Relationship troubles: marrying and moving abroad

[Xantippe]

There are certainly challenges you must deal with. And they may not be in just the moving to another country. Long distance, online meeting, moving, etc they all present challenges that you need to be unbiased and logical about.

But they also create feelings that are real and important.

If the OP finds herself homesick or having culture shock, that’s going to be real, even though it’s “just” feelings.

northwestern.edu/studyabroad/outbound-students/life-in-a-foreign-culture-tips-for-cultural-adjustment-while-abroad.html

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

It was a typo!
OK, so maybe sometimes I try too hard…
But it makes sense to me.

Ah, young love…

You say that to a person in a healthy marriage with more than a decade under their belts and they will just laugh and roll their eyes at little sayings like that.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

But they also create feelings that are real and important.

If the OP finds herself homesick or having culture shock, that’s going to be real, even though it’s “just” feelings.

northwestern.edu/studyabroad/outbound-students/life-in-a-foreign-culture-tips-for-cultural-adjustment-while-abroad.html

Yes. True.

 

[Dulcie]

Thank you for all the replies. I don’t know how to do multiple quotes in a single post, sorry, so I’ll try to keep replies to a couple of posts.

In answer: it’s a European country (so no immigration issues!) which is actually safer than the UK, and women are absolutely equal there. If anything, what might be harder would be being a stay-at-home wife/mother if I’m not working, because that’s not really done there. (My fiance’s faith makes him more open-minded about mothers working/not working.) And I’m definitely not worried about any skeletons in the closet: I know him very well by this point, know his friends and family, have met a couple of his colleagues, even his ex-wife, and absolutely know and trust that he is the wonderful man I came to love. We were a Catholic Match date! He had one eye on UK profiles because of his children being here, but mainly because there were basically no women on CM from his country (not a Catholic culture at all; he converted while in the UK).

I was encouraged to hear the way the OP spoke of the potential husband. She clearly loves him very much, and respects him as well. Love is easy, respect is less so.

Respect will get you through times of no love much better than no love will get you through times of no respect.

This really is spot on, you know! I love him very much, but I also respect him for the truly wonderful man he is (deeply Catholic, kind, generous, patient, so loving, faithful, funny, educated, intelligent, committed father, and many other amazing qualities). The reason I put “relationship troubles” in my title isn’t because we’re not compatible or because I’m worried about “us”, it’s because the way my anxieties are making me act is damaging to “us” (i.e. it makes me act not-lovingly towards him, which he doesn’t deserve). (That’s not to say he’s perfect: of course he’s not! But then, neither am I.)

 

[Dulcie]

But they also create feelings that are real and important.

If the OP finds herself homesick or having culture shock, that’s going to be real, even though it’s “just” feelings.

Yes, exactly. This is what I’m worried about, that “just” feelings and worries can put a lot of strain on an otherwise great relationship. Catholicism is so counter-cultural when it comes to assuming certain things: that you’ll be together for life (no hedging your bets), that the husband is in some way head of the household (which is partly why I struggle with asking him to move to the UK for me since he is doing so well over there career-wise), that you will accept the possibility of a baby as soon as you get married and not expect a year or two to yourselves, getting to know one another while you settle into the marriage. I can’t really talk about this with non-Catholic friends, as they wouldn’t understand. But yes, feelings are “real” and even Catholic marriages fail if two people can’t work things out, so I do want to get it right. He’s a bit older than me, and calmer, and has been married before, and (of course) isn’t facing such a huge upheaval, which I think is why I’m having more “feelings” than he is.

We are having marriage preparation meetings, but the priest who’s marrying us lives in a different part of the UK so it’s very sporadic. We’ve had a couple of meetings so far, though.

 

[Xantippe]

Yes, exactly. This is what I’m worried about, that “just” feelings and worries can put a lot of strain on an otherwise great relationship. Catholicism is so counter-cultural when it comes to assuming certain things: that you’ll be together for life (no hedging your bets), that the husband is in some way head of the household (which is partly why I struggle with asking him to move to the UK for me since he is doing so well over there career-wise), that you will accept the possibility of a baby as soon as you get married and not expect a year or two to yourselves, getting to know one another while you settle into the marriage.

**1. I don’t know that head-of-the-household has anything to do with where you choose to live, particularly as his children are in the UK.

1. Everybody who is pro-life has to accept the possibility of a baby when they are having sex. Heck, everybody who is having sex at all has to accept the possibility of a baby.
2. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing strict NFP for a year or so as you adjust to a foreign country after a long distance relationship. (you seem to have serious reasons), so I would encourage you to work on the NFP now so that you’ll have a lot of confidence when you start doing it for real. It really is a big deal to go from a wedding to having a continually nauseous and whiny spouse all the time–that can be quite the shock to the system. **

**Taking Charge of Your Fertility is a secular book that is much loved around here. (The condom stuff can be easily ignored.)

1. Bear in mind that a lot of people don’t do the wait-a-year-or-two thing, seeing as how they come into marriage either pregnant or with a child or children that they’ve had with their new spouse. Those people don’t have any settling in time, either–even less than you will. **

I can’t really talk about this with non-Catholic friends, as they wouldn’t understand. But yes, feelings are “real” and even Catholic marriages fail if two people can’t work things out, so I do want to get it right. He’s a bit older than me, and calmer, and has been married before, and (of course) isn’t facing such a huge upheaval, which I think is why I’m having more “feelings” than he is.

**Of course.

And make sure he understands that. He’s going to have to make allowances for you being a fish out of water in your new home.**

We are having marriage preparation meetings, but the priest who’s marrying us lives in a different part of the UK so it’s very sporadic. We’ve had a couple of meetings so far, though.

That’s good.

I encourage you to do a personal finance course together (perhaps online) if you can manage it, so that you will have a system in place by the time you get married for handling finances together. Since he’s older, he may be a bit set in his ways, but it’s important to involve you in the process. This is particularly important, as you will be financially dependent on him while you are looking for work. Does he expect you to ask him before making any purchases? Does either of you have debt? Do you have monthly budgets? Talk about this. A monthly budget is very important.

I’ve done the classroom version of this personal finance course and it’s very good, but here’s the online version:

daveramsey.com/fpu/online/

Also, talk about chores. Bear in mind that whatever division you decide on will have to be readjusted multiple times because of pregnancy, kids, sickness or disability, so keep the door open to adjusting the division. Don’t think that you’re only going to have one discussion about this. It doesn’t matter how you do this, but you both need to feel that it’s fair.

Also, are the two of you in agreement about family size? Obviously, nobody gets total control over this, but is there a radical disparity in what the two of you envision?

Best wishes!

 

[Dulcie]

That’s good.

I encourage you to do a personal finance course together (perhaps online) if you can manage it, so that you will have a system in place by the time you get married for handling finances together. Since he’s older, he may be a bit set in his ways, but it’s important to involve you in the process. This is particularly important, as you will be financially dependent on him while you are looking for work. Does he expect you to ask him before making any purchases? Does either of you have debt? Do you have monthly budgets? Talk about this. A monthly budget is very important.

Also, talk about chores. Bear in mind that whatever division you decide on will have to be readjusted multiple times because of pregnancy, kids, sickness or disability, so keep the door open to adjusting the division. Don’t think that you’re only going to have one discussion about this. It doesn’t matter how you do this, but you both need to feel that it’s fair.

Also, are the two of you in agreement about family size? Obviously, nobody gets total control over this, but is there a radical disparity in what the two of you envision?

Best wishes!

Yeah, I’m having a hard time getting my head around the idea of being financially dependent on him. From his point of view, we’ll just have joint finances. From my point of view, I’m not going to feel like I have the right to much of a say in what we do or don’t spend “our” money on, or to insist we have a budget, if I haven’t brought any of it in. (I have no debts; he has a mortgage on a flat he owns - not the one we’ll be living in.) I don’t know how to negotiate that mental stumbling-block, really.

Chores: I can get a bit annoyed with him for not being as tidy as I’d like, so that I end up doing extra chores that he doesn’t think are necessary (or not necessary straight away). I think my feeling of not having much control over other areas is coming out in a desire to control what our home environment is like.

Children: I think his attitude is sort of “take what God sends”, within reason. I can’t personally imagine having more than 2-3, tops, especially as he has 2 already. Step-children are, obviously, another big thing to be getting my head round. Thank you for the fertility book recommendation: I’ll look it up.

(Re head of household, I just meant that it seems a bit off to insist that he move for the sake of my career when his is going well in his home country, rather than that we “should” live in his country just because he’s the man. Hope that makes sense!)

Thank you to everyone for all these responses, it’s been a bit lonely without Catholic friends to discuss all of this stuff with, so I really appreciate it.

 

[Xantippe]

Yeah, I’m having a hard time getting my head around the idea of being financially dependent on him. From his point of view, we’ll just have joint finances. From my point of view, I’m not going to feel like I have the right to much of a say in what we do or don’t spend “our” money on, or to insist we have a budget, if I haven’t brought any of it in. (I have no debts; he has a mortgage on a flat he owns - not the one we’ll be living in.) I don’t know how to negotiate that mental stumbling-block, really.

**Talk about this in advance and settle it well before getting married.

You need to feel that it is “our money” and the easiest way to do that is to do budgets together and decide how to spend every money every month, because every month is different (a birthday, Christmas, a car repair, etc.). Set aside a category for each of you for “blow money” or “fun money” that you don’t need to answer to the other for. Make sure you’re saving money. Have a long term financial plan. It’s kind of tricky to transition into doing this before you’re married, but you can each do an individual budget every month and show how you are spending your money and how your savings are doing.

**

Chores: I can get a bit annoyed with him for not being as tidy as I’d like, so that I end up doing extra chores that he doesn’t think are necessary (or not necessary straight away). I think my feeling of not having much control over other areas is coming out in a desire to control what our home environment is like.

One thing I’d suggest to you is to lean toward discrete tasks (rather than more global tasks) for your future husband. Doing dishes is a discrete task and something like “keep the living room tidy” might be a global task.

Children: I think his attitude is sort of “take what God sends”, within reason. I can’t personally imagine having more than 2-3, tops, especially as he has 2 already. Step-children are, obviously, another big thing to be getting my head round. Thank you for the fertility book recommendation: I’ll look it up.

**There’s a lot of space between “take what God sends–within reason” and 2-3.

Have you guys thought about the step issue yet and how to manage things? **

(Re head of household, I just meant that it seems a bit off to insist that he move for the sake of my career when his is going well in his home country, rather than that we “should” live in his country just because he’s the man. Hope that makes sense!)

Thank you to everyone for all these responses, it’s been a bit lonely without Catholic friends to discuss all of this stuff with, so I really appreciate it.

Best wishes!