Husband is done with UK

[Prendo]

Met husband 7 years ago. He's from another country and came before Brexit to study and get work opportunities he couldn't in his own country.

Over past few years we've done well, improved careers, bought house, had DC. He was always not a big fan of UK climate and aspects of culture but figured it would improve with time and getting more established/ settled here.

We bought our house post lockdown moving from overcrowded urban area to nicer quieter countryside town and thought this would be positive change after feeling caged in concrete during lockdown. However, it's been hard to make friends, no family nearby (although mine visit every 6 weeks from 4 hours away) and neither of us are super extrovert with making friends so not the fairy tale we imagined. I was optimistic we could still make the best of it and keep trying but I feel like his mind is made up and he's done.

Long story short, 2.5 years on from move and one year post DC, he's not happy and ultimately wants to leave UK for a sunnier EU country, ideally with us as doesn't want to break family up but accepts it could be without us. I feel like this has been brewing for a while, I do wish he'd been more honest earlier rather than post mortgage and DC. Maybe I was ignoring signs too but we did make the plans with the best of intentions.

He's an EU citizen, so is DC (but born in UK) so in theory I can join them as spouse if we were to move. However, I'm reluctant to up sticks and start from scratch and possibly end up in similar predicament elsewhere- I don't have the appetite for it at nearly 40 and grass not always greener (I haved lived in EU previously in 20s for a year). I thought we'd built something here but it just feels like it was for nothing. Plus once his settled status in the UK expires after two years, we can't return to the UK unless we fork out thousands for spouse visas so if my parents got ill a few years down line etc, I'd struggle to help.

I feel like I'm basically faced with being a single mother in UK or exiled from UK in an EU country far from family. He's not giving me that kind of ultimatum or anything yet - he seems to want to muddle on a bit longer and see how it goes. But I feel like the writing is on the wall and I'm not one to faff around, I like ro make a plan and know where I stand.

Sat here crying trying to think of solutions/ what to do. We do love each other, he's a good man/ dad but I have the self respect not to beg/ plead him to stay if he doesn't want to be in country anymore.

I hope you'll be kind in your replies, thank you

@Prendo is the country your husband wants to move to his home country that he holds a passport for, or a third country where you'll be exercising FOM rights?

No but when he got together with OP he was. It's impossible to know how you will feel about a place years down the line. I quite liked living in the UK for the first few years, everything was new and exciting. Then I started missing my family and friends back home, I wanted my kids to grow up in my culture too, then brexit happened and that was shit, then the pandemic and that was shit, then the CoL and that was shit.

Sure some of these things happened in other countries too but the UK seems to have been hit harder on every front and it really made life a lot worse. But, according to you, since I as some point wanted to live in the UK I shouldn't have been allowed to want a better and more fun life for me and my kids? You've made you bed... sort of thing I guess.

But this isn't just about leaving a partner - he will be abandoning his child if he leaves the country.

The UK isn't what he thought it was? Tough luck. You've decided to put down roots and have a child. If he wants to go back he should at least wait until his child has grown up

@MidnightMeltdown is she selfish herself for not making the effort he did by staying in the U.K. for so long?

No of course not, because they met over here (at least that's what I understand from the OP). If they met in another country, or OP agreed to move one day before they got married, then that would be different, but it sounds like OP married with the understanding that they would stay put. Moving country was never on the cards

OP, just a suggestion. Why don’t you discuss with him and suggest the following:

1. if he wants to move to hos country he has to take a passport first
2. he moves there for one year, sets up home and then when he sorts out kob, schools, housing and everything seems ok, then you move.

In the meantime do not sell your house in the UK.

