting Norway a few weeks a year to see them.

Get proper legal advice and do not listen to the posters saying you should take the kids to the UK and just refuse to come back. No matter how shitty your husband is, he has every right to parent his own children and if the roles were reversed and he took the kids away without your permission everyone would quite rightly say this was totally inappropriate.

Sorry you ard having such a tough time and your husband is being difficult.
I don't know about the legal situation, you need an expert for that, but I do know a fair bit about living i norway as a foreigner and I have a few questions.
Are you working at an international english speakkng company? And if so have you learned any norwegian or are you doing everything in english still?
Are you in a city or a smaller place?
And finally, what have you done to try and build connections with your local comunity? (As you've probably noticed its not easy to build connections in a passive way 🙂)

Imagine the outrage on here if a man did this 🙄. Terrible advice.

You need legal advice.
If you take the kids back to the UK without his permission then under The Hague Convention it becomes kidnapping and the police would return the kids to Norway. Technically your h is right- you have the right to return to the UK whenever you want but the kids are resident in Norway now. The only way for you to leave would be you move to the UK and travel to and fro.

What would you propose?
I never had children and would never make such a move for a man, unless my life improved thousandfold. Not helping, but what would you do??

Moving countries is up there as one of the most stressful events.

I have done it on more than one occasion. The advice I would give, if you can, is to give it some more time. I found 6 to 8 months in the most difficult times. From 2 to 3 years in, things may look very different.

But you do have to try to fit in to the new lifestyle. If you go against the grain constantly, unfortunately things will not change. Your way of life will have to adjust to your new surroundings. You cannot just up and move your old life there.

If you are not able to do this, or willing to try, you will not settle.

Sorry to be harsh, but it is how it is.

Your marriage is over. I'd consider separating, moving into your own place and sharing custody because 1) you may find it less unhappy if you have your own place, your own life and not forced to be with someone who doesn't care about you, 2) it sounds like maybe he would not like the reality of single parenting and after a while might agree to let you leave.

They both moved for good jobs, it's a great country, rich, a lot of prospects, safe, great lifestyle for kids, weather isn't that different to the UK unless you're really far north. How was he supposed to know she wouldn't "like the culture"?

Completely missing the point maybe but it's been miserable and grey here all year here in the UK. We've had a few nice days but mostly overcast and dark. I've joked it feels like November light wise since last year.

Will we all have SAD early this year?

give it some more time

It took me 7 years to adjust to a new country. DH was happy from the beginning.

It made for a difficult 7 years. What changed after all that time was my attitude towards the place - focusing more on the positives, I made some friends and realised it was a great place to raise children. I will probably leave once they've finished school so maybe knowing that there's a limit to my time here helps too.

Also bear in mind you could always stay in Norway but leave your horrible husband. You may find it more bearable if you're not stuck with a man who is so uncaring, and that he becomes less set on keeping the children in Norway once he can no longer use that as a threat to keep you with him.

^^ I was just going to type out exactly the same thing!

Perhaps it is your relationship that is making you depressed more than your location?

Your dh sounds awful 😪

You need good legal advice from a lawyer used to dealing with expat relationships.

Good luck 💐

I think I would not want to remain married to someone so dismissive about my mental health, he doesn't care about you at all by the sounds of it, saying you can leave but the kids stay is just him being cruel because he knows you wouldn't want to leave them.....

Call his bluff op, he moans about you vistning the UK alone, he can't cope with one week of parenting solo so take a longer trip or separate and go 50/50 so he can enjoy Norway with the responsibility of actually parenting the children, see if he likes Norway as much than way.

I really am going to disagree with you here.

Having made big moves myself, I don't see this as marriage ending at all. They need time to adjust to a new way of life. Pulling the plug on a marriage seems hasty advice.

This won’t work. Going ‘on holiday’ and refusing to return the children gets them promptly returned to Norway under The Hague Convention.

The OP is not ‘in a strong position’ - something she clearly realises. Citizenship is not relevant, it’s the country of residence that matters.

You are right about the country.
I think there's more, however, than not liking the culture.

Not something that could end up with me only seeing my children for a couple of weeks a year for a start.

Best advice I ever got was from a recovering alcoholic. He told me that before you make any big decisions in life make sure you are not Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. If I were you I would hang back on dissolving my marriage or leaving with the kids. Those are drastic decisions which in time you may come to regret.

I think maybe a year isn’t long enough to get used to such a drastic change but if you strongly feel that you don’t want to stay then you are going to need to find a solution.

It doesn’t sit well that’s he has said he would rather divorce than move as it’s not a helpful indicator he wants to find a solution that will work for you both.

How would you feel about moving back and staying married? There are couples that are married and can’t live together for whatever reason. But you would then need to decide who the kids would live with.

Don’t just take them as suggested above, awful advice and not appropriate. You are adults and need to work through whatever it looks like, whilst still putting the kids first and ensuring you can at least have a cordial co-parent relationship if it does end in divorce.

This is the best advice I have read in a long while.

Thank you for sharing. I really hope OP takes heed of this.