Dear Coleen: My husband wants to move to France for work but I don't want to go
08.04.2024 - 03:37
/ dailyrecord.co.uk
I’m a married woman aged 35 and we have a daughter who is 18 months old.
Recently, my husband threw a huge spanner in the works when he announced that he’d been offered a promotion at work, but it would mean working in France for a year or maybe longer.
He’s really happy and excited about us all moving there, but I don’t want to go. I’m happy where we live, I’ve made other “mum” friends and my daughter is settled at nursery where she goes three mornings a week. I’m also at a point where I’m thinking of going back to work full time, but I wouldn’t be able to do my job remotely.
I feel my husband hasn’t really considered us in this – he’s just thinking about his career and earning more money. Whenever I’ve tried to broach the subject with him, though, he just gets irritated and we end up rowing.
I’m wondering whether it would work if he went alone and came home at weekends or at least most weekends, and we could also visit him. Could this work, or would it cause a lot problems in our relationship?
I haven’t suggested this to him yet, but I’m not sure he’d go for the idea. Any advice would be welcome.
Well, they say absence makes the heart grow fonder but, in my experience, that’s rarely the case. Firstly, I think this would only make sense if your husband had a definite end date for his project. At the moment it sounds a bit vague.
For me, that doesn’t work – you need a timeline to work with. You also need to think about yourself and how you’d cope parenting on your own, working and keeping on top of everything at home.
I realise plenty of single parents do this brilliantly, but you need to think practically about how it’s all going to work and what your support network looks like. In terms of your relationship, there’s the risk