The answer lies in that he's said he'll move with or without you.
The love for you has gone.
Maybe he loves OP a great deal but can't stand the idea of another 20 years in a country that makes him feel depressed, where he feels his opportunities are massively limited, where he feels cut off from his family and unable to make friends. Maybe he's put forward the possibility of him leaving alone because it means OP is not under such massive pressure to go with him

I've met plenty of expats over the years who have struggled with life abroad. Some have managed to persuade their partners to move away with them. Others live in a state of constant hate towards the locals, getting increasingly bitter and angry. Others have turned into recluses; one woman I know literally does not leave her home. A few have given up and gone back to their country of origin alone, as self-preservation. I know both a mother and a father who returned when their children were not yet adults, leaving them here in Germany. It's a huge decision that noone takes lightly. However well prepared you think you are for life abroad, until you are actually out there with children and trying to integrate for years on end you don't know what it will be like for you. And it has very little to do with the country involved imho. For me, the unsupportive spouse was a major factor. Once he was out of the picture I found it a lot easier.

Well said @80s ! Totally agree as a former expat.

No other country offers what the UK does.

Coming from someone who has based this opinion on life in London 🙄

I like the idea of creating a bolthole in his country.

Sounds like you have parents here in the UK and he doesn't have any aboard?

I think it's perfectly reasonable for you to say that your need to be near enough to support them and the schooling you both said you wanted for your DC is enough reason to keep you here.

It's cruel that he fathered DC with you without considering what becoming a family really means.

OP, you must do what you think will make you and your DC happy in the long run because I don't think he's been honest or fair with you. How anyone can think they'd be happier separated from their young children is absolutely beyond me

When you marry someone from another country, one of the issues you each need to establish is willingness to move to the other (or another) country.

Neither of you sounds happy where you are. Nothing in your posts suggests that you are happy where you are. One of your arguments against it is basically that you don't want the hassle of moving again after uprooting 2.5 years ago.

Maybe he's just more open about the unhappiness of having no friends, no social circle, and no family in the area you're living in now?

There is NO way I would agree to move unless I was fully onboard with it and you certainly arent.

For all those posters saying 'just try it, see how it goes, you could come back if you dont like it' etc dont understand that once you have been living in his home country for about 6 months, your DC become habitually resident there.

That means that cannot be removed from the country unless BOTH parents agree. If in the future you want to come back, or you split up, unless he agrees that the DC can move back to UK you absolutely cannot come back home with your DC.

There is no way I would ever risk being stuck in a country I hate as the only option to see my DC. there are far too many horror stories on MN (one that comes to mind is the one about New Zealand) and in the papers etc about the misery of moving abroad when reluctant and then the DH divorces you but refuses to allow the DC to go back 'home'. You are then stuck there until they are adults but as they would have spent their childhood in that country may not want to move either.

I know your DP may feel this way about remaining in the UK when he wants to go home, but he choose to have DC with you in this country, and buy a house, to really he should have mentioned this before you did either of these 2 things.

If I was you, there would be no way I would be leaving the UK.

I feel in a very similar situation to you, DH and I feel the same however but I don't think DH realises its because we worked hard to buy our lovely home in a quiet area, no family near by and now we feel lonely. We are content with our life however.

Has he considered moving elsewhere within the UK? Closer to his friends, family, your friend and family? Having a community around you can make such a difference.

My sisterinlaw is considering moving for the exact same reasons, no community.

I live how you’re avoiding the rest of my post showing that many people chose to move away from where the child has its root to get support or avoid loneliness.
And when it’s women doing that, it’s always positive. Never an awful thing fir taking the child away from the father 🤔🤔🤔
Incl and esp when the woman in question lives abroad with her dh and ‘has put her root down’.
She is always just an expat moving back home closer to her support network.

Fwiw the OP said nothing about the discussions they’ve had before.
How much he has tried to compromise, adjust etc…
Nothing about how lonely he feels, if she rejected tte possibility to move to a better part of the country (the south of England vs Manchester) or one where he’d be able to get support himself.

Its too easy saying he is awful because he can’t cope with the U.K. anymore wo knowing if the OP actually tried to support him.

It’s quite possible that after years of an attitude similar to @MidnightMeltdown (aka you chose to be here, get on with it and stop moaning), he has simply given up.
Even though there was some potential solutions such as spending all the hols there, moving places etc…

Surely his children are his priority? The casual way he said he is going to move back to his home country without his wife and children is worrying and would be a deal breaker for me.

