can you get back on track after an awful period with your partner?

[TheMysticMasseuse]

if someone had told me 6 months ago that i would be posting in relationships, i wouldn't have believed them. I thought we had the happiest family and the happiest marriage. DH and I have been married for 6 years, 2 beautiful dds, good jobs, lots of friends, great sex life, etc.

then 4 months ago DH got a job abroad and made it clear he wanted to take it. I made it clear i really didn't want to go. we fought everyday for a month and I started to feel really desperately angry with him, i felt he was ruining my life. finally i relented and said i'd go- because it was clear he wanted it too badly and i didn't want to be the one denying him. but i felt i wasn't given a choice, and i just decided to be a good supportive wife and give it a go. but i said to him it was a huge sacrifice and i expected him to support me in it and that i felt he owed me.

over the last 3 months we have started to work through the huge logistical challenge of the move. while i have never really changed my mind (and he knew it all along) i have made an effort to just get on with it and i think i was now at the point where i would do it and would be, if not happy, at least not completely negative (if anything for the sake of the children). i have however felt that he has done nothing in this period to try and help me through this, he has basically waited for me to come around.

then last week we went to the city where we should be moving for a day just to look at neighboroods etc. on the plane back he told me that its not what he expected and he doesn't know whether he'll like living there and that it would be much harder than he thought.

for me that was a bombshell, a stabbing in the heart- i felt that just as i was finally getting to terms with it all he is now, far from supporting me, burdening me with his very belated doubts. it also made it clear he has never really listened to any of my concerns. the worst thing is that is now saying he won't take the job, or he'll commute back and forth, if I want. i feel it is incredibly unfair, 2 weeks before he's due to start (and he's already resigned, incidentally) to put all this on me. i don't know what to think or do. i think he still really wants the job but he is scared of the move. i have been scared for months and now i am in full-blown panic. i feel completely alone. we can't talk becaause we just fight.

i feel incredibly, horrendously angry and i don't know if i can ever trust him again.

please tell me it is possible to overcome this and start loving and trusting him again. and how.

sorry this was long

It does sound like he is scared, it also sounds like he really did not believe it would happen. Do you know why you didn't want to go abroad? I think you need to talk without arguing and see what decision you can come to. One of you will have to really be strong and make a decision. I am a lot older than you are and I have never moved from the city I live in. My sister is an expat and I really envy her. Now if I had the opportunity again to live abroad I would go in a minute. I think children who travel and live abroad have great experiences those who stay at home will never have. Good luck, you can always follow your husband abroad later if he settles.

Yeah, i'd agree he's spooked.

Pls don't take it as he's not listened to you, it's not that at all, Men are much more literal than us, we think about things very differently, they sidestep the detail.

This whole situation is, right now, not at all about you. He needs you to sit down with him, tell him that you'll support him no matter what, that if he's scared a bit, that's OK cos you are too, but that by talking it through together, perhaps you can both calm down a bit about it.

It's predominantly his decision as he is the one that is leading the family there, the weight of responsibility for the family's happiness is on him, and he will have to be 100% sure that he's doing the right thing by you all. You will have to believe in him and just be there to hand hold him through the decisions, calmly and rationally explaining your concerns.

I've just returned from 3yrs away, and I can categorically say that it was the biggest and most ghastly mistake of my entire life. Expat lifestyle sounds wonderful to anyone on the outside, but it can be the loneliest place on earth. Without question if I had stayed there, my DS would suffer even more than he has done already, and I'm in no doubt that my marriage would fail.

If he has second thoughts, they need to be HIS second thoughts, if you were concerned about leaving everything behind anyway, perhaps it might be for the best.

Perhaps this isn't the right opportunity for him at the moment, perhaps he'll find a different job in a different place that'd be more acceptable to you both at some point.

Support him either way, you have to just roll with the punches at the moment, i'm afraid, I know that's frustrating, but this really is his decision to make. If you make it, and he ends up turning the job down, you will be held to account.

If he does go, and either of you are in anyway concerned, it might be better to let him go for a month or so, get settled in his job, then you follow after. If he's trying to start a new job and worried about you, then that won't help.

Have you tried going on the Expat forums and asked what it's like to live in the place you're thinking of going? ExpatExchange & ExpatFocus are pretty extensive...

Good luck!

Oh yes, and although my DH is not back from hell on earth yet, he's coming back soon. I thought that I never wanted to see him again when I got back on the plane to come home here...

We've talked and talked and he's finally seen what he did to make my life so awful, and what he didn't do which made things impossibly hard for me to live there. We are now talking and communicating better than we have done in years... hoping - feeling pretty confident actually - that we CAN get outselves back on track....

And if you could have seen what we've been through....