Would you leav your young family and go abroad to work?

duchy

New_and_Improved_Me wrote: »

Good Points.

Having said that men think differently to women. I do have a young family and from a purely selfish point of view would love to go work in a foreign country.

As I said I say away weeks on end in the UK and to be perfectly honest - I would not see this being any different.

It would just mean I’m away 5-6 weeks and home 1 for 6-9 months.

But it is different because you can still get home at weekends -and if anything happened you could be home in a matter of hours .
I edited my post to add a bit about the children and how kids react to an absent parent and what is "a long time " to a child. I guess a lot depends on what kind of parent he is...a hands on Dad or a more detatched one. Also unlike you he has been at home full time for a few months -the kids will have become acustomed to that so from home full-time to gone for 2 months in one jump -is a huge change.

I note what you say that YOU would love to work abroad (frankly I find working abroad a bit over-rated especially in the Middle East as all you do is work and moan about the heat with the other ex-pats-it gets old very quickly which is why it pays well) but your family situation and your wife's personality may be entirely differant to your mate's-and just because your marriage might benefit from it - your mate's marriage may have other dynamics and not.

Pennywise

Depends on whether it's for the greater good of the family.

If the extra earnings meant that they'd be more financially secure in the long term, perhaps enable them to move to a more suitable home or paying off some of their mortgage, or would lead to better jobs in the future, then yes, of course they should go. The spouse left behind would be happy to put up with a few months of being on their own for the long term benefits.

If, however, it's a one-off jolly and they're going to spend all their earnings on wine, women & song, or a new motorbike/car and sod the family, then of course not!

After all, we have Eastern Europeans, Middle Easterns and Africans who've upped and moved to the UK so that they can send money back to their families to make their lives more bearable or so they can afford education for their children.

You have to look at the bigger, long term, picture. Short term pain for long term gain is sensible.

TopQuark

I'd do it. I'm fortunate enough to work overseas in a highly paid position. I've worked in various countries around the globe and so has OH. We try to stick together where we can though - he has followed me places and vice versa, although it has meant living apart for periods.

We are getting married next year and hope to start a family. I've also been invited to apply for a position on the other side of the world, which if I get, may mean one of us, possibly him, looking after a child alone for a while in a different country.

Given that your friend's opportunity overseas is only going to last a few months in any case, I'd say he should go for it if his partner agrees.