100% agree

I was in this situation with my husband. We met in London, and my husband was born in Oz to Irish parents. I did not want to move to Australia, too far away etc. We moved to Ireland after we had tired of London, the economy there was booming, for a while it was great as we both have family there. Eventually the recession and the shitty weather starting getting to me and I changed my mind! It only took twenty years, my only regret is I didn’t move here sooner, I absolutely love it, and couldn’t imagine living in grey old Ireland or UK again.

However, in your case I would be very upset at your husband saying he would leave you and your children, that doesn’t sound like a stable marriage to me, and emigrating is bloody hard, if rewarding. My husband respected my decision not to go, he never nagged about it, he just left the ball in my court until I was ready. And I respected him for that, if he had been emotionally blackmailing me I wouldn’t have changed my mind. And I also wouldn’t be impressed about him not getting citizenship either, it’s always best to keep options open where you can. So your situation is a tricky one, but with the way things are apparently going in the UK maybe you should consider it, depending on new country though.

Only move if you're willing to stay in that new country until your youngest is 18. If you split up it's extremely difficult and really expensive to move the kids home unless the father agrees. I have been 'stuck' overseas for years now and my youngest is 12, I've got 6 more years until she's 18 and I can return home.

For more info read - www.globalarrk.org/for-parents/know-before-you-go/

I'm from the UK but moved to
france more than 1/2 weeks ago lifetime ago. 2 French husbands , kids and career here. I'd not move back to the uk for anything. I love my visits but the schools, healthcare and quality of life are so much better here. So depending where it is he might be right. But if you leave rent out the house in the uk don't sell it. Because if you do there will be no going back.

We moved abroad and the deal was that if one of us was very unhappy we would leave. It’s much more difficult with children, now it’s “would it make DC happy or unhappy to leave”. Ultimately whats best for the family unit now wins the argument rather than whats best for individuals.

Would he consider couples counselling, this sounds like he’s got quite depressed tbh. I do understand his perspective, last time I came back to the UK it did feel a bit miserable. But y’know even when it’s your home country, when you have been away a while you forget what it’s actually like to live there. He may have a romanticised notion of what it would actually be like. I’ve been desperately homesick for periods, especially when I’ve felt isolated, it does eat away at you so I understand why he sounds desperate.

I would also say I don’t think he’s being dishonest. At some points you would have had to drag me kicking and screaming back to the UK at others I would have crawled over broken glass to get back. I think having kids also changes things, I deeply regretted that DD wasn’t being brought up around family and I do miss my family a lot, but she’s happy. Does he speak to his family a lot?

Maybe they are his priority. Maybe the OP is minimising things by saying he's "unhappy", and really he's desperately unhappy, even depressed, with first the concrete cage of London and now the social isolation of the rural town. The OP uses the term "exiled from UK in an EU country far from family", now swap UK and EU around and that's the position she's held her husband in for seven years.

(yes, I exaggerate the language by saying "held in", etc. like the OP's her DH's kidnapper, but that's the language that she is choosing to use to project forward)

So he’d rather leave his wife and children to go and live in another country for better weather? Wow. What a guy. What a man. I think I’d be packing his bags for him and waving him off if I found out my husband had such little regard for me and his children.

That is a very simplistic and unfair way of describing it. Of course it isn't just that he wants a bit of sun. It's a contributing factor to his poor mental health which stems from being made to stay in a country that is far from where he grew up, the people he loves and that is culturally very different to where you are from which makes it impossible to not feel like an outsider. Most of us EU citizens felt like second class after brexit was voted through too and that will definitely have added to feeling of not belonging.

You sound like somebody who has never experienced that type of isolation and powerlessness so you can't possibly understand how it makes a person feel. It's absolutely awful and it consumes your every hour, all day.

I'm not justifying leaving your children but I'm pretty sure he's fairly desperate at this